Cameron of Lochiel. Aubert de Gaspé Philippe

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      A NIGHT WITH THE SORCERERS

      Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!

      Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,

      Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell.

Hamlet.

      Ecoute comme les bois crient. Les hiboux fuient épouvantés… Entends-tu ces voix dans les hauteurs, dans le lointain, ou près de nous?.. Eh! oui! la montagne retentit, dans toute sa longueur, d'un furieux chant magique.

Faust.

      Lest bogles catch him unawares…

      Where ghaits and howlets nightly cry…

      When out the hellish legion sallied.

Burns.

      As soon as our young travelers, crossing the St. Lawrence opposite Quebec, have reached Point Lévis, José makes haste to harness a splendid Norman horse into one of those low sledges which furnish the only means of transport at this season, when the roads are only covered here and there with snow or ice, and when overflowing streams intercept the way at intervals. When they come to one of these obstacles José unharnesses the horse, all three mount, and the brook is speedily forded. It is true that Jules, who clasps José around the waist, tries every now and then to throw him off, at the risk of partaking with him the luxury of a bath at a little above zero. He might as well have tried to throw Cape Tourmente into the St. Lawrence. José, who, in spite of his comparatively small stature, is as strong as an elephant, laughs in his sleeve and pretends not to notice it. The brook forded, José goes back for the sledge, reharnesses the horse, climbs into the sledge with the baggage in front of him lest he should get it wet, and speedily overtakes his fellow-travelers, who have not halted a moment in their march.

      Thanks to Jules, the conversation never flags during the journey. Archie does nothing but laugh over the witticisms that Jules perpetrates at his expense. He has long given up attempting any retort.

      "We must hurry," exclaimed D'Haberville; "it is thirty-six miles from here to St. Thomas. My uncle De Beaumont takes supper at seven. If we get there too late, we shall probably make a poor meal. The good things will be all gobbled up. You know the proverb, tarde venientibus ossa."

      "Scotch hospitality is proverbial," exclaimed Archie. "With us the welcome is the same day or night. That is the cook's business."

      "Verily," said Jules, "I believe it as if I saw it with my own eyes; were it otherwise it would show a plentiful lack of skill or good-will on the part of your peticoated cooks. It is delightfully primitive, that Scotch cookery of yours. With a few handfuls of oatmeal sodden in cold water – since you have neither wood nor coal in your country – you can make an excellent soup at little cost and with no great expenditure of culinary science, and feast your guests as well in the night as in the daytime. It is quite true that, when some distinguished personage seeks your hospitality – which often happens, since Scotland is loaded down with enough coats-of-arms to crush a camel – it is true I say, that you set before him, in addition to your oatmeal soup, the head, feet, or nice, juicy tail of a sheep, with salt for sauce; the other parts of the animal never seem to grow in Scotland."

      Lochiel contented himself with glancing at Jules over his shoulder and repeating:

      "'Quis talia fando Myrmidonum, Dolopumve' – "

      "What's that?" exclaimed Jules, in assumed indignation; "you call me a Myrmidon, a Dolopian – me, the philosopher! And, moreover, my worthy pedant, you abuse me in Latin – you who so murder the accent with your Caledonian tongue that Virgil must squirm in his grave! You call me a Myrmidon – me, the geometrician of my class! You remember that the Professor of Mathematics predicted that I should be another Vauban – "

      "Yes, indeed," interrupted Archie, "in recognition of your famous perpendicular line, which leaned so much to the left that all the class trembled lest it should fall and crush its base; seeing which, our professor sought to console you by predicting that your services would be required in case of the reconstruction of the Tower of Pisa."

      Jules struck a tragic attitude and cried:

      "'Tu t'en souviens, Cinna! et veux m'assassiner.'

      "You are going to stab me upon the king's highway, beside this mighty St. Lawrence, untouched by all the beauty of nature which surrounds us – untouched by yon lovely cascade of Montmorency, which the habitants call 'The Cow,' a title very much the reverse of poetic, but which, nevertheless, expresses well enough the exquisite whiteness of the stream which leaps from its bosom like the rich and foaming flow from the milch-cow's udder. You are going to stab me right in sight of the Isle of Orleans, which, as we go on, conceals from our view the lovely waterfall which I have so poetically described! Heartless wretch! will nothing make you relent – not even the sight of poor José here, who is touched by all this wisdom and eloquence in one so young, as Fénelon would have said could he have written my adventures?"

      "Do you know," interrupted Archie, "you are at least as remarkable in poetry as you are in geometry?"

      "Who can doubt it?" answered Jules. "No matter, my perpendicular made you all laugh and myself most of all. You know, however, that that was only another trick of that scamp De Chavigny, who had stolen my exercise and rolled up another in place of it, which I handed in to the teacher. You all pretended not to believe me, since you were but too glad to see the trickster tricked."

      José, who ordinarily took little part in the young men's conversation, and who, moreover, had been unable to understand what they had just been talking about, now began to mutter under his breath:

      "What a queer kind of a country that, where the sheep have only heads, feet, and tails, and not even a handful of a body! But, after all, it is none of my business; the men who are the masters will fix things to suit themselves; but I can't help thinking of the poor horses!"

      José, who was a regular jockey, had a most tender consideration for these noble beasts. Then, turning to Archie, he touched his cap and said:

      "Saving your presence, sir, if the gentry themselves eat all the oats in your country, which is because they have nothing better to eat, I suppose, what do the poor horses do? They require to be well fed if they do much hard work."

      The young men burst out laughing. José, a little abashed by their ridicule, exclaimed:

      "Excuse me if I have said anything foolish. One may make mistakes without being drunk, just like Master Jules there, who was telling you that the habitants call Montmorency Falls 'The Cow' because their foam is white as milk. Now, I have a suspicion that it is because they bellow like a cow in certain winds. At least that is what the old bodies say when they get chattering."

      "Don't be angry, old boy," answered Jules, "you are probably quite right. We were laughing because you thought there were horses in Scotland. The animal is unknown in that country."

      "What! no horses, sir? What do the folks do when they want to travel?"

      "When I say no horses," answered D'Haberville, "you must not understand me too literally. They have an animal resembling our horses, but not much taller than my big dog Niger. It lives in the mountains, wild as our caribous, and not altogether unlike them. When a Highlander wants to travel, he sounds his bagpipe; all the villagers gather together and he unfolds to them his project. Then they scatter through the woods, or rather through the heather, and after a day or two of toil and tribulation they succeed, occasionally, in capturing one of these charming beasts; then, after another day or two, if the brute is not too obstinate, and if the Highlander has enough patience, he sets out on his journey, and sometimes even succeeds in coming to the end of it."

      "Well, СКАЧАТЬ