Before the door of the chapel stood a bent old figure hooded in a red shawl. Muttering, and with bowed head, it poked in the dust with a staff. When we were close at hand it straightened alertly; and old Mother Pêche’s startling eyes flashed into mine. I could have kissed the strange hawk face, so glad was I to see it. And I held out my hand, to be clutched eagerly.

“My blessings be upon thee, chéri Master Paul!” she cried.

“Thank you, mother!” said I. “Your love is very dear to me; and for your blessings, I need them all.”

“Come, monsieur,” said Waldron, at the steps.

“A word, a word,” she begged, half of him, half of me, “before thou go in there and these old eyes, perhaps, see thee never again.”

“Grant me one moment, I beg you, monsieur,” said I earnestly to Waldron. “She is a dear old friend and retainer of my family.”

183He nodded, and turned half aside in patient indifference.

“Listen,” she whispered, thrusting her face near mine, and talking rapidly, that the guard, who were but clumsy with our French speech, might not understand. “Hast thou the stone safe?”

“Surely,” said I.

“Then here, take this,” she muttered, laying a silken tress of hair in my hand. In the dusk I could not note its colour; but I needed not light to tell me whose it was. My blood ran hot and cold beneath it. The pulse throbbed furiously in my fingers as they closed upon it. “I clipped it under the new moon, the right moon, with my own hand, for thee, Master Paul.”

“Did she know it was for me?” I asked, in a sort of ecstasy.

“No, no!” answered the old dame impatiently; “but she gave it to me—laughing because I wanted it. I said that I was going far away with these my people,”—sweeping her hand toward the village,—“while she, perhaps, would stay. Strangely she regarded that perhaps, Master Paul. But here it is—and I have put a spell upon it while waiting for thee to come; and it will draw, it will draw her; she cannot let it go very far off, as long as she lives. It is for thee, chéri, I did it.”

Now, how I loved her for it, even while deriding 184the magic, I need not tell. Yet I was angry with her for explaining. That made me seem to take a base advantage in retaining the treasure. Sorrowfully I said:

“I cannot keep it, mother. That were treason to her. I will have naught of her but what her own heart gives me.”

And I held out the precious lock to her again, yet all the time grasped it tightly enough, no doubt.

“Why, chéri,” she laughed cunningly, “where is the treason? You don’t believe an old wife’s foolish charms!”

“True, mother,” I acquiesced at once, relieved beyond measure, “true, there can be no witchcraft in it but that which ever resides in every hair of that dear head. Not her, alas! but me, me it ensnares. God bless you, mother, for this wonderful gift.”

“Be of good cheer, Master Paul,” she said, hobbling briskly off. “I will bring thee some word often to the wicket.”

“I am ready now for the inside of these walls, monsieur,” said I, turning to Waldron, with a warm elation at my heart. The hair I had coiled and slipped into the little deerskin pouch wherein the eye of Manitou slumbered.

A moment more and I had stepped inside the prison. The closing and locking of the door 185seemed to me unnecessarily loud, blatantly conspicuous.

At once I heard greetings, my name spoken on all sides, heartily, respectfully, familiarly, as might be, for I had both friends and followers—many, alas!—in that dolorous company. To them, worn with the sameness of day upon monotonous day, my coming was an event. But for a little I chose to heed no one. There was time, I thought, ahead of us, more than we should know what to do with. As I could not possibly speak to all at once, I spoke to none. I leaned against a wooden pillar, looked at the windows, then the altar-place, of the sacred building which hived for me so many humming memories of childhood—memories rich with sweetness, sharp with sting. The place looked battered, begrimed, desecrated,—yet a haunting of my mother’s gentle eyes still hallowed it. To see them the better I covered my own eyes with my hand.

“It must be something of a sorer stroke than merely to be clapped in prison, to make my captain so downcast,” I heard a cheerful voice declare close at my elbow.

“Why, and that it is, you may be sure, my brave ferryman!” said I, looking up with a smile and grasping the long, gaunt fingers of yellow Ba’tiste Chouan. “I have my own reasons for not wanting to be in Grand Pré chapel this day, 186for all that it is especially the place where I can see most of my friends.”

Straightway, my mood changing, I moved swiftly hither and thither, calling them by name. There was the whole clan of the Le Marchands, black, fearless, melancholy for their flax-fields; the three Le Boutilliers; the brave young slip, Jacques............