Marie Gourdon Part 3

A glad light came into the girl's pale face, but she did not speak, and Noel went on:

"It is not as if my love for you were a thing of yesterday, for I can never remember the time when you were not first in my thoughts. Yes, Marie--

'Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai.'"

"What, Noel, never? That is a long, long time. Are you sure, Noel?"

"Am I sure, Marie? Is yonder great rock, on which countless tides have beaten, sure? Is the mighty Gulf sure of its ebb and flow? Is anything sure in this world, Marie?"

The girl did not answer, and he went on:

"Tell me, Marie, do you care for me or do you not?"

Marie hesitated, and Noel impatiently gathered up some loose pebbles and threw them into the water, walking hurriedly up and down the beach.

"Marie, you must answer me to-night; I must come to a decision."

The girl rose slowly from her seat, and, coming towards Noel, put both her hands in his, and lifting up her great brown eyes, lighted with happiness and perfect trust, said deliberately,--

"'Il y a longtemps que je t'aime, Jamais je ne t'oublierai.'"

CHAPTER IV.

"Red o'er the forest peers the setting sun, The line of yellow light dies fast away."

Keble.

"Well, I'm afraid, Webster, it's a thankless task. There are plenty of Scotch names about here, but not the one we want. I'm heartily tired of going about from churchyard to churchyard, poking around like ghouls or medical students. We've been to all the graves in the neighborhood, and, interesting as such a pursuit may be to an antiquary like yourself, I find it very slow. I'm one of those sensible people who believe in living in the present, and letting the dead past bury its dead, as the poet says."

"Are you, indeed?" retorted his companion drily. "Too lazy, I suppose, to do anything else."

"Well, that may be the case; but this I know, that I'm going to cable Lady McAllister to-morrow, and tell her that I'm going back. You may stay here if you like, as you appear to find the country so charming."

"It is very kind, indeed, of you to give me your permission," replied the other. "But, my gay and festive friend, I doubt very much whether Lady McAllister will allow you to return. You know, as well as I, how decided she is. When she has once got an idea into her head, it is hard to get it out."

"But, my dear sir," said the younger man, "it is such an utterly ridiculous idea that she has got into her head now."

"Not quite so ridiculous as you think. It is a well-known fact that, about the year 1754, Ivan McAllister, with a regiment of Scottish soldiers, did embark for Canada, and landed at Quebec. It is just as well known that a Scottish regiment was disbanded near Rimouski a few years later, and we have every reason to believe, from our correspondence with the Quebec Government, that Ivan McAllister settled in this district."

"I grant you all that, but he is dead long ago."

"Yes, but in all probability he has descendants living. If not, of course the McAllister male line is extinct, and Lady McAllister's hopes will receive a terrible blow."

"Poor Lady McAllister! she seems to have taken the thing very much to heart. I hope she won't be disappointed, but I wish I hadn't come on this wild-goose chase."

"You have come," said the elder, "so you had better make the best of it."

"Well, a precious lucky fellow this McAllister will be, if he exists.

Why, Dunmorton Castle with its woods must be worth half a million sterling."

"Umph!" said the old man. "There is a condition."

"Yes, yes, but not a very dreadful one. Still, I'm not sure that I'd like to marry Lady Janet myself."

"My young friend, your speculation on the subject is idle, for you will never get the chance."

"Well, it doesn't matter," said his young friend philosophically, and with a sentimental air, "my heart is another's."

"Ah, indeed! And who may the un--" (he had nearly said unfortunate, but corrected himself in time) "fortunate damsel be?"

"Miss Sally Perkins. Yes, she is the girl of my choice. Oh! that I had never crossed the briny ocean, so far away from Clapham and my Sally. The Sunday I broke the news of my departure to her I shall never forget. It was at tea; we were eating shrimps and brown bread and b.u.t.ter. She had just poured out tea, and had eaten only two shrimps, when I told her I was going across the broad Atlantic. She could eat no more shrimps that day. She was overcome."

"Poor Miss Perkins!" said his companion. "Sure devotion could no further go. She must be very fond of you."

"She is; and I must go back to England."

"You have come, and now I advise you to wait till I return. And, let me tell you that cabling is very expensive just now. You will only waste your money for nothing, and besides will be snubbed for your pains by Lady McAllister."

The speaker who gave this sage advice was a little old man, with a wizened face like parchment. His keen blue eyes had a shrewd twinkle in them, and altogether he gave one the impression that he could see further into a stone wall than most people. He was the confidential lawyer and intimate friend of Lady McAllister, of Dunmorton Castle in Fife, and had served the family for more than forty years.

His companion was a young Londoner, somewhat of the c.o.c.kney stamp, by name Thomas Brown, a youth chiefly celebrated for his immense estimation of his own capabilities.

The two men had arrived a week before by one of the mail steamers, and had, in accordance with Lady McAllister's commands, visited nearly every churchyard in the district to discover the name of McAllister.

Hitherto this had been a thankless task. Now, dispirited and fatigued, they were leaning upon the rough wooden fence which divided the burying ground of Father Point church from the road. This church, dedicated to the Good St. Anne, had been built by the pious efforts of pilots on the s.h.i.+ps plying the River St. Lawrence and the Gulf. It was intended to be a thankful recognition to their patron saint for their deliverance from the perils of the deep.

And the church had become a noted place for pilgrimages. Indeed, it was said that miraculous cures were effected by the agency of a sacred relic of St. Anne, and many a sufferer was brought here in the hope that, by performing his devotions at the shrine of St. Anne, he would be cured of his maladies.

There was something very pathetic about the lonely little churchyard of Father Point, with its borders of overgrown raspberry bushes straggling in untidy cl.u.s.ters round the graves. At one end of the ground were five graves, marked each by plain wooden crosses, painted a dull black, with the Christian names in white of those who slept beneath. These rough crosses marked the resting-places of the good nuns, who had spent their lives working in this part of the country. All that is left to serve as remembrance of their struggles, their trials, their brief glimpses of happiness, are these wooden crosses, from which the rain of a few autumn days effaced even the names of those who labored so long and faithfully.

This evening everything is very calm and still, and the peace of nature is only disturbed by the tinkling of the bells on the necks of the cattle as they are driven home by the French Canadian cow-herds. A silence seems to have settled over the whole face of nature. Presently, however, from the open windows of the church comes a song, faint at first, but swelling louder and stronger, on the evening breeze:

"Maria, Maria, ora pro n.o.bis, Ora, ora pro n.o.bis, Sancta Maria."

It is the evening hymn of the cure and his acolytes pealing out on the still evening air. Higher and higher one treble voice goes like the cry of a soul in agonized entreaty:

"Maria, Maria, Sancta Maria, Ora, ora pro n.o.bis."

Then it dies away, and all is still except the ever-present swis.h.!.+ swis.h.!.+

of the rising tide against the great boulders on the beach.

"Oh! I say, Webster," said young Brown, in his mincing, affected tone, "why not, after they have finished in there," he pointed to the church, "go in and ask the priest whether he knows anything of these people? He ought to know them if anyone does. Good idea, eh?"

"Yes," said the old lawyer, turning round suddenly and looking rather annoyed, for in spite of his hard crust of Scotch dryness, his young clerk's voice has jarred on him at this moment. He had been deeply moved by the beauty of the scene, and the sweet tones coming from the church had stirred within him long-forgotten memories.