Rosin the Beau

There was no resisting his eager gaiety. And when he quoted the nursery song that my mother used to sing, my stubborn resentment – at what? who can say? – broke and melted away, and I was smiling back into the bright, merry eyes. Once more he held out his hand, and this time I took it gladly. Father L'Homme-Dieu looked on in delight; it was a good moment.

After that the talk flowed freely. I found that the young marquis, having come on a pleasure tour to the United States, had travelled thus far out of the general route to look up the graves of some of his mother's people, who had come out with Baron Castine, but had left him, as my ancestor had done, on account of his marriage with the Indian princess. They were the Belleforts of Blanque.

"Bellefort!" I cried. "That name is on several stones in our old burying-ground. The Belforts of our village are their descendants, Father L'Homme-Dieu."

"Not Ham?" cried the father, bursting into a great laugh. "Not Ham Belfort, Jacques?"

I laughed back, nodding. "Just Ham, father!"

I never saw Father L'Homme-Dieu so amused. He struck his hands together, and leaned back in his chair, repeating over and over, "Ham Belfort! Cousin of the Marquis de Ste. Valerie! Ham Belfort! Is it possible?"

The young nobleman looked from one to the other of us curiously.

"But what?" he asked. "Ham! c'est-à-dire, jambon, n'est-ce pas?"

"It is also a Biblical name, marquis!" said Father L'Homme-Dieu. "I must ask who taught you your catechism!"

"True! true!" said the marquis, slightly confused. "Sem, Ham, et Japhet, perfectly! and – I have a cousin, it appears, named Jam – I should say, Ham? Will you lead me to him, M. D'Arthenay, that I embrace him?"

"You shall see him!" I said. "I don't think Ham is used to being embraced, but I will leave that to you. I will take you to see him, and to see the graves in the burying-ground, whenever you say."

"But now, at the present time, this instant!" cried Ste. Valerie, springing from his chair. "Here is Father L'Homme-Dieu dying of me, in despair at his morning broken up, his studies destroyed by chatter. Take me with you, D'Arthenay, and show me all things; Ham, also his brothers, and Noë and the Ark, if they find themselves also here. Amazing country! astonishing people!"

So off we went together, he promising Mrs. Sparrow to return in time for dinner, and informing her that she was a sylphide, which caused her to say, "Go along!" in high delight. He had brought a letter to the priest, from an old friend, and was to stay at the house.

Back across the brown fields we went. I was no longer alone; the world was full of new light, new interest. I felt that it was good to be alive; and when my companion began to sing in very lightness of heart, I joined in, and sang with right good will.

"La bonne aventure, oh gai!
La bonne aventure!"

He told me that his mother always sang him this song when he had been a good boy; I replied that mine had done the same. How many French mothers have sung the merry little lilt, I wonder? We sang one snatch and another, and I could not see that the marquise had had the advantage of the little peasant girl, if it came to songs.

The marquis – but why should I keep to the empty title, which I was never to use after that first hour? Nothing would do but that we should be friends on the instant, and for life, – Jacques and Yvon. "Thus it was two centuries ago," my companion declared, "thus shall it be now!" and I, in my dream of wonderment and delight, was only too glad to have it so.

We talked of a thousand things; or, to be precise, he talked, and I listened. What had I to say that could interest him? But he was full of the wonders of travel, the strangeness of the new world and the new people. Niagara had shaken him to the soul, he told me; on the wings of its thunder he had soared to the empyrean. How his fanciful turns of expression come back to me as I write of him! He was proud of his English, which was in general surprisingly good.

New York he did not like, – a savage in a Paris gown, with painted face; but on Boston he looked with the eyes of a lover. What dignity! what Puritan, what maiden grace of withdrawal! An American city, where one feels oneself not a figure of chess, but a human being; where no street resembles the one before it, and one can wander and be lost in delicious windings! Ah! in Boston he could live, the life of a poet, of a scholar.

"And then, – what, my friend? I come, I leave those joys, I come away here, to – to the locality of jump-off, as you say, – and what do I find? First, a pearl, a saint; for nobleness, a prince, for holiness, an anchorite of Arabia, – Le Père L'Homme-Dieu! Next, the ancient friend of my house, who becomes on the instant mine also, the brother for whom I have yearned. With these, the graves of my venerable ancestors, heroes of constancy, who lived for war and died for faith; graves where I go even now, where I kneel to pay my duty of respect, to drop the filial tear!"

"Don't forget your living relations!" I said, with some malice. "Here is your cousin, coming to meet us."

CHAPTER V

AN ox-team was lumbering along the road towards us. The huge oxen lurched from side to side, half-asleep, making nothing of their load of meal-sacks piled high in air; their driver walked beside, half-asleep, too. He was a giant in height (six foot six, Melody, in his stockings! I have measured him myself), and his white clothes made him look something monstrous indeed. Yvon stared and gaped, as this vision came slowly towards him.

"What – what is it?" he asked. "Is it a monster?"

"Oh, no!" I said. "It's only Ham Belfort. How are you, Ham?"

"Smart!" said Ham. "How be you? Hoish, Star! haw! Stand still there, will ye?"

The oxen came to a halt willingly enough, and man and beasts stood regarding us with calm, friendly eyes. Ham and his oxen looked so much alike, Melody (the oxen were white, I ought to have said), that I sometimes thought, if we dressed one of the beasts up and did away with his horns, people would hardly know which was which.

"Taking a load over to Cato?"

Cato was the nearest town, my dear. It was there that the weekly boat touched, which was our one link with the world of cities and railways.

Ham nodded; he was not given to unnecessary speech.

"Is your wife better? I heard she was poorly."

"No, she ain't! I expect she'll turn up her toes now most any day."

This seemed awkward. I muttered some expressions of regret, and was about to move on, when my companion, who had been gazing speechless and motionless at the figure before him, caught my arm.

"Present me!" he whispered. "Holy Blue! this is my cousin, my own blood! Present me, Jacques!"

Now, I had never had occasion to make a formal introduction in my life, Melody. I had not yet begun to act as master of ceremonies at balls, only as fiddler and call-man; and it is the living truth that the only form of words I could bring to mind at the moment was, "Gents, balance to partners!" I almost said it aloud; but, fortunately, my wits came back, and I stammered out, sorely embarrassed:

"Ham, this is – a gentleman – who – who is staying with Father L'Homme-Dieu."

"That so? Pleased to meet you!" and Ham held out a hand like a shoulder of mutton, and engulfed the marquis's slender fingers.

"I am delighted to make the acquaintance of Mr. Belfort," said Ste. Valerie, with winning grace. "I please myself to think that we are related by blood. My mother was a Bellefort of Blanque; it is the French form of your name, Mr. Belfort."

"I want to know!" said Ham. "Darned pleased to meet you!" He laboured for a moment, casting a glance of appeal at the oxen, who showed no disposition to assist him; then added, "You're slim-appearin' for a Belfort; they run consid'able large in these parts."

"Truly, yes!" cried the marquis, laughing delightedly. "You desire to show the world that there are still giants. What pleasure, what rapture, to go through the crowd of small persons, as myself, as D'Arthenay here, and exhibit the person of Samson, of Goliath!"

Ham eyed him gravely. "Meanin' shows?" he asked, after a pause of reflection. "No, we've never shew none, as I know of. We've been asked, father 'n' I, to allow guessin' on our weight at fairs and sech, but we jedged it warn't jest what we cared about doin'. Sim'lar with shows!"

This speech was rather beyond Ste. Valerie, and seeing him look puzzled, I struck in, "Mr. Ste. Valerie wants to see the old graves in the old burying-ground, Ham. I told him there were plenty of Belforts there, and spelling the name as he does, with two l's and an e in the middle."

"I want to know if he spells it that way!" said Ham, politely. "We jedged they didn't know much spellin', in them times along back, but I presume there's different idees. Does your folks run slim as a rule?"

"Very slim, my cousin!" said Yvon. "Of my generation, there is none so great as myself."

"I want to know!" said Ham; and the grave compassion in his voice was almost too much for my composure. He seemed to fear that the subject might be a painful one, and changed it with a visible effort.

"Well, there's plenty in the old berr'in-ground spelt both ways. Likely it don't matter to 'em now."

He pondered again, evidently composing a speech; again he demanded help of the oxen, and went so far as to examine an ear of the nigh ox with anxious attention.

"'Pears as if what Belforts is above the sod ought to see something of ye!" he said at last. "My woman is sick, and liable to turn – I should say, liable to pass away most any time; but if she should get better, or – anything – I should be pleased to have ye come and stop a spell with us at the grist-mill. Any of your folks in the grist business?"

"Grisst?" Ste. Valerie looked helplessly at me. I explained briefly the nature of a grist-mill, and said truly that Ham's mill was one of the pleasantest places in the neighbourhood. Yvon was enchanted. He would come with the most lively pleasure, he assured Ham, so soon as Madame Belfort's health should be sufficiently rehabilitated. I remember, Melody, the pride with which he rolled out that long word, and the delight with which he looked at me, to see if I noticed it.

"Meantime," he added, "I shall haste at the earliest moment to do myself the honour to call, to make inquiries for the health of madame, to present my respectful homages to monsieur your father. He will permit me to embrace him as a son?"