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The Bastonnais. John Lespérance
Читать онлайн.Название The Bastonnais
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066211981
Автор произведения John Lespérance
Жанр Языкознание
Издательство Bookwire
"But why not tell me, and I will tell him?"
"Because there are several points connected with the matter with which you are not familiar, and because he might misconstrue both your motives and mine. No. It is a matter to be settled between man and man. Besides, it is late and your absence must not be prolonged. I, too, have a military report to make to the authorities without delay."
Pauline suffered herself to be convinced, and the two, after a few mutual words of love, which wonderfully recuperated them, bent their way up Mountain Hill. At the gate they separated.
"I will be with you within two hours," said Hardinge, as he took the direction of the Chateau.
Pauline stepped into the old church on her way, and in its consecrated gloom poured out a prayer at the feet of Her whom she worshipped as the Comforter of the Afflicted. Consolatrix Afflictorum.
XVI.
THE ROUND TABLE.
There was high festival at the Chateau St. Louis. Sieur Hector Théophile Cramahé, Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of Quebec, and Commander of the Forces in the capital, during the absence of Guy Carleton, Captain General and Governor Chief, was a man of convivial spirit. He had for years presided over a choice circle of friends, men of wealth and standing in the ancient city. They were known as the Barons of the Round Table. An invariable rule with them was to dine together once a week, when they would rehearse the memories of old times, and conduct revels worthy of the famous Intendant Bigot himself. They numbered twenty-four, and it so happened that in five years not one of them had missed the hebdomadal banquet—a remarkable circumstance well worthy the attention of those who study the mathematical curiosities of the chapter of accidents.
The ninth of November was dinner night. The Lieutenant-Governor had a moment's hesitation about the propriety of holding it, but all objections were at once drowned in a flood of valid reasons in favor of the repast. In the first place, His Excellency had been particularly burdened with the cares of office during the past two days. That young fellow Hardinge had kept him as busy as he could be. In the next place, though the citizens of Quebec really knew nothing of the true state of affairs, they were making all kinds of conjecture, and if the dinner did not take place, the gossips would hear of it immediately, and interpret it as the worst possible sign of impending trouble. In the third place, if the banquet were postponed for a day or two, that villain Arnold might turn up and prevent it altogether. Cramahé paced up and down in his drawing room, rubbing his hands and smiling as these fancies flitted through his brain. If he had been serious, which he was not, his doubts would all have been dissipated by the arrival of the Barons almost in a body. Up they came through the spacious entrance and illuminated hall, in claret-colored coats, lace bosom-frills and cuffs, velvet breeches, silken hose, silver-buckled shoes, and powdered wigs, holding their gold-knobbed canes aslant in their left hand, and waving salutations to their host with their feathered tricorns. A lordlier band never ascended the marble stairs of Versailles. Handsome for the most part, exquisite in manners, worldly in the elevated sense of the term, they represented a race which had transplanted the courtly refinement of the old world into the wilds of the new—a race the more interesting that it did not survive beyond the second generation after the Conquest, and is at present only seen at glimpses amid the wreck of the ancient seigniorial families about Quebec.
It was not long before the company was ushered into the banquet hall, brilliantly lighted with waxen candles. A round table stood in the centre of the floor charged with a treasure of plate and crystal. There were twenty-four seats and a guest for every seat. We need not enter into the details of the entertainment. It is enough to state that it was literally festive with its succulent viands, its inspiriting wines and its dazzling cross-fire of wit and anecdote. The present was forgotten, as it should always be at well-regulated dinners; the future was not thought of, for the diners were old men; the past was the only thing which occupied them. They talked of their early loves, they laughed at their youthful escapades, they sang snatches of old songs, while now and again the memory of a common sorrow would circulate around the table, suddenly deadening its uproar into silence, or the remembrance of a mutual joy would flash merrily before their eyes like the glinting bubbles of their wine cups.
It was five o'clock when the Barons sat down to their first course. It was nine when they reached the gloria. Just at that supreme moment, a waiter handed a paper to the Lieutenant-Governor. He opened it, and having read it, exclaimed:
"Another glass, gentlemen. The rebel Jockey will have to swim the St. Lawrence on horseback, if he wishes to pay us a visit."
The allusion was readily understood and hailed with a bumper.
The note was from Hardinge who, on arriving at the Chateau and finding the Lieutenant-Governor engaged with his guests, wrote a line to inform him that he had safely crossed all the boats. As the matter was not particularly pressing, he had requested the orderly not to have the note delivered before nine o'clock.
Scarcely had the noise of the toast subsided, when another waiter advanced with another note.
"This news will not be as good as the other," whispered one of the Barons to his neighbor, while the host was reading the despatch.
"And why, pray?"
"Because alternation is the law of life."
The old Baron was not mistaken. M. Cramahé perused the paper with a very grave face, and folding it slowly, said:
"My friends, I regret that I must leave you for to-night. But first, let us sip our cognac with the hope that nothing will prevent us from meeting again next week."
A few moments later the guests had retired.
The message which the Lieutenant-Governor had received was from the faithful Donald who informed him that the enemy had arrived within five miles of Point Levis and encamped for the night.
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