Page:Gilbert Parker--The Lane that had No Turning.djvu/32

16 that'll choke Pontiac yet. It's as if there was an imp in him, driving him on."

"We've had enough of the devil's dust here," said Lajeunesse. "Has he been talking to you, Muroc?"

Muroc nodded. " Treason, or thereabouts. Once, with him that's dead in the graveyard yonder, it was France we were to save, and bring back the Napoleons—I have my sword yet! Now it's save Quebec. It's stand alone and have our own flag, and shout, and light, maybe, to be free of England. Independence, that's it. One by one the English have had to go from Pontiac. Now it's M'sieu' Medallion." "There's Shandon the Irishman gone too. M'sieu sold him up and shipped him off," said Gingras the shoemaker.

"Tiens! The Seigneur gave him fifty dollars when he left, to help him along—he smacks and then kisses, does M'sieu' Racine!"

"We've to pay tribute to the Seigneur every year, as they did in the days of Vaudreuil and Louis the Saint," said Duclosse. "I've got my notice—a bag of meal under the big tree at the Manor door."

"I've to bring a pullet and a bag of charcoal," said Muroc. "’Tis the rights of the Seigneur as of old."

"Tiens! It is my mind," said Benoit, "that a man that nature twists in back, or leg, or body anywhere, gets a twist in's brain too. There's Parpon the dwarf—God knows, Parpon is a nut to crack!"

"But Parpon isn't married to the greatest singer in the world, though she's only the daughter of old leather-belly there!" said Gingras.

"Something doesn't come of nothing, snub-nose!" said Lajeunesse. "Mark you, I was born a man of fame, walking bloody paths to glory, but by the grace