ADeLE DUBOIS.
The Dubois family, though widely separated by social rank and worldly possessions from the population around them, had yet, to a certain degree, mingled freely with the people. Originating in France, they possessed the peculiar national faculty of readily adapting themselves to the manners and customs of races foreign to their own.
It is impossible to forget in the early history of the North American colonies, what facility the French displayed, in contrast with the English, in attaining communication with the children of the forest, in acquiring and retaining their confidence, in taking on their rude and uncultivated modes of life, and in shaping even their superst.i.tions to their own selfish purposes.
Of all the foreigners who have attempted to demonstrate to the world, the social and political problems of America, who has investigated with such insight, and developed so truly our manners and customs and the spirit and genius of our government as Tocqueville?
Mr. Dubois, though possessing a conservative power that prevented him from descending to the low type of character and the lax principles of the country, yet never made any other than the most quiet a.s.sertion of superiority. It was impossible indeed for him to hold business connections with the rough settlers without mingling freely with them.
But he never a.s.sumed the air of a master. He frequently engaged with them in bold, adventurous exploits, the accomplishment of which did not involve an infringement of law; sometimes he put hand and shoulder to the hard labors they endured, and he was ever ready with his sympathy and aid in redressing their grievances. Though often shocked at their lawless and profane customs, he yet recognized in many of them traits of generosity and n.o.bleness.
Without a particle of aggressiveness in his disposition, he had never undertaken actively the work of reform, yet his example of uprightness and integrity had made an impression upon the community. The people treated him with unvarying respect and confidence, partly from a sense of his real superiority, and partly, perhaps, from the very lack of self-a.s.sertion on his side. Consequently without having made the least effort to do so, he exercised an autocratic power among them.
Mrs. Dubois visited the women of the place frequently, particularly when the men were absent in their lumbering, or fishing operations, conversing with them freely, bearing patiently their superst.i.tions and ignorance, aiding them liberally in temporal things, and sometimes mingling kindly words of counsel with her gifts.
Adele"s intercourse with the settlers was in an altogether different style. Her manner from earliest childhood, when she first began to run about from one cottage to another, had been free, frank, and imperious. Whether it was, that having sniffed from babyhood the fresh forest air of the new world, its breath had inspired her with a careless independence not shared by her parents, or, whether the haughty blood that had flowed far back in the veins of ancestors, after coursing quietly along the generations, had in her become stimulated into new activity, certain it is, she had always the bearing of one having authority and the art of governing seemed natural to her. It was strange, therefore, that she should have been such a universal favorite in the neighborhood. But so it was. Those who habitually set public law at defiance, came readily under the control of her youthful sway.
Possessing a full share of the irrepressible activity of childhood, she enacted the part of lady of the Manor, a.s.suming prerogatives that even her mother did not think of exercising.
When about eleven summers old, she opened one afternoon the door of an Irish cabin and received at once a cordial, noisy welcome from its inmates. She did not however, make an immediate response, for she had begun taking a minute survey of the not over-nice premises. At length she deigned to speak.
"Bridget Malone, are you not ashamed to have such a disorderly house as this? Why don"t you sweep the floor and put things in place?"
"Och! hinny, and how can I swape the floor without a brum?" said Bridget, looking up in some dismay.
"Didn"t my father order James to give you a broom whenever you want one? Here Pat", said she, to a ragged urchin about her own age, who was tumbling about over the floor with a little dirty-faced baby, "here, take this jack-knife and go down to the river by Mrs.
Campbell"s new house and cut some hemlock boughs. Be quick, and bring them back as fast as you can". Pat started at once.
Adele then deliberately took off her bonnet and shawl, rolled them up into as small a package as she could make, and placed them on the nearest approximation to a clean spot that could be found. Then she stooped down, took the baby from the floor and handed him to his mother.
Here, Bridget, take Johnny, wash his face and put him on a clean dress. I know he has another dress and it ought to be clean".
"Yes. He"s got one you gave him, Miss Ady, but it aint clane at all.
Shure it"s time to wash I"m wanting, it is".
"Now, don"t tell me, Bridget, that you have not time to wash your children"s clothes and keep them decent. You need not spend so many hours smoking your pipe over the ashes".
"You wouldn"t deprive a poor cratur of all the comfort she has in the world, would ye, hinny?"
"You ought to take comfort in keeping your house and children clean, Bridget".
In the meanwhile, Bridget had washed Johnny"s face, and there being no clean dress ready for the little fellow, Adele said, "Come, Bridget, put on a kettle of water, pick up your clothes, and do your washing".
"Shure, and I will, if ye say so, Miss Ady".
The poor shiftless thing having placed the baby on the floor again, began to stir about and make ready.
Adele sat poking and turning over the chubby little Johnny with her foot.
At last, Pat appeared with a moderate quant.i.ty of hemlock boughs, which Adele told him to throw upon the floor,--then to hand her the knife and sit down by her side and learn to make a broom. She selected, clipped, and laid together the boughs, until she had made quite a pile; sent Pat for a strong piece of twine and an old broom handle and then secured the boughs firmly upon it.
"Now Pat", she said, "here is a nice, new jack-knife. If you will promise me that you will cut boughs and make your mother two new brooms, just like this, every week, the knife shall be yours".
Pat, with eyes that stood out an unmentionable distance, and mouth stretched from ear to ear, promised, and Adele proceeded vigorously to sweep the apartment. In the course of half an hour, the room wore a wholly different aspect.
"And who tould the like of ye, how to make a brum like that, hinny?"
said Bridget, looking on in admiration of her skill.
"n.o.body told me. I saw Aunt Patty McNab do it once. You see it is easy to do. Now, Bridget, remember. Have your house clean after this, or I will not come to see you".
"Yes, shure, I"ll have them blessed brums as long"s there"s a tree grows".
And true it was, that Adele"s threat not to visit her cabin proved such a salutary terror to poor Bridget, that there was a perceptible improvement in her domestic arrangements ever after.
As Adele grew older, the ascendency she had obtained in her obscure empire daily increased. At twelve, she was sent to a convent at Halifax, where she remained three years. At the end of that period, she returned to Miramichi, and resumed at once her regal sceptre. The sway she held over the people was really one of love, grounded on a recognition of her superiority. Circulating among them freely, she became thoroughly acquainted with their habits and modes of living, and she was ever ready to aid them, under their outward wants and their deeper heart troubles. A community must have some one to look up to, whether conscious of the want or not. Hero-worship is natural to the human soul, and the miscellaneous group of women and children scattered over the settlement, found in Adele a strong, joyous, self-relying spirit, able to help them out of their difficulties, who could cheer them when down-hearted, and spur them up when getting discouraged or inefficient.
But, added to this were the charms of her youthful beauty, which even the humblest felt, without perhaps knowing it, and an air of authority that swept away all opposition, and held, at times, even Aunt Patty McNab at arms" length. Yes, it must be confessed that the young lady was in the habit of queening it over the people; but they were perfectly willing to have it so, and both loved and were proud of their little despot.
In the mean time, the Dubois family were living a life within a life, to the _locale_ of which the render must now be introduced.
It has been said that the outward aspect of their dwelling was respectable, and in that regard was not greatly at variance, except in size, with the surrounding habitations. Within, however, there were apartments furnished and adorned in such a manner as to betoken the character and tastes of the inmates.
In the second story, directly over the s.p.a.cious dining room already described, there was a long apartment with two windows reaching nearly to the floor. It was carpeted with crimson and black Brussels, contained two sofas of French workmanship, made in a heavy, though rich style, covered with cloth also of crimson and black; with chairs fashioned and carved to match the couches, and finished in the same material. A quaint-looking piano stood in one corner of the room. In the centre was a Chinese lacquered table on which stood a lamp in bronze, the bowl of which was supported by various broadly-smiling, grotesque creatures, belonging to a genus known only in the domain of fable.
On the evening following the burial of poor Pat McGrath, Mrs. Dubois sat in this apartment, engaged in embroidering a fancy piece of dress for Adele. That young lady was reclining upon a sofa, and was looking earnestly at a painting of the Madonna, a copy from some old master, hanging nearly opposite to her. It was now bathed in the yellow moonlight, which heightened the wonderfully saintly expression in the countenances of the holy mother and child.
"See! _ma bonne mere_, the blessed Marie looks down on us with a sweet smile to-night".
"She always looks kindly upon us, _chere_, when we try to do right", said Mrs. Dubois, smiling. "Doubtless you have tried to be good to-day and she approves your effort".
"Now, just tell me, _ma chere mere_, how she would regard me to-night if I had committed one wicked deed to-day".
"This same Marie looks sad and wistful sometimes, my Adele".
"True. But not particularly at _such_ times. It depends on which side the light strikes the picture, whether she looks sad or smiling. Just that, and nothing more. Now the moonlight gives her a smiling expression. And please listen, _chere mere_. I have heard that there is, somewhere, a Madonna, into whose countenance the old painter endeavored to throw an air of profoundest repose. He succeeded. I have heard that that picture has a strange power to soothe. Gazing upon it the spirit grows calm and the voice unconsciously sinks into a whisper. Our priests would tell the common people that it is a miraculous influence exerted upon them by the Virgin herself, whereas it is only the effect produced by the exquisite skill of the artist.
_Eh, bien!_ our church is full of superst.i.tions".
"We will talk no more of it, _ma fille_. You do not love the holy _Marie_ as you ought, I fear".
"Love her! indeed I do. She is the most blest and honored among women,--the mother of the Saviour. But why should we pray to her, when Jesus is the only intercessor for our sins with the Father? Why, _ma chere mere_?"
_"Helas! ma fille_. You learned to slight the intercession of the holy saints while you were at the convent. It is strange. I thought I could trust you there".
"Do not think it the fault of the sisters, _chere mere_. They did their duty. This way of thinking _came_ to me. I did not seek it, indeed".
"How did it come to you, _ma pauvre fille_?"
"I will tell you. The first time I went into the convent parlor, Sister Adrienne, thinking to amuse me, took me around the room and showed me its curiosities. But I was filled, with an infinite disgust.
I did not distinctly know then why I was so sickened, but I understand it all now".