LE COUREUR DES BOIS.
"OUT of the beaver trade rose a huge evil, baneful to the growth and the morals of Canada. All that was most active and vigorous in the colony took to the woods, and escaped from the control of intendants, councils, and priests, to the savage freedom of the wilderness. Not only were the possible profits great, but in the pursuit of them there was a fascinating element of danger and adventure. The bush-rangers or coureurs des bois were to the King an object of terror. They defeated his plans for the increase of the population, and shocked his native instincts of discipline and order. Edict after edict was directed against them, and more than once the colony presented the extraordinary spectacle of the greater part of its young men turned into forest outlaws." ——Parkman's "Old Regime in Canada."
CHAPTER I.
IT was a cottage of the better class, but that is not saying that it was either elegant or very comfortable, for Canada at that time was very young and poor— in short, was still New France. The cottage was, however, a picture in its way, both without and within. Over the thick stone walls clambered a hardy vine, which was willing to be beautiful and thrive through the brief summer, and not become utterly discouraged during the six months its roots were covered with snow. It had pulled itself up to the roof, holding on to the rough stones; though that was no great feat, for the children who lived in the cottage often did the same, and had even coaxed a gaudy scarlet bean up too, and together they waved in the summer wind and basked in the summer sun. Within there was a cheery homeliness, which obscured bare walls and scanty furniture. It was so late in the afternoon, that the slanting rays of the sun fell in through the door across the newly scoured floor, drying the white planks before a speck of dust found an abiding place there, and leaving the grain of the wood sharply defined in the dampness.
There were three persons in the room—mother, daughter, and baby boy. The first was a woman of perhaps forty, whose face, though filled with lines drawn by care, hard work, and a bleak climate, still retained much of the beauty of her youth. Her dark eyes, clear and untroubled now, rested fondly upon the baby she rocked in her arms and softly sung to. He was not really a baby, or would not have been if another had come to take his place; still, as he was the youngest, he had for two years reigned over the family absolutely. Even now, as his tired mother hoped to see the long lashes sink in sleep upon his rosy cheeks, the white lids slowly lifted from the merry brown eyes, and he looked saucily at her. She stooped over him, kissed his pretty mouth, then putting him down, said to her daughter:
"He will not sleep, Marie, and I will not give any more time to the rogue. Take him with thee when thou goest for the cows, and see if thou canst weary him for once."
Marie looked at her mother with a dismayed face, and said protestingly:
"But, maman, he wearies me the most; he makes me carry him, and stoop with him that he may pick every marguerite he sees, and when I set him down he runs so close to the cows' legs."
"Well, well, Marie, do as thou wilt," answered her mother, with an easy indulgence, strange in those days when parents spoke to be obeyed. But between her and this only daughter was an affection almost like that existing between sisters. There had been five years of lonely married life before Marie was born, when the silent, hard-working husband had neither time nor thought to banish the gloom and home-sickness of his young wife, who could not forget old France and the happy home she had left there. For she was one of the many peasant girls who had come out to Canada in obedience to the order of the King, that the colonists should have French wives in their new home. And when the baby girl was born, the mother's heart beat with a happiness it had not known at sight of the two boys who had come before. From the day the little hands had first offered themselves to assist with an irksome task, the mother looked upon her daughter not only as a help, but as a friend and companion. Marie had hurried through with her childhood, instinctively recognizing the want and need of her mother's heart, and had long shared the cares of the house and the crowd of noisy boys. Happiness and contentment came more fully each year to the cottagers. They prospered, and their farm this afternoon was smiling to the river's edge with swiftly ripening grain.
