Part 4

On this day Jean was celebrating his twenty-third birthday, and the completion of his college course. His college had been the forest, and his book the book of Nature. He had read other books as well; all that the seminarists had studied, and many more of which they had never heard; but the knowledge that he valued most was obtained from the trees, the rocks, the soil, the river, the birds, the beasts, the fishes, the cycle of the seasons, the changes of the weather, and all the panorama and procession of Nature that mean so much to the man with the seeing eye and the understanding heart. The book was always open; and in the light of Science, with Philosophy his interpreter and Religion his inspiration, he read many difficult pages and discovered many secrets.

To Jean Baptiste the study of the world in which he lived afforded not merely satisfaction to the natural curiosity of youth, which makes knowledge desirable for itself alone; but it gave him an insight into the nature of things, and a power of control which he planned to use, some day, for a higher end. The savages, by their knowledge of the wilderness, had made their living there; the habitants, knowing more, had secured many of the comforts of civilised life; and it was reasonable to think that a fuller knowledge would yield results undreamed of by those who never went below the surface of things to the centre and source of power.

Since the time when he decided that he would not be a priest, a religious leader of the conventional type, Jean had become possessed with the thought that there was another work to which he was called, a work more material in its character, but none the less for the good of the parish, the honour of his patron saint and the glory of God. Of that he had been thinking for many years; for that he had been preparing; and now the day was at hand and the work about to begin.

Jean had many plans for the improvement of his little world, not the least of which was the using of the river itself, an enormous source of power going to waste in its mad rush through the gorge at his feet. Looking up stream he could see, not a hundred yards distant, the deep, still pool where the cataract began; and beyond, on both sides of the river, a broad expanse of low-lying ground, stretching to the first rise of hills and forming a perfect site for a dam and an immense lake which should afford water-power equal to the strength of ten thousand horses.

With such energy at his command, what could he not do? Carry on lumbering on a large scale, work the great deposits of iron sand along the river, manufacture pottery out of the banks of fine clay, run a tramway to Quebec, light and heat all the houses in the parish with electricity, supply the people with motive power for machinery of every kind--all this and more was possible. As he thought of the wonderful possibilities it seemed to Jean Baptiste that he was a prophet, the fore-runner of a mighty revolution in this remote valley, where for a hundred years the habitants had desired nothing else than to walk in peace and security in the ways of their fathers.

But it was not possible to leave them in peace. No, the new age was come. Quebec and Montreal, Lorette and Chaudiere were advancing by leaps and bounds, and the habitants of St. Placide must arise and join the procession. Consider that fine river, the St. Ange, rising in a hundred lakes on the height of land and descending in a thousand cataracts to its final plunge into the St. Lawrence. Why had the good God given this gift if not for use, that the people might be more industrious, more prosperous and more happy in their little corner of the great and beautiful world?

True, it would be necessary to have capital for the beginning of any of these enterprises, and that was the chief hindrance in the way of the realization of Jean's dreams. He had no property of his own; and his mother's farm, with houses, barns, cattle, horses and all, was worth only a few thousand dollars. There were two or three rich habitants in the parish, like M. Tache and M. Laroche, but would they be willing to risk their hard-earned wealth in the launching of schemes that must seem to them visionary and impracticable? There was great wealth among the merchants and bankers of Quebec, but how the owners of it could be induced to embark in the enterprise was a problem that Jean, with all his learning, had not been able to solve.

He had not yet worked out the financial details, but if only he could make a beginning, everything else would come in the course of time. "It is the first step that costs," says the proverb, and Jean was determined to take that step at any cost. After that he would take the second, the third and all the other steps, until he arrived at the summit of his ambition.

The summit--what was that? When one arrived at the summit of yonder mountain that seemed to touch the clouds, there was a higher peak beyond; and when one came to that elevation there was a peak still higher, until in the end one stood upon the height of land that divides the waters flowing South into the St. Lawrence from those that go North and East into the abyss of the Saguenay. Then one could rest, perhaps, unless one wished to explore and climb other peaks, beyond the Saguenay and Lake St. John, or in distant lands. But it was not necessary to go so far, for there was great satisfaction to be had in climbing for the mere love of the sport, even if one did not reach the top of everything.

At least, Jean would be a great man in the parish, greater than M. Tache, as great, almost, as the cure himself, and that was something. M. Paradis would always be the spiritual power, but Jean would be the temporal power, like the Pope and the Emperor of former times, and they would work together in perfect harmony for the good of the parish. Jean had no desire to be Pope, but Emperor he would be--Emperor of St. Placide, the Emperor Jean Baptiste.

Jean laughed at the absurdity of his day-dream--but was it so absurd after all? What is the world but a collection of empires; and what is an empire but a number of parishes? Why could not the great man of a parish be as happy as an emperor, as the lord of a world? If he had congenial work, free scope for his activities, wealth sufficient for the simple wants, a good name in the parish, and a few loving friends--what more could he desire? What more could he ask of the good God?

Yet there was one thing that he had forgotten, although he had been thinking of it all the time. When one was building castles in Spain how could one forget the chatelaine? What was the use of a castle, of riches, of a great name, with nobody to share one's happiness? It would be too lonely, too discouraging. Yes, there must be a chatelaine, a tall, lovely lady with dark-blue eyes and golden hair--no, not just golden, but of a ruddy tinge like a sunrise cloud, bronze-coloured with a glint of gold. It would be bound with a fillet of blue and would fall in wavy iridescent masses down her back. She would be clad in a long garment of purple velvet with a border of golden braid and a golden girdle about her waist.

"But yes," said Jean to himself, "there must be a chatelaine, but what is her name? _Mon Dieu_, what is her name?"

"_Mon Dieu_, what is her name? I should very much like to know," said a laughing voice behind the trees. "Will you not tell me her name, where you have met her, what she is like, and all that? I am dying to know."

Startled and speechless, Jean turned suddenly, and from behind the trees came tripping an apparition the like of which had surely never before been seen on the banks of the St. Ange. It was tall for a girl, a lithe, graceful figure clad in fishing costume, with small rubber boots, a short skirt of brown cotton, a waist and jacket of the same material, and a jaunty cap set above a mass of reddish-golden hair. There were dark-blue eyes, almost black, dancing with merriment, a laughing mouth set with pearly teeth, a dimpled chin and a dainty nose, the least bit retrousse. The vision carried a light rod in her hand and a pannier slung across her shoulder. She advanced rapidly, as though expecting a joyous greeting, but suddenly stopped, poised as though for flight, and said, with an injured air:

"So, Jean, you have forgotten me. You don't know your old friends any more. Well, I will leave you; I will go down to the river and catch another fish. Good-bye, Monsieur the Hermit, I leave you to your meditations."

"Don't go, Gabrielle!" exclaimed Jean, quite alarmed. "I know you very well, although I have seen you only once or twice in seven years. But how you have changed! You are much better looking than formerly."

"Oh, thank you, Monsieur Giroux. From you that is a compliment indeed. What an ugly little beast I must have been!"

"No, Gabrielle, not at all. On the contrary, you were always charming, but now you are enchanting, of a beauty altogether----"

"Stop, stop, Jean. That is enough. I am not used to such talk. At the convent it is not permitted, and when one sees the young men of Quebec, which is not often, they do not dare. What would the Mother Superior say, or Sister Ste. Marthe? No, you must not. You are impertinent, yes, impertinent, I say."

"No, Gabrielle, not that; only an old friend. But tell me, how many fish have you caught?"

"Three, Jean, three beauties. Look!"

As Jean bent down to look into the open basket, it was not of the trout that he was thinking, but of the lovely fisherwoman by his side, whose golden head was so close to his own, and whose rosy cheek he would so much like to kiss. Yes, he would like to take her in his arms and bestow a kiss upon those laughing lips and those dancing eyes. Truly--and the thought came to him like a flash of lightning--this was the chatelaine of his castle in Spain, the golden lady of his dreams.

"Well," said Gabrielle, with a provoking smile that made an alluring dimple in her cheek, "have you lost your tongue, or is it another meditation that you have begun, Monsieur the Hermit? But tell me what you think of my fish? I caught them myself--will you believe it?--and with this fly. See! Queen of the Waters."

"Queen of the Waters," repeated Jean. "What a lovely creature! A sort of water nymph, with golden hair, blue eyes like the sky, a brown dress and rubber boots. _Mon Dieu_! What boots for a water nymph!"

Gabrielle shut the basket with a snap.

"Stupid!" she said. "I will not talk to you. You have lost your head."

"Yes, Gabrielle, that is it. Lost, absolutely, and my heart as well."

"Your heart, Jean, that is interesting. I did not know that you had a heart. And you have lost it? What a pity! Who has found it, I wonder? Who has it? What is her name? _Mon Dieu_, what is her name?"

"Gabrielle!"

"Well, go on, confess. It will do you good. You need it."

"True," said Jean, very seriously. "That is just what I have done, and to you. Her name, it is Gabrielle. Do you, can you understand?"

Gabrielle grew pale.

"That will do, Jean. That goes too far. I will not allow jests of that sort. Good-bye. I must go home now to cook these trout for dinner."

"But it is no jest--far from it. I love you, Gabrielle, to distraction; more than I can tell. Could you not----?"

"No, Monsieur Giroux, I could not. And I beg of you never to speak to me like that again."

"But why, Gabrielle, what reason?"

"Do you wish to know, Monsieur Giroux? Do you really wish to know?"

"Yes, certainly, Mademoiselle Tache."

"Then you shall have it. Do you know what the neighbours say, what my father says, what I say? It is that you are a good-for-nothing, Jean Baptiste Giroux. Do you understand? A good-for-nothing! There, I have said it, and it is true."

"Is that all, Gabrielle?" said Jean, in a steady voice.

"All?" exclaimed Gabrielle, turning on him in a blaze of anger. "All? _Mon Dieu_! It is enough, I should think."

With that she went away up the path, carrying her head very high, never once looking back to see the effect of this last crushing blow.

But, strange to say, Jean did not seem to be crushed.

"Well, that was brave of me," he said to himself. "I did not think I could do it. I am rejected, of course, and in despair. 'Good-for-nothing!' That is bad, but it is a defect that may be corrected. If that were all! Ah, if that were all! But what a vision of loveliness! What spirit! What courage! Gabrielle! Name of an Angel! Now at last I know her name. It is she, no other."

*CHAPTER VI*

*THE HABITANT*

After what had happened Jean could not ask Monsieur Tache for help in his great enterprise. He therefore applied to Monsieur Laroche, the only other rich man in the parish, and was received with scorn.

"So," said Bonhomme Laroche, "you wish to build a dam across the St. Ange, to inundate the best land on your mother's farm, to make a pond for ducks. A great work, truly! And I am to lend you a small sum of money--ten thousand dollars, only. Why not ask for a hundred thousand? That would be nothing at all for me--a mere bagatelle. We are rich, we habitants of St. Placide, men of high finance, millionaires, and we love to encourage hare-brained enthusiasts by small loans. And on what security? A dam of logs that the first spring flood will take away. You are a fool, a dam fool. Ha! Ha! Yes, a dam fool. My little joke, you see.

"But, Jean, do not go, do not be angry at my little pleasantry. I have yet a piece of advice which I will give you for nothing, although it will be worth much to you if you have the sense to take it. Listen! You have a good farm; that is to say, your mother has it, which is the same thing, since all your brothers and sisters, the whole tribe, have gone away. Go home, Jean, to the farm; raise hay, potatoes, cattle, pigs, chickens--all that. Be an honest cultivator, like your fathers for many generations. It was good enough for them; it will be good enough for you. You will wish to make some improvements, no doubt--a new barn, a stable, a house, possibly. Good! I might be able to lend you a small sum, a thousand dollars, perhaps, or even two thousand, if necessary. The rate of interest? What is that between friends? We will arrange all that.

"Now, Jean," and here the old man assumed a confidential air, "to be a good habitant one must have a good wife. Do not blush, my lad, it is only a matter of business. Without that no habitant can succeed. One's marriage should help one along, should it not? Assuredly. That goes without saying. Well, there is my daughter Blanchette, for example. I do not say that she is very young, nor more beautiful than others, but how capable, how accomplished! And she will have a dowry, of course, something generous, you may be sure. All the other children are well provided for, and I am not yet a pauper, no indeed. There. I have said it. Consider it well, at your leisure. There is no haste to decide. I will see your mother and all can be arranged without embarrassment. _Au revoir_, Jean. Come to see us when you can."

Jean did not like the advice of Bonhomme Laroche, but part of it, at least, he was obliged to take, for there was no alternative, and at sunrise on the following day he was in the fields with the hired man, dexterously swinging a long scythe and laying low great swathes of timothy and red clover. He was in perfect physical condition, with every nerve and muscle surging with energy, so that the work did not tire him, but only served to release the pent-up emotion of his soul. For the soul of Jean Baptiste was full of wrath, and as he gripped the handles of the scythe and swung the keen blade through the grass with a venomous hiss, he seemed to be cutting down an army of enemies and mercilessly trampling them underfoot.

The neighbours, those ignorant, spiteful people with their vicious gossip--how he despised them all! They hated to see a person rise above them in the slightest degree, and were always reaching out envious hands to pull him down. They wanted to make a habitant of him? Well, a habitant he would be, and beat them at their own game. Of what good was all his education if he could not use it in the growing of potatoes and the raising of pigs? Yes, pigs. The neighbours were well satisfied with a yearling hog that weighed a hundred and fifty pounds, when it might as well be two hundred pounds or three hundred even. It was a question of breed and care, as it was with cattle, horses, sheep, fowl, and every other animal on the farm. As to chickens, for example, they laid eggs in plenty all summer, at fifteen cents a dozen, but laid none at all in winter when the price rose to sixty cents and more. Why such stupidity? A question of management, merely, of knowledge and attention to business. In fact, the more Jean thought of habitant life the greater seemed the possibilities of improvement in every direction. Besides, it was a life not to be despised, that of a successful cultivator, the happiest, most independent man on earth.

Certainly the advice of Bonhomme Laroche was not to be despised. But borrow money from the old miser he would not, nor marry his daughter Blanchette if she were as beautiful as an angel from Heaven. The dowry? Did the old miser think that he could buy the hearts, the souls of men? Who would barter love for gold? Who would give that which was beyond all price for all the land, the barns, the cattle of the parish--of the world? Yet there were those who would gladly make such an exchange, the poor, deluded fools.

As to Gabrielle, that was different. There was a girl of a beauty most rare, with her tall, lithe figure, her springing step, her dainty little head with its wealth of golden hair, those laughing eyes like the depths of the sky, that tantalizing, alluring smile. It was as though an angel had descended to earth to show to mortal man the perfection of beauty of the heavenly world. But what pride, what scorn, what contempt! And how unfair, how cruel! Not a thought of justice, not a word of excuse, no chance to explain. Mademoiselle Tache was too far above Jean Baptiste Giroux. In what way? In intellect? By no means. In education? Not at all. In manners? Far from it. In wealth? Ah, that was it, the pride of purse, the base contempt for all merit that had not the stamp of gold. "Good-for-nothing! _Sacree petite vierge!_"

But wait--a year, two years, three at most--and he would show the little vixen whom it was that she had attacked with an insult so contemptible, so injurious. Then, when she would be only too glad to receive the attentions of the chief man in the parish, he would turn away and devote himself to another. But what other? Blanchette Laroche? Not for a thousand dowries. Who then? Well, there would be time enough to arrange that little detail. There were still good fish in the sea, though scarce and very wary. But in any case it would be necessary to humble the pride of that scornful beauty. "Good-for-nothing! _Sacres milles tonnerres!_"

Jean was certainly in an unhappy state of mind. Of all the neighbours he could not think of one who was his friend. Not Mere Tabeau, certainly; that old witch with the bleared eyes and the yellow teeth. She liked to talk with him now and then, but only to spit out venom. Not Michel Gamache, who was not to be trusted, a sorcerer, and no friend of man. Not Father Paradis, even; that good old priest who had been for so many years his teacher, his Mentor. Not even he, for he was disappointed in Jean because he had not taken up some useful work. Even his mother had lost faith in him. Had he not seen her looking at him with wistful, sorrowful eyes, because he was not fulfilling the promise of his early years? She also was against him, and he would have to fight the battle alone. Give it up? No, with the help of God and Saint Jean he would do battle to the very end, and would show them all what it was to fight and to win.

Thus Jean, as he toiled in the field, under the hot sun, poured forth all the bitterness of his soul, until the bitterness was gone, the wrath evaporated, and the strong man began to rejoice once more in the work of his hands. At high noon he sat down in the shade of a moss-covered rock, beside a bubbling spring, and ate the dinner that his mother had provided with gladness of heart. Never had bread and butter tasted so sweet, with fresh eggs, tasty sausage, and the jam of wild strawberries that the good mother had made with her own hands. It was an excellent meal, nourishing to body and soul; and when, after an hour's rest in the cool shade, Jean resumed his work, refreshed and strengthened, the troubles that had come into his life took their proper place in the order and scheme of things, not as incurable evils but as obstacles to be overcome by unswerving determination and persistent effort.

So Jean wrought hard all through the long day, doing the work of two men; and when, after sunset, he hung his scythe in the crook of a tree and began to climb the long hill toward home, he had put his troubles behind his back, and set his face toward the future with strong courage and a spirit of charity toward all mankind.

The life of a habitant, he thought, was not all hardship. There was work, to be sure, plenty of it; but what was that to a strong man? There was little money to be had, but one had all the necessaries of life and some of the luxuries as well. At night, how one could sleep, and in the morning how one arose with a rested body and a cheerful heart!

The neighbours? They were true friends, after all, kind-hearted, well-meaning, with all their little gossip, and their advice was good, excellent. One must have a footing in the world, else how could one accomplish anything? One must take the first step before one takes the second. One must humble oneself in the day of small things, and bide one's time, if one was to be ready when the great opportunity came which only a man of experience could seize and control. Sooner or later he would win, for the dice were loaded in his favour; but win or lose it was a great thing to live and to bear a part in the interesting and wonderful world, where every morning was a new day and every evening a new surprise.

*CHAPTER VII*

*HER MAJESTY'S MAIL*

"Ah, there you are at last," said Madame Giroux, who was lighting the lamp for the evening meal as Jean entered. "You have worked hard to-day, my son. At this rate the hay will soon be cut, will it not? But sit down and take your soup, while I tell you something.

"You knew, of course, that Tom Sullivan was likely to lose the mail contract. Well, he has lost it, or will lose it very soon, as you will see from this paper which Monsieur Laroche has given me. It is whisky again, it seems. As Monsieur Laroche says, the good Canadians can drink in moderation, but the Irish do not know when to stop. For me, I would have them all stop before they begin. What a waste of good money! And to lose the mail contract as well--what folly! But listen:

"'MAIL CONTRACT.

"'Sealed applications addressed to the Minister of Posts will be received at Ottawa up to noon of Wednesday, the first of July, 1899, for carrying Her Majesty's Mails under the conditions of a contract covering a term of four years, twice a week, going and returning, between Quebec and St. Placide, to commence on the fifteenth of July following.'

"There, Jean, what do you think of that?"

"It is an opportunity," said Jean, "and I will make application at once; but I wish that it had not been suggested by Bonhomme Laroche."

"Why not, Jean? He is a rich man, and has influence with the Government. He will help you, I am sure, if you ask him to do so."