Totnes

“ Merchants’ palaces of the time when Totnes was completely environed by its walls, and “its inhabitants, even in times of trouble, could sleep at ease because of its strong defences.” It is from the old Norman keep, built, so ’tis said, by Judhael de Totenais, that one obtains what local folk proudly assert is the finest view in Devon. From it (let the claim pass unchallenged) one does see a prospect of delight, widely stretching and cultivated fields and uplands, with distant plum-hued Dartmoor on the far horizon to the northward. ”

“ But, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth himself, Totnes town could not have been intended by him as the scene of the landing of Brutus. It was when Brutus was “holding a solemn festival to the gods, in the port where they had at first landed,” that he and his followers were attacked by Goemagot and his party. There it was that Goemagot and Corinæus had that famous wrestling bout, which ended in Corinæus running with his gigantic foe to the next shore, and throwing him off a rock into the sea. There is no sea at Totnes, no tall craggy cliff ”

“ There is hardly a district or family in Devon but has some tradition of that period. Nervous people were afraid to take off their clothes at night. Old gentlemen provided themselves with hollow walking-sticks filled with guineas to carry with them in their flight. At Totnes my great-grandfather’s family permanently engaged a post-chaise in which the women and children might escape to Bristol ”

“ All these figures, and the spectacles swarming around the beaver fair, like combinations in a kaleidoscope to be seen once and seen no more, gave Tonty such condensed knowledge of the New World as no ordinary days could offer.
La Salle alone, though fresh from audiences at court and distinguished by royal favor, stood abashed and annoyed by the part he must play toward civilized people.
“Look at the Sieur de la Salle,” observed Du Lhut to Tonty. “There is a man who stands and fights off the approach of every other creature.”
“There never was a man better formed for friendship,” retorted Tonty. ”

“ This is better for you than the marriage you would have made. What business have you to ally yourself with Le Ber? What business have you with marriage at all? For my part, I would object to any marriage you had in view, but Le Ber’s daughter was the worst marriage for you in New France.”
“Tonty!” gasped La Salle. With the swiftness of an Indian, Tonty was flying across the clearing. The explorer’s unwary messenger Jolycœur he had left behind him bound with hide thongs and lying in Father Hennepin’s inner room. ”

“ At the same time, local tradition is positive that Tonty came back, poor, to the Rock to die, in 1718.
Death had stripped him of every tie. He had helped to build that city near the Mississippi’s mouth which was La Salle’s object, and had also helped found Mobile. The great west owes more to him than to any other man who labored to open it to the world. Yet historians say the date of his death is unknown, and tradition around the Rock says he crept up the stony path an old and broken man, helped by his Indian and a priest, died gazing from its summit, and was buried at its west side. ”

“ To me the finest fact in the Norman explorer’s career is the devotion he commanded in Henri de Tonty. No stupid dreamer, no ruffian at heart, no betrayer of friendship, no mere blundering woodsman—as La Salle has been outlined by his enemies—could have bound to himself a man like Tonty. The love of this friend and the words this friend has left on record thus honor La Salle. And we who like courage and steadfastness and gentle courtesy in men owe much honor which has never been paid to Henri de Tonty. ”

“ Tonty paid small heed to their silence; for in his mind was the one great thought that La Salle was alive and might reach the fort at any time. Four years before, his beloved leader had gone from the fort on the Illinois to Canada and across to France; and three years before, he had sailed from France for the mouth of the Mississippi. In all that time, alternating between hope and the gloomy despair which lately had so often fallen upon his soul, Tonty had waited hoping each day for news from his lost chief. ”

“ With cannon booming overhead, Tonty passed its base followed by the people who were to ascend with him, and landed west of it, on a sandy strip where the voyager could lay his hand on that rugged fern-tufted foundation. Barbe and the Demoiselle Bellefontaine followed him along a path cut through thickets, around moss-softened irregular heights of sandstone, girdled in below and bulging out above, so that no man could obtain foothold to scale them. ”

“ His fearless, kindly eyes received impressions from every aspect of the New World. There dwelt in Henri de Tonty the power to make men love him at sight,—savages as well as Europeans. He wore the dress of a French lieutenant of infantry, and looked less than thirty years old, having entered the service of France in his early youth.
The other man, Robert Cavelier,—called La Salle from an estate he had once owned in France,—explorer, and seignior of Fort Frontenac and adjacent grants on the north shore of Lake Ontario, was at that time in the prime of his power. ”

“ Every man for his own purse among them. But thou seest it, Tonty. I see it. And we are no knights on a crusade. Nor are we unpractised courtiers shredding our finery away on the briers of the wilderness. This western enterprise is based on geographical facts. No mind can follow all the development of that rich land. It is an empire,” declared La Salle, striding between hearth and chancel-rail, unconscious that he lifted his voice to the rafters of a sanctuary, “which Louis might drop France itself to grasp!” ”

“ Barbe’s high childish voice distinctly and sincerely stated, “No, monsieur; I have fought all the girls at the convent on your account. Jeanne le Ber said nothing against you; but she is a Le Ber. I am glad you came back in such grandeur. I was determined to be in the grandeur myself. But it is not a time to give you my cheek for a kiss.”
La Salle smiled over her head at Tonty. The Italian noted her marked resemblance to the explorer. She had the same features in delicate tints, the darkness of her eyelashes and curls only emphasizing the type. ”

“ But men may tread over him now, for he lies lost in the earth as La Salle was lost in the wilderness of the south.
No justice ever was done to this man who gave to his friends with both hand of flesh and hand of iron, caring nothing for recompense; and whom historians, priests, tradition, savages, and his own deeds unite in praising. But as long as the friendship of man for man is beautiful, as long as the multitude with one impulse lift above themselves those men who best express the race, Henri de Tonty’s memory must stand like the Rock of St. Louis. ”

“ Mademoiselle,” said Tonty, trembling, “I will kill any other man who dares approach you. Yet, mademoiselle, I could not annoy you by the least grief! Oh, teach a frontiersman what to say to please a woman!”
“Monsieur de Tonty,” panted Barbe. “You please me too well, indeed! It was necessary to come to an understanding. You should not make me say,—for I am ashamed to tell,—how long I have adored you!”
As Tonty’s quick Italian blood mounted from extreme anguish to extreme rapture, he laughed with a sob.
Fifty needlewomen on the Rock made in a day a gown of the web of brocaded silk. ”

“ If a man must keep patting the populace, he can do little else. But I am glad you overtook me here. My Tonty, if I had a hundred men like you I could spread out the unknown wilderness and possess it as that child possesses that hide of buffalo.”
Though their undertakings were united, and the Italian had staked his fortune in the Norman’s ventures, La Salle always assumed, and Tonty from the first granted him, entire mastery of the West. Both looked with occupied eyes at Barbe, who felt her life enlarged by witnessing this conference. ”

“ Mademoiselle Cavelier’s wardrobe was by no means equal to that gorgeous period in which she lived, being planned by her uncle the Abbé and executed by the frugal and exact hands of a self-denying sisterhood. But who can hide a girl’s supple slimness in a gown plain as a nun’s, or take the blossom-burnish off her face with colonial caps? Dark curls showed around her temples. Barbe’s aquiline face had received scarcely a mark since Tonty saw it at Fort Frontenac. ”

“ The moccasins of a frontiersman could make no sound above flap of wind and pat of water. Tonty paced from window to chapel front, believing that he kept out of Barbe’s sight. But after an interval he was amused to see, rising over the sill within, a topknot of curls, and eyes filled with the alert, shy spirit of the deer whose flesh she had just eaten. ”

“ Yes, monsieur, that is the strangest thing,—I have cried of homesickness for Fort St. Louis of the Illinois!”
“Mademoiselle,” said Tonty, his voice vibrating, “there is a stranger thing. It is this,—that a man with a wretched hand of iron should suddenly find within himself a heart of fire!”
When this confession had burst from him he turned his back without apology, and Barbe’s forehead sunk upon the window-sill. ”

“ Father Hennepin and Du Lhut caught Tonty’s arms. Du Lhut then dragged him with expostulations inside the palisade gate, repeating Frontenac’s strict orders that all quarrels should be suppressed during the beaver fair, and as the young man’s furious looks still sought the merchant, reminding him of the harm he might do La Salle by an open quarrel with Montreal traders.
“I, who am not bound to La Salle as close as thou art,—I tell you it will not do,” declared Du Lhut.
“Let the man keep his distance, then!”
“Why, you hot-blooded fellow! why do you take these Frenchmen so seriously?” ”

“ He became mottled with those red and white spots which are the blood’s protest against the will.
“The Récollet Father did not answer a word to Monsieur de Tonty’s questions, Colin; and the voice of my uncle the Abbé sounded unnatural. Is there wicked power in those countries you have visited to make you all come back like men half asleep from some drug?”
“Yes, there is!” exclaimed the boy; “I hate that wilderness. When we are once in France I will never venture into such wilds again. They dull me until my tongue seems dead.”
“And, Colin, you did leave my uncle La Salle quite well?” ”

“ Dependent and unarmed colonists were placed in the centre of the camp. Tonty himself, with his usual care on this journey, had helped to pitch a tent of blankets and freshly cut poles for Mademoiselle Barbe Cavelier and the officer’s wife, who clung to her in the character of guardian. The other immigrants understood and took pleasure in this small temporary home, built nightly for a girl whose proud silence among them they forgave as the caprice of beauty. ”

“ Toney headed the procession out of the drawing-room, Edward Lang, hurrying to open the door for her, and hiding, as best he could, his amused smile as Toney nodded at him, saying, "I'll come back soon."
Lady Dove gave a sigh of relief. She was so much annoyed that she forgot her rôle of kind aunt.
"Antonia is incorrigible. You see how she collects strange people round her. I tried hard to show her what an English lady should be like, but it was trouble wasted."
"She will soon outgrow all that," said Lady Southbourne kindly; "in these days young people are so original, but it does not last!" ”

“ She looked at her uncle, answering his smile of amusement. But curving her neck from side to side, she still examined the Italian soldier.
“I can outrun most people,” suggested Barbe; “but Monsieur de Tonty looks very tall and strong.”
“Your intention is to take to the woods as soon as marriage sets you free?”
“My uncle La Salle, I do have such a desire to be free in the woods!”
“Have you, my child? If the wilderness thus draws you, you will sometime embrace it. Cavelier blood is wild juice.” ”

“ He should have as many bullets as his body could hold.”
“Tonty, untie the fellow and turn him out and discharge his wages for me with some of the skins you have put under me.” La Salle rose on his elbow and then sat up. His face was very haggard, but the practical clear eye dominated it. “These fellows cannot balk me. I have lost all that makes life, except my friend. But I shall come back and take the great west yet! A man with a purpose cannot be killed, Tonty. He goes on. He must go on.”
Book III.
FORT ST. LOUIS OF THE ILLINOIS.
1687 A. D. ”

“ They did land, unmolested of our people, who supposed Tonty had come back; fair-faced men with yellow hair and beards and dressed in shining metal from head to heel. I was at the shore with the others when they came, and heard them speak in this tongue, and call themselves Français. Others of that race followed, and we welcomed and fed them all, even as our fathers had done to Tonty. Some were warriors with swords, and fire-sticks, but with these were also some strange, black-robed men, who sought to tell us of another God, greater than the Sun our fathers worshipped. ”

“ A row of booths for merchants had been built all along the outside of Montreal’s palisades, and traders were thus early setting their goods in array.
At the north extremity of the town that huge stone windmill built by the seigniors for defence, cast a long dewy shadow toward the west. Its loopholes showed like dark specks on the body of masonry.
Sun-sparkles on the river were no more buoyant and changeable than the child at Tonty’s side. Dimples came and went in her cheeks. Her blood was stirred by the swarming life around her. ”