The chamber or cell occupied by the monk was
situated in a remote part of the convent. A single
window, guarded by a lattice of ironwork, closed
by a padlock, admitted sufficient light into it, while,
at the same time, it afforded the security of a prison.
Extending from the ceiling to the floor, it gave
egress, when thrown open, to a close gallery or
cloister running along the rear of the edifice. This
gallery was enclosed on all sides by Venetian
blinds, and in summer afforded a cool and agreeable
promenade, with a distant prospect of the river

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

winding through a gorge in the hills. It was now
appropriated as a greenhouse, the proper temperature
being preserved by tubes filled with hot air,
and crowded with a great variety of native plants
and exotics, some of which were young trees in
size.

The numerous vases were so arranged as to leave
a serpentine walk winding through them from one
extremity of the cloister to the other, and so shaded
by the foliage of the plants bordering it that one
might walk there wholly screened from observation,
save when passing by the windows looking
into the cells.

The evening of the day on which the events
recorded in the foregoing chapter had transpired
at length arrived. A roseate hue yet lingering behind
the sun suffused the sky, and, reflected from
the snow through the interstices of the blinds,
spread a golden light over the foliage of the plants.
The monk, wearied with following the obscure arguments
of the old fathers in their polemical controversies,
had long since thrown aside his book,
and, with his arms folded thoughtfully behind him,
had been for the last half hour walking his chamber,
revolving in his mind the morning's interview
with Eugenie in the chapel, and contemplating its
results. The final sum of his reflections was a determination
to aid her escape from the religious
imprisonment to which she was subjected, and conduct
her to the mansion of her friend, Madame
Montmorin, then leave the farther progress of his
love, as he already designated his brief and romantic
interest in her fate, to fortune.

“At all events,” he said, aloud, “she shall not
become the victim of this villanous St. Clair.
Conscious that my motives in relation to this lovely
creature are pure, I will devote myself to her

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

cause; and,” he added, solemnly laying his hand
upon his heart, “may the God of unprotected innocence
judge me as I am true or false! If she
will escape with me, I will safely conduct her to
the abode of her maternal friend, and, leaving her
there secure from further oppression, bid her farewell,
perhaps for ever! and, forgetting her, pursue
the destiny that is before me. Palsied be the heart
of that man,” he said, with a heightened glow, after
pacing the room for several minutes in silence,
as if replying to or combating some unworthy
mental suggestion, “who could take advantage
of her artless confidence and unprotected state.
Were she other than she is, a proud, rich, vain coquette,
placing her honour in the keeping of the
first bold cavalier, playing, like Folly herself, around
the net which at length ensnares her; a mere human
butterfly of silk and ribands, it would be an intrigue
to be less scrupulously balanced. Heighho!
'tis a great temptation,” he said, in a tone half gay,
half serious, “for one to whom laurels won in
love are fairer than the bays plucked in war. Alas,
that empty honour should stand in my way, and
thus baffle me! Unlike Falstaff, here Cupid bids
me on, and honour bids me off. This bewitching
novice, whose sweet form has already been entwined
in my arms, is mine,” he said, emphatically
and with a sparkling eye; “yes,” he added, in a
deep and severe tone, “mine, if I dare be a villain!”
In a few moments afterward he continued, in a
different tone, “Her extreme loveliness and naive
manner have so effectually captivated me, at all
times sufficiently susceptible to the dark eye of
woman, that, if I do not call in honour, her orphan
state, and her unsuspecting confidence, and weigh
them nicely against that propensity for intrigue
that is in me, she would better trust her vestal

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

purity with a Rochester than with me. Well, women
are, at last, but charming toys to amuse our
leisure hours withal. If I, who have borne off the
prize in so many successful amours, and from beings
lovely as the houri of Mohammed's paradise,
convey this sweet novice to her friends with the
self-denial I propose to myself, I shall have won
a greater victory even than all these, a victory
over myself. But before I can win I must dispose
my forces. How the fair novice will manage to
elude her keepers passes my comprehension. But
the sex have an instinctive tact in these matters, and
we thicker-witted men may safely leave all to them
where any plot or mischief is going forward.
There rings the vesper-bell! But I must not
alarm Father Bonaventure by making my appearance
in the oratory with his flock. Ha! I am not
alone!”

The window of his apartment was at that moment
darkened by a passing shadow, and a flower of
the iris, attached to a sprig of myrtle, fell at his feet.
Lifting it from the ground, he gracefully pressed it
to his lips, saying, in a tone of gallantry,

“Fair flower de luce, emblem and pledge of
promise! I accept the pledge! Yes, lovely novice,”
he added, in tones sufficiently audible to be
heard by one standing without the open window,
“my right hand shall forget its cunning ere I forget
the promise I have sacredly pledged to you.”

Then lifting his eyes, expressive of a secret intelligence,
to the window, he added, placing the
flower upon his heart,


“`Goddess of the painted bow,
To thee I still prove true;
With all thy tints and purple glow,
I boast thy name and beauty too.”'

Then looking towards the window, which was

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

nearly covered by a myrtle, he saw “through its
luxuriant blind” the outline of a female form whose
exquisite proportions could not be mistaken. But
with that caution which the incident of the flower
had inspired, he remained on the spot where its
fall had arrested him, saying, as he placed the sprig
of myrtle in his breast,

“Propitious fates, accept a lover's thanks! Lo,

“`Sacred to Venus is the myrtle shade.'

“What stronger testimonial of requited love need
wooer ask? I will wear this treasure next to my
heart, for


“`Myrtle on the breast or brow
Would lively hope and love avow.'

“In her own delicate and mystic language I will
assure her of my devotion,” he continued, plucking
a flower which grew in a vase within the recess
of the window. “Here is the snowdrop, the emblem
of friendship in adversity. It is a beautiful
and appropriate reply.”

He cast it through the window, and beheld it
drop at the feet of the mysterious visitant. A fair
hand hastily caught it up, and the next instant an
anemone fell upon the floor of the cell. He eagerly
seized it, and found a slip of paper wound
around the stem. Unrolling it, he read with a
beating heart,

“Take no rash step. Throwing myself wholly
on your honour and generosity, I consent to leave
this hateful convent under your protection. I will
meet you by the myrtle when the moon rises. Till
then, adieu.” In a single line below, in the form
of a postscript, was added,

“You will find the key of your window behind
the wooden crucifix in the refectory.”

The note bore no signature; but, aside from his

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

knowledge of its source, he was assured the elegant
Italian characters he so ardently perused could
have had no other author than the romantic novice.

“I must try and draw her to the window,” he
said, in the animation of the moment, thoughtlessly,
“that I may banquet on her lovely face, softened
by this rosy twilight.”

He approached the grating and whispered her
name. The rustling of the foliage and the light
sound of a retreating footstep convinced him that
his mystic correspondent had fled, choosing in this
manner to intimate the danger of prolonging their
stolen interview, and, at the same time, reprove
his imprudence, where she herself had practised
so much caution.

“The lovely novice has shown more discretion
than I,” he said, retiring from the window and resuming
his seat at the table, where, instead of the
volume which lay open before him, he began to
study the graceful turns of the beautifully-formed
characters of the billet, as if each letter had been a
flower, conveying in itself a mystic language.

The silence of midnight at length reigned within
the convent-walls, and every eye save those of
the monk and the novice Eugenie was sealed in
sleep. The former had just dismissed Zacharie,
who had entered his cell to bring the key of the
window, for which the young officer had sent him,
and which he found behind the crucifix, where the
novice had probably placed it. Zacharie also informed
him that the moon was about rising, and that
the carriole and Indian guide was in readiness at
the gate, the keys of which Father Bonaventure
had consigned to him on retiring, not wishing to be
disturbed by their departure.

“He ordered me,” continued Zacharie, “to give
him back the keys in the morning; and he bademe

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

say that he left his blessing for thee, and to tell
thee that thou hadst best settle thyself down in
life in thy youth, for a rolling stone gathers no
moss.”

Zacharie's footsteps had not yet died away along
the gallery after he left the cell, when the monk
applied the key to the padlock, and at once removed
the barricade from the window. As he
stepped upon the gallery, the rays of the rising
moon were visible through the blinds of the greenhouse,
brightly silvering the tops of the forest trees
on the opposite cliffs. With a throbbing heart,
and with his spirits elevated by the romance of his
situation, he moved a few steps noiselessly along
the cloister, and then awaited in breathless silence
the approach of the trusting and artless novice.

In a few moments a light footstep approached
from the opposite extremity of the cloister, and
the impatient youth advanced to embrace the expected
partner of his journey. But he started
back with his hand upon his sword-hilt, and a
slight exclamation of surprise and disappointment,
when he encountered the figure of a monk, visible
by the rays of the lamp which streamed through
his window. His first thought was, that Father
Bonaventure, discovering the proposed elopement,
had substituted his own person for that of the novice;
but a second reflection, and a closer scrutiny
of the height and dimensions of the person before
him, convinced him that, multiplied five times, it
could not become Father Bonaventure. His heart,
moreover, aided by that instinct which enables
lovers to ascertain, in a wonderful manner, the presence
of a beloved object, however invisible its
form and impenetrable its disguise to other optics,
assured him that the lovely person of the novice,
and not Father Bonaventure, was concealed

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

beneath that uncouth disguise, and the next moment
his arms encircled her, while his bold lips impassionedly
sought her own. But the maiden shrunk
from his embrace, hid her face in confusion in the
hood of her robe, and seemed about to fly from
him.

The young soldier, at once alive to his own imprudence,
and instantly appreciating her delicacy,
seized her hand, and, throwing himself on one knee
before her, apologized for his warmth (in so modest
a manner, and in a voice touched with such
sincere regret, that he would have disarmed resentment,
even on similar offence, in the bosom of
nun Ursule), and expressed his sorrow that he
should have been the cause of wounding her feelings
by his rash thoughtlessness.

“Forgive me, sweet Eugenie,” he said, in tones
of deep humility; “it was but a momentary forgetfulness
of the sacred relation in which I stand towards
you as your protector, and also of your unprotected
state. Say that you forgive me, Eugenie,”
he continued, his voice subdued to a melancholy
cadence, and rising scarcely above a musical
whisper, to which, pleased yet trembling, she
listened with downcast eyes and heaving bosom,
“breathe the word forgive, and I will offend no
more.”

“On that condition, then, you are forgiven,” she
said, in tones so low that none but a suppliant lover's
ears could have caught them.

“Thank you, bless you! dearest Eugenie,” he
warmly exclaimed; “from this moment I will be to
you only as a brother.”

“Then, dearest brother,” she said, in a lively
tone, her confidence of manner at once restored by
his seeming sincerity and deep respect, “beware,”
and her fore finger was raised threateningly, while

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

an arch smile dwelt on her lip, “beware lest you consider
as one of your fraternal privileges the liberty
you were now about to take so very cavalierly. I
am now on my guard, and not to be taken at vantage,
like a certain simple maiden in a certain
chapel I wot of. So be a good discreet brother,
and I will make up my mind to trust you. If you
had not repented, let me tell you, as you did, never
frightened doe fled faster from the hunter to covert
than I should have flown back to my little cell.”

“'Twas, indeed, an escape, fair Eugenie,” he
said, as they entered his room.

“What! so soon forgotten your fraternal attitude?”
she said, glancing at him reprovingly with
her dark eyes, whose fire would have kindled a
flame in the breast of an anchorite.

“Nay, if you are so severe, and will not let me
call you neither fair Eugenie nor dear Eugenie, I
must be silent, for my lips will shape no other
mode of speech; unless,” he added, in a tone of
real or affected pique, “I had best call you brother,
as your garb would sanction. If such be your
pleasure, never two speechless clowns jogged together
to market more discreetly than will you and
I ride side by side to Quebec. I'faith, scandal
shall have no food for her tongue if I can help it.”

“Now you are hurt, brother of mine,” she said,
laughing. “But, if you will promise to be goodhumoured
on the way, there's no telling what may
turn up in your favour. It's hard for our sex to
remain long in one mind. So comfort yourself, my
gentle brother, on our well-known fickleness. Now
let us leave this hateful prison. I long to breathe
the free air of heaven, if it be at midnight.”

“No, Eugenie, I will not avail myself of your
sex's fickleness, but rather leave my better fortune
to your own generous heart.”

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

“'Tis a pretty speech and prettily spoken, brother;
but let us not delay,” she said, smiling and advancing
to the door of the cell.

“Nay, Eugenie, give me one look from those
charming eyes, but one smile from those sweet
lips to assure me that there is peace between us,
and,” he added, imboldened by the smile on her
beautiful mouth as his eye sought and met her
own conscious glance, “grant me one sisterly kiss
of forgiveness.”

Before she could resist he had snatched the boon
from her lips, and the next moment was kneeling
at her feet.

So much audacity, immediately atoned for by
such humility; the appeasing, imploring appeal of
his eyes; his silence, as if he had offended too
deeply for words to avail him, at once disarmed
her resentment for an offence so gracefully expiated;
and with a reproving shake of the head
and lifting of the fore finger, she granted the forgiveness
he so eloquently sought.

“Well, brother, I see you are incorrigible, and
I suppose I must be lenient. But presume not too
much on my good-nature. The moon is up. Let
us not linger here, but fly,” she added, with suddenly-assumed
energy.

“This moment!” he said, taking the lamp, and
placing himself by her side as she passed through
the door. “Let my arm assist you to the carriole,”
he added, passing his arm lightly around her.

“No, no, I will lean upon it, good and careful
brother.”

Hastily and silently they traversed the passage
to the hall, where they found Zacharie in waiting.
He immediately opened the doors, and accompanied
them across the court to the gate. Before it
stood the sleigh, to which were harnessed two small

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

but spirited ponies. Without speaking, the young
soldier assisted the disguised novice into it, and, after
bidding Zacharie a warm adieu, and rewarding
him with gold and assurances of favouring his belligerant
aspirations, he followed himself, and bade
the guide drive off with what speed the convent's
horses and the heavy condition of the road would
permit.

The snow had settled a little during the day, and
the track was by this time somewhat broken, so
that they glided over the ground with greater facility
than Father Bonaventure's words promised
when, in the morning, he surveyed the state of the
roads from the tower of his convent. The vehicle,
for which the traveller had exchanged his equestrian
mode of journeying, was a light wooden body,
gracefully shaped like a phaëton, with the exception
of the front piece, which rose sharp and narrow
three feet in height, terminating in the curved
neck and head of a swan, tastefully ornamented
with silver. It contained two seats, one of which,
in the back part of the carriole, and shut in by its
high close sides, was occupied by the travellers,
the other by the driver or guide. It was placed on
runners sixteen inches high, shaped like skateirons,
but consisting of a light frame instead of being
made solid, and, like them, terminating in a curve
in front, carved or cast so as to resemble the head
of a serpent. The runners sunk into the snow,
which was about two feet in depth, only six inches,
leaving the body of the carriole ten inches clear of
the surface, over which it glided with delightful
rapidity.

The back, the sides, and the seats of the carriage
were warmly lined with loose furs and numerous
buffalo skins, two of which, placed under
the feet of the travellers and drawn up before them,

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

enveloped their entire persons, and effectually protected
them from the cold, which was still intense.
The guide was seated in front wrapped up in a
capote of bearskin, and otherwise so completely
covered from head to feet with furs that both form
and feature were undistinguishable, and he more
nearly resembled the animal whose hide he wore
than a man. The monk, as we shall continue to
call our traveller, had not yet seen his face or
spoken to him except when he bade him drive from
the convent gate, to which he replied by whipping
his horses and uttering the Indian ejaculation
“eh!” an interjection, with him, expressive either
of assent or dissent, and, indeed, of almost every
emotion.

For some time they rode forward in silence, the
merry bells around the neck of the horses making
the otherwise dreary road cheerful by their lively
music. At first they glided along the surface of
the ground with the facility of a boat sailing on a
smooth lake; but after they had travelled a few
miles the road became intersected by furrows,
called cahots, formed in the snow by the winds,
heaving its surface into innumerable small ridges.
They were the most numerous where the road wound
through gorges, down which the wind swept unobstructed.
The motion of the carriole at these
places was like that of a boat pitching in a short sea,
and well-known to carriolers; often, when drawn
over a succession of them, like that motion, they
produce in the unpractised traveller a sensation of
nausea. Our travellers, however, experienced but
little annoyance; and, after clearing the defile, their
road became once more even, and their speed proportionably
increased. The monk, now putting
aside the furs from his face, addressed his taciturn
guide, who, for the two hours they had been on the

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

road, had exhibited no other signs of life than was
indicated by the mechanical rise and fall of his
right arm every five minutes, to lay his whip upon
the back of his team, and an occasional interjection
of encouragement to them as they toiled up some
more laborious hill.

“When do you cross the river, guide?” he
asked, as the horses were toiling up one of these
ascents.

“Eh! Four league, by-um-by,” he replied, in
harsh guttural tones, without turning his head, and
holding up four fingers by way of illustration.

“We shall soon accomplish that,” said the monk,
wishing to converse with, and learn something of
his guide; “these horses of yours do not appear to
know what fatigue is.”

This compliment to his steeds did not, however,
draw any reply from the taciturn driver.

“Is it not near morning?” asked the monk,
making a second attempt to open a conversation.

“Sun come two hours, by-um-by,” replied the
man, elevating two fingers, and then flourishing
his whip over the heads of the ponies, as they
reached the top of the hill. Obeying the hint, the
horses darted down the opposite descent with the
rapidity of reindeers.

“What is your name, guide?” asked the monk,
as they were gliding over a level tract, after having
descended the hill with speed still unabated.

“Name! eh!” he grunted; “Indian callee Ohguesse,
Canadian callee Gun.”

“If your qualities, worthy Gun, do credit to your
sponsors, you will be a valuable auxiliary on the
road in case we are attacked. How is the ice
where we are to cross the river, think you? It is,
no doubt, strong enough to bear the weight of our
carriole?”

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

“Eh! by-um-by, strong 'nough!” said Ohguesse,
with a nod of assent.

“Will it bear us if we remain in the carriole?”
asked the monk.

“Eh!” was the satisfactory reply of the Indian,
who wrapped the collar of his capote closely about
his face and ears, and more firmly grasped his
reins, as if he would thereby intimate that he was
already wearied by his unusual loquacity.

Defeated in the attempt to open a conversation
with his guide, the young soldier determined to
make an attack on a quarter where, perhaps, success
was still more problematical. During the
first hour of the journey, he enjoyed in silence the
exquisite consciousness of the presence of the
charming novice. The slightest touch of her little
feet, as they nestled in the same fur beside his
own, communicated to his veins a thrilling sensation
of delight; and as he felt her soft breathing
upon his cheek, and listened to the audible beating
of her heart, which he compared to a bird
fluttering to escape from beneath the folds of her
robe, he feared to speak lest the charm on his
senses should be broken.

A sound, like a smothered laugh, at the curt
answer of Ohguesse, coming from the fur hood of
the maiden, encouraged him to change the direction
of his battery. Leaving Ohguesse to atone
for his extraordinary garrulity by as long silence
as he chose to preserve, he turned to his fair companion
and gently repeated her name. But to reiterated
repetitions of “Eugenie! sweet Eugenie!”
there was no reply; and believing, by her
soft regular breathing, that she slept, and that his
ears had deceived him, he wrapped himself in his
furs, and in a few moments was also sound asleep.

It is, to be sure, altogether unprecedented in the

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

annals of romance, from the days of the Troubadours
down to the present time, for an author to
put his hero and heroine to sleep, and thus leave
them; sleep, hunger, and fatigue being three human
weaknesses to which genuine heroes and heroines
are presumed never to yield. But our hero
and heroine are not superhuman, but subject to
like passions with ordinary mortals; like them enduring
hunger and thirst, cold and heat, pain and
fatigue; therefore, one of them having slept but
three hours for the last three days, and the other
having been wakeful half the night in anticipation
of her escape, they very naturally yielded to the
soporific motion of the carriole, and availed themselves
of that restorative to the frames of weary
mortals which Nature has provided. This was the
more necessary, as on the morrow they were to undergo
additional excitement and fatigue, for which
a good sound sleep is, doubtless, an excellent preparative.

Trusting that they will awake at the beginning
of the next chapter, refreshed, and forearmed to
encounter the various adventures which may befall
them as the principal personages of this tale, we
will leave them to their repose and to the skill of
the taciturn Ohguesse.

p157-151

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