University of Virginia Library

THE OLD AGENCY.

THE old house is gone then! But it shall not
depart into oblivion unchronicled. One who
has sat under its roof-tree, one who remembers well
its rambling rooms and wild garden, will take the
pen to write down a page of its story. It is only
an episode, one of many; but the others are fading
away, or already buried in dead memories under the
sod. It was a quaint, picturesque old place, stretching
back from the white limestone road that bordered
the little port, its overgrown garden surrounded
by an ancient stockade ten feet in height, with a
massive, slow-swinging gate in front, defended by
loopholes. This stockade bulged out in some places
and leaned in at others; but the veteran posts, each
a tree sharpened to a point, did not break their ranks,
in spite of decrepitude; and the Indian warriors, could
they have returned from their happy hunting-grounds,
would have found the brave old fence of the Agency

a sturdy barrier still. But the Indian warriors could
not return. The United States agent had long ago
moved to Lake Superior, and the deserted residence,
having only a mythical owner, left without repairs
year after year, and under a cloud of confusion as
regarded taxes, titles, and boundaries, became a sort
of flotsam property, used by various persons, but belonging
legally to no one. Some tenant, tired of
swinging the great gate back and forth, had made a
little sally port alongside, but otherwise the place
remained unaltered; a broad garden with a central
avenue of cherry-trees, on each side dilapidated arbors,
overgrown paths, and heart-shaped beds, where
the first agents had tried to cultivate flowers, and
behind the limestone cliffs crowned with cedars. The
house was large on the ground, with wings and various
additions built out as if at random; on each
side and behind were rough outside chimneys clamped
to the wall; in the roof over the central part dormer-windows
showed a low second story; and here and
there at irregular intervals were outside doors, in some
cases opening out into space, since the high steps
which once led up to them had fallen down, and remained
as they fell, heaps of stones on the ground
below. Within were suites of rooms, large and small,
showing traces of workmanship elaborate for such a
remote locality; the ceilings, patched with rough mortar,
had been originally decorated with moulding, the
doors were ornamented with scroll-work, and the two
large apartments on each side of the entrance-hall
possessed chimney-pieces and central hooks for chandeliers.
Beyond and behind stretched out the wings;
coming to what appeared to be the end of the house
on the west, there unexpectedly began a new series
of rooms turning toward the north, each with its outside
door; looking for a corresponding labyrinth on
the eastern side, there was nothing but a blank wall.
The blind stairway went up in a kind of dark well,
and once up it was a difficult matter to get down
without a plunge from top to bottom, since the undefended
opening was just where no one would expect
to find it. Sometimes an angle was so arbitrarily
walled up that you felt sure there must be a secret
chamber there, and furtively rapped on the wall to
catch the hollow echo within. Then again you
opened a door, expecting to step out into the wilderness
of a garden, and found yourself in a set of
little rooms running off on a tangent, one after the
other, and ending in a windowless closet and an open
cistern. But the Agency gloried in its irregularities,
and defied criticism. The original idea of its architect
— if there was any — had vanished; but his
work remained, a not unpleasing variety to summer
visitors accustomed to city houses, all built with a
definite purpose, and one front door.

After some years of wandering in foreign lands, I

returned to my own country, and took up the burden
of old associations whose sadness time had mercifully
softened. The summer was over; September had begun,
but there came to me a great wish to see Mackinac
once more; to look again upon the little white
fort where I had lived with Archie, my soldier nephew,
killed at Shiloh. The steamer took me safely across
Erie, up the brimming Detroit River, through the enchanted
region of the St. Clair flats, and out into broad
Lake Huron; there, off Thunder Bay, a gale met us,
and for hours we swayed between life and death. The
season for pleasure travelling was over; my fellow-passengers,
with one exception, were of that class of
Americans who, dressed in cheap imitations of fine
clothes, are forever travelling, travelling, — taking the
steamers not from preference, but because they are less
costly than an all-rail route. The thin, listless men, in
ill-fitting black clothes and shining tall hats, sat on the
deck in tilted chairs, hour after hour, silent and dreary;
the thin, listless women, clad in raiment of many colors,
remained upon the fixed sofas in the cabin hour
after hour, silent and weary. At meals they ate indiscriminately
everything within range, but continued the
same, a weary, dreary, silent band. The one exception
was an old man, tall and majestic, with silvery hair
and bright, dark eyes, dressed in the garb of a Roman
Catholic priest, albeit slightly tinged with frontier
innovations. He came on board at Detroit, and as
soon as we were under way he exchanged his hat for
a cloth cap embroidered with Indian bead-work; and
when the cold air, precursor of the gale, struck us on
Huron, he wrapped himself in a large capote made of
skins, with the fur inward.

In times of danger formality drops from us. During
those long hours, when the next moment might have
brought death, this old man and I were together; and
when at last the cold dawn came, and the disabled
steamer slowly ploughed through the angry water
around the point, and showed us Mackinac in the
distance, we discovered that the island was a mutual
friend, and that we knew each other, at least by name;
for the silver-haired priest was Father Piret, the hermit
of the Chenaux. In the old days, when I was living
at the little white fort, I had known Father Piret by
reputation, and he had heard of me from the French
half-breeds around the point. We landed. The summer
hotels were closed, and I was directed to the old
Agency, where occasionally a boarder was received by
the family then in possession. The air was chilly, and
a fine rain was falling, the afterpiece of the equinoctial;
the wet storm-flag hung heavily down over the fort on
the height, and the waves came in sullenly. All was
in sad accordance with my feelings as I thought of the
past and its dead, while the slow tears of age moistened
my eyes. But the next morning Mackinac awoke,
robed in autumn splendor; the sunshine poured down,

the straits sparkled back, the forest glowed in scarlet,
the larches waved their wild, green hands, the fair-weather
flag floated over the little fort, and all was as
joyous as though no one had ever died; and indeed it
is in glorious days like these that we best realize
immortality.

I wandered abroad through the gay forest to the
Arch, the Lovers' Leap, and old Fort Holmes, whose
British walls had been battered down for pastime,
so that only a caved-in British cellar remained to
mark the spot. Returning to the Agency, I learned
that Father Piret had called to see me.

“I am sorry that I missed him,” I said; “he is a
remarkable old man.”

The circle at the dinner-table glanced up with one
accord. The little Methodist minister with the surprised
eyes looked at me more surprised than ever;
his large wife groaned audibly. The Baptist colporteur
peppered his potatoes until they and the plate were
black; the Presbyterian doctor, who was the champion
of the Protestant party on the island, wished to know
if I was acquainted with the latest devices of the Scarlet
Woman in relation to the county school-fund.

“But, my friends,” I replied, “Father Piret and I
both belong to the past. We discuss not religion, but
Mackinac; not the school-fund, but the old associations
of the island, which is dear to both of us.”

The four looked at me with distrust; they saw nothing

dear about the island, unless it was the price of
fresh meat; and as to old associations, they held themselves
above such nonsense. So, one and all, they took
beef and enjoyed a season of well-regulated conversation,
leaving me to silence and my broiled white-fish;
as it was Friday, no doubt they thought the latter a
rag of popery.

Very good rags.

But my hostess, a gentle little woman, stole away
from these bulwarks of Protestantism in the late afternoon,
and sought me in my room, or rather series of
rooms, since there were five opening one out of the
other, the last three unfurnished, and all the doorless
doorways staring at me like so many fixed eyes, until,
oppressed by their silent watchfulness, I hung a shawl
over the first opening and shut out the whole gazing
suite.

“You must not think, Mrs. Corlyne, that we islanders
do not appreciate Father Piret,” said the little
woman, who belonged to one of the old island families,
descendants of a chief factor of the fur trade. “There
has been some feeling lately against the Catholics —”

“Roman Catholics, my dear,” I said with Anglican
particularity.

“But we all love and respect the dear old man as a
father.”

“When I was living at the fort, fifteen years ago, I
heard occasionally of Father Piret,” I said, “but he

seemed to be almost a mythic personage. What is his
history?”

“No one knows. He came here fifty years ago, and
after officiating on the island a few years, he retired to
a little Indian farm in the Chenaux, where he has lived
ever since. Occasionally he holds a service for the
half-breeds at Point St. Ignace, but the parish of Mackinac
proper has its regular priest, and Father Piret apparently
does not hold even the appointment of missionary.
Why he remains here — a man educated,
refined, and even aristocratic — is a mystery. He
seems to be well provided with money; his little house
in the Chenaux contains foreign books and pictures,
and he is very charitable to the poor Indians. But he
keeps himself aloof, and seems to desire no intercourse
with the world beyond his letters and papers, which
come regularly, some of them from France. He seldom
leaves the Straits; he never speaks of himself; always
he appears as you saw him, carefully dressed and
stately. Each summer when he is seen on the street,
there is more or less curiosity about him among the
summer visitors, for he is quite unlike the rest of us
Mackinac people. But no one can discover anything
more than I have told you, and those who have persisted
so far as to sail over to the Chenaux either lose
their way among the channels, or if they find the
house, they never find him; the door is locked, and no
one answers.”

“Singular,” I said. “He has nothing of the hermit
about him. He has what I should call a courtly manner.”

“That is it,” replied my hostess, taking up the
word; “some say he came from the French court, — a
nobleman exiled for political offences; others think
he is a priest under the ban; and there is still a third
story, to the effect that he is a French count, who,
owing to a disappointment in love, took orders and
came to this far-away island, so that he might seclude
himself forever from the world.”

“But no one really knows?”

“Absolutely nothing. He is beloved by all the real
old island families, whether they are of his faith or
not; and when he dies the whole Strait, from Bois
Blanc light to far Waugoschance, will mourn for him.”

At sunset the Father came again to see me; the front
door of my room was open, and we seated ourselves on
the piazza outside. The roof of bark thatch had fallen
away, leaving the bare beams overhead twined with
brier-roses; the floor and house side were frescoed
with those lichen-colored spots which show that the
gray planks have lacked paint for many long years;
the windows had wooden shutters fastened back with
irons shaped like the letter S, and on the central door
was a brass knocker, and a plate bearing the words,
“United States Agency.”

“When I first came to the island,” said Father Piret,

“this was the residence par excellence. The old house
was brave with green and white paint then; it had
candelabra on its high mantles, brass andirons on its
many hearthstones, curtains for all its little windows,
and carpets for all its uneven floors. Much cooking
went on, and smoke curled up from all these outside
chimneys. Those were the days of the fur trade, and
Mackinac was a central mart. Hither twice a year
came the bateaux from the Northwest, loaded with
furs; and in those old, decaying warehouses on the back
street of the village were stored the goods sent out
from New York, with which the bateaux were loaded
again, and after a few days of revelry, during which
the improvident voyagers squandered all their hard-earned
gains, the train returned westward into `the
countries,' as they called the wilderness beyond the
lakes, for another six months of toil. The officers of
the little fort on the height, the chief factors of the fur
company, and the United States Indian agent, formed
the feudal aristocracy of the island; but the agent
had the most imposing mansion, and often have I seen
the old house shining with lights across its whole
broadside of windows, and gay with the sound of a
dozen French violins. The garden, now a wilderness,
was the pride of the island. Its prim arbors, its spring
and spring-house, its flower-beds, where, with infinite
pains, a few hardy plants were induced to blossom; its
cherry-tree avenue, whose early red fruit the short
summer could scarcely ripen; its annual attempts at
vegetables, which never came to maturity, — formed
topics for conversation in court circles. Potatoes then
as now were left to the mainland Indians, who came
over with their canoes heaped with the fine, large thin-jacketed
fellows, bartering them all for a loaf or two
of bread and a little whiskey.

“The stockade which surrounds the place was at
that day a not unnecessary defence. At the time of
the payments the island swarmed with Indians, who
came from Lake Superior and the Northwest, to receive
the government pittance. Camped on the beach as far
as the eye could reach, these wild warriors, dressed in
all their savage finery, watched the Agency with greedy
eyes, as they waited for their turn. The great gate
was barred, and sentinels stood at the loopholes with
loaded muskets; one by one the chiefs were admitted,
stalked up to the office, — that wing on the right, —
received the allotted sum, silently selected something
from the displayed goods, and as silently departed,
watched by quick eyes, until the great gate closed
behind them. The guns of the fort were placed so
as to command the Agency during payment time; and
when, after several anxious, watchful days and nights,
the last brave had received his portion, and the last
canoe started away toward the north, leaving only the
comparatively peaceful mainland Indians behind, the
island drew a long breath of relief.”

“Was there any real danger?” I asked.

“The Indians are ever treacherous,” replied the Father.
Then he was silent, and seemed lost in revery.
The pure, ever-present breeze of Mackinac played in
his long silvery hair, and his bright eyes roved along
the wall of the old house; he had a broad forehead,
noble features, and commanding presence, and as he
sat there, recluse as he was, — aged, alone, without a
history, with scarcely a name or a place in the world,
— he looked, in the power of his native-born dignity,
worthy of a royal coronet.

“I was thinking of old Jacques,” he said, after a long
pause. “He once lived in these rooms of yours, and
died on that bench at the end of the piazza, sitting in
the sunshine, with his staff in his hand.”

“Who was he?” I asked. “Tell me the story, Father.”

“There is not much to tell, madame; but in my
mind he is so associated with this old house, that I
always think of him when I come here, and fancy I
see him on that bench.

“When the United States agent removed to the
Apostle Islands, at the western end of Lake Superior,
this place remained for some time uninhabited. But
one winter morning smoke was seen coming out of
that great chimney on the side; and in the course of
the day several curious persons endeavored to open the
main gate, at that time the only entrance. But the

gate was barred within, and as the high stockade was
slippery with ice, for some days the mystery remained
unsolved. The islanders, always slow, grow torpid in
the winter like bears; they watched the smoke in the
daytime and the little twinkling light by night; they
talked of spirits both French and Indian as they went
their rounds, but they were too indolent to do more.
At length the fort commandant heard of the smoke,
and saw the light from his quarters on the height. As
government property, he considered the Agency under
his charge, and he was preparing to send a detail of
men to examine the deserted mansion in its ice-bound
garden, when its mysterious occupant appeared in the
village; it was an old man, silent, gentle, apparently
French. He carried a canvas bag, and bought a few
supplies of the coarsest description, as though he was
very poor. Unconscious of observation, he made his
purchases and returned slowly homeward, barring the
great gate behind him. Who was he? No one knew.
Whence and when came he? No one could tell.

“The detail of soldiers from the fort battered at
the gate, and when the silent old man opened it they
followed him through the garden, where his feet
had made a lonely trail over the deep snow, round
to the side door. They entered, and found some
blankets on the floor, a fire of old knots on the hearth,
a long narrow box tied with a rope; his poor little
supplies stood in one corner, — bread, salted fish, and

a few potatoes, — and over the fire hung a rusty tea-kettle,
its many holes carefully plugged with bits of
rag. It was a desolate scene; the old man in the
great rambling empty house in the heart of an arctic
winter. He said little, and the soldiers could not understand
his language; but they left him unmolested,
and going back to the fort, they told what they had
seen. Then the major went in person to the Agency,
and gathered from the stranger's words that he had
come to the island over the ice in the track of the
mail-carrier; that he was an emigrant from France on
his way to the Red River of the North, but his strength
failing, owing to the intense cold, he had stopped at
the island, and seeing the uninhabited house, he had
crept into it, as he had not enough money to pay for
a lodging elsewhere. He seemed a quiet, inoffensive
old man, and after all the islanders had had a good long
slow stare at him, he was left in peace, with his little
curling smoke by day and his little twinkling light by
night, although no one thought of assisting him; there is
a strange coldness of heart in these northern latitudes.

“I was then living at the Chenaux; there was a
German priest on the island; I sent over two half-breeds
every ten days for the mail, and through them
I heard of the stranger at the Agency. He was
French, they said, and it was rumored in the saloons
along the frozen docks that he had seen Paris. This
warmed my heart; for, madame, I spent my youth in

Paris, — the dear, the beautiful city! So I came over
to the island in my dog-sledge; a little thing is an
event in our long, long winter. I reached the village
in the afternoon twilight, and made my way alone to
the Agency; the old man no longer barred his gate,
and swinging it open with difficulty, I followed the
trail through the snowy silent garden round to the
side door of this wing, — the wing you occupy. I
knocked; he opened; I greeted him, and entered. He
had tried to furnish his little room with the broken
relics of the deserted dwelling; a mended chair, a
stool, a propped-up table, a shelf with two or three
battered tin dishes, and some straw in one corner
comprised the whole equipment, but the floor was
clean, the old dishes polished, and the blankets neatly
spread over the straw which formed the bed. On the
table the supplies were ranged in order; there was a
careful pile of knots on one side of the hearth, and
the fire was evidently husbanded to last as long as
possible. He gave me the mended chair, lighted a
candle-end stuck in a bottle, and then seating himself
on the stool, he gazed at me in his silent way
until I felt like an uncourteous intruder. I spoke to
him in French, offered my services; in short, I did
my best to break down the barrier of his reserve;
there was something pathetic in the little room and
its lonely occupant, and, besides, I knew by his accent
that we were both from the banks of the Seine.

“Well, I heard his story, — not then, but afterward;
it came out gradually during the eleven months of our
acquaintance; for he became my friend, — almost the
only friend of fifty years. I am an isolated man,
madame. It must be so. God's will be done!”

The Father paused, and looked off over the darkening
water; he did not sigh, neither was his calm brow
clouded, but there was in his face what seemed to me
a noble resignation, and I have ever since felt sure that
the secret of his exile held in it a self-sacrifice; for
only self-sacrifice can produce that divine expression.

Out in the straits shone the low-down green light of
a schooner; beyond glimmered the mast-head star of a
steamer, with the line of cabin lights below, and away
on the point of Bois Blanc gleamed the steady radiance
of the lighthouse showing the way into Lake Huron;
the broad overgrown garden cut us off from the village,
but above on the height we could see the lighted windows
of the fort, although still the evening sky retained
that clear hue that seems so much like daylight when
one looks aloft, although the earth lies in dark shadows
below. The Agency was growing indistinct even to
our near eyes; its white chimneys loomed up like
ghosts, the shutters sighed in the breeze, and the
planks of the piazza creaked causelessly. The old
house was full of the spirits of memories, and at twilight
they came abroad and bewailed themselves.
“The place is haunted,” I said, as a distant door
groaned drearily.

“Yes,” replied Father Piret, coming out of his abstraction,
“and this wing is haunted by my old French
friend. As time passed and the spring came, he fitted
up in his fashion the whole suite of five rooms. He
had his parlor, sleeping-room, kitchen, and store-room,
the whole furnished only with the articles I have
already described, save that the bed was of fresh green
boughs instead of straw. Jacques occupied all the
rooms with ceremonious exactness; he sat in the parlor,
and I too must sit there when I came; in the second
room he slept and made his careful toilet, with his
shabby old clothes; the third was his kitchen and dining-room;
and the fourth, that little closet on the right,
was his store-room. His one indulgence was coffee;
coffee he must and would have, though he slept on
straw and went without meat. But he cooked to perfection
in his odd way, and I have often eaten a dainty
meal in that little kitchen, sitting at the propped-up
table, using the battered tin dishes, and the clumsy
wooden spoons fashioned with a jack-knife. After we
had become friends Jacques would accept occasional
aid from me, and it gave me a warm pleasure to think
that I had added something to his comfort, were it only
a little sugar, butter, or a pint of milk. No one disturbed
the old man; no orders came from Washington
respecting the Agency property, and the major had not
the heart to order him away. There were more than
houses enough for the scanty population of the island,

and only a magnate could furnish these large rambling
rooms. So the soldiers were sent down to pick the red
cherries for the use of the garrison, but otherwise
Jacques had the whole place to himself, with all its
wings, outbuildings, arbors, and garden beds.

“But I have not told you all. The fifth apartment
in the suite — the square room with four windows and
an outside door — was the old man's sanctuary; here
were his precious relics, and here he offered up his
devotions, half Christian, half pagan, with never-failing
ardor. From the long narrow box which the fort soldiers
had noticed came an old sabre, a worn and faded
uniform of the French grenadiers, a little dried sprig,
its two withered leaves tied in their places with
thread, and a coarse woodcut of the great Napoleon; for
Jacques was a soldier of the Empire. The uniform
hung on the wall, carefully arranged on pegs as a man
would wear it, and the sabre was brandished from the
empty sleeve as though a hand held it; the woodcut
framed in green, renewed from day to day, pine in the
winter, maple in the summer, occupied the opposite
side, and under it was fastened the tiny withered sprig,
while on the floor below was a fragment of buffalo-skin
which served the soldier for a stool when he knelt in
prayer. And did he pray to Napoleon, you ask? I
hardly know. He had a few of the Church's prayers
by heart, but his mind was full of the Emperor as he
repeated them, and his eyes were fixed upon the picture

as though it was the face of a saint. Discovering
this, I labored hard to bring him to a clearer understanding
of the faith; but all in vain. He listened to
me patiently, even reverently, although I was much
the younger; at intervals he replied, `Oui, mon père,'
and the next day he said his prayers to the dead Emperor
as usual. And this was not the worst; in place
of an amen, there came a fierce imprecation against
the whole English nation. After some months I succeeded
in persuading him to abandon this termination;
but I always suspected that it was but a verbal abandonment,
and that, mentally, the curse was as strong
as ever.

“Jacques had been a soldier of the Empire, as it is
called, — a grenadier under Napoleon; he had loved
his General and Emperor in life, and adored him in
death with the affectionate pertinacity of a faithful
dog. One hot day during the German campaign, Napoleon,
engaged in conference with some of his generals,
was disturbed by the uneasy movements of his
horse; looking around for some one to brush away
the flies, he saw Jacques, who stood at a short distance
watching his Emperor with admiring eyes. Always
quick to recognize the personal affection he
inspired, Napoleon signed to the grenadier to approach.
`Here, mon brave,' he said, smiling; `get a
branch and keep the flies from my horse a few moments.'
The proud soldier obeyed; he heard the conversation

of the Emperor; he kept the flies from his
horse. As he talked, Napoleon idly plucked a little
sprig from the branch as it came near his hand, and
played with it; and when, the conference over, with
a nod of thanks to Jacques, he rode away, the grenadier
stopped, picked up the sprig fresh from the
Emperor's hand, and placed it carefully in his breast-pocket.
The Emperor had noticed him; the Emperor
had called him `mon brave'; the Emperor had
smiled upon him. This was the glory of Jacques's
life. How many times have I listened to the story,
told always in the same words, with the same gestures
in the same places! He remembered every sentence
of the conversation he had heard, and repeated
them with automatic fidelity, understanding nothing
of their meaning; even when I explained their probable
connection with the campaign, my words made
no impression upon him, and I could see that they
conveyed no idea to his mind. He was made for a
soldier; brave and calm, he reasoned not, but simply
obeyed, and to this blind obedience there was added
a heart full of affection which, when concentrated upon
the Emperor, amounted to idolatry. Napoleon possessed
a singular personal power over his soldiers;
they all loved him, but Jacques adored him.

“It was an odd, affectionate animal,” said Father
Piret, dropping unconsciously into a French idiom to
express his meaning. “The little sprig had been kept

as a talisman, and no saintly relic was ever more
honored; the Emperor had touched it!

“Grenadier Jacques made one of the ill-fated Russian
army, and, although wounded and suffering, he
still endured until the capture of Paris. Then, when
Napoleon retired to Elba, he fell sick from grief, nor
did he recover until the Emperor returned, when,
with thousands of other soldiers, our Jacques hastened
to his standard, and the hundred days began. Then
came Waterloo. Then came St. Helena. But the
grenadier lived on in hope, year after year, until
the Emperor died, — died in exile, in the hands of
the hated English. Broken-hearted, weary of the sight
of his native land, he packed his few possessions,
and fled away over the ocean, with a vague idea of
joining a French settlement on the Red River; I
have always supposed it must be the Red River of
the South; there are French there. But the poor
soldier was very ignorant; some one directed him to
these frozen regions, and he set out; all places were
alike to him now that the Emperor had gone from
earth. Wandering as far as Mackinac on his blind
pilgrimage, Jacques found his strength failing, and
crept into this deserted house to die. Recovering, he
made for himself a habitation from a kind of instinct,
as a beaver might have done. He gathered together
the wrecks of furniture, he hung up his treasures, he
had his habits for every hour of the day; soldier-like,

everything was done by rule. At a particular
hour it was his custom to sit on that bench in the
sunshine, wrapped in his blankets in the winter, in
summer in his shirt-sleeves with his one old coat
carefully hung on that peg; I can see him before
me now. On certain days he would wash his few
poor clothes, and hang them out on the bushes to
dry; then he would patiently mend them with his
great brass thimble and coarse thread. Poor old garments!
they were covered with awkward patches.

“At noon he would prepare his one meal; for his
breakfast and supper were but a cup of coffee.
Slowly and with the greatest care the materials were
prepared and the cooking watched. There was a
savor of the camp, a savor of the Paris café, and a
savor of originality; and often, wearied with the
dishes prepared by my half-breeds, I have come over
to the island to dine with Jacques, for the old soldier
was proud of his skill, and liked an appreciative
guest. And I — But it is not my story I
tell.”

“O Father Piret, if you could but —”

“Thanks, madame. To others I say, `What would
you? I have been here since youth; you know my
life.' But to you I say, there was a past; brief, full,
crowded into a few years; but I cannot tell it; my
lips are sealed! Again, thanks for your sympathy,
madame. And now I will go back to Jacques.

“We were comrades, he and I; he would not come
over to the Chenaux; he was unhappy if the routine
of his day was disturbed, but I often stayed a day
with him at the Agency, for I too liked the silent
house. It has its relics, by the way. Have you
noticed a carved door in the back part of the main
building? That was brought from the old chapel on
the mainland, built as early as 1700. The whole of
this locality is sacred ground in the history of our
Church. It was first visited by our missionaries in
1670, and over at Point St. Ignace the dust which
was once the mortal body of Father Marquette lies
buried. The exact site of the grave is lost; but we
know that in 1677 his Indian converts brought back
his body, wrapped in birch-bark, from the eastern
shore of Lake Michigan, where he died, to his beloved
mission of St. Ignace. There he was buried
in a vault under the little log-church. Some years
later the spot was abandoned, and the resident priests
returned to Montreal. We have another little Indian
church there now, and the point is forever consecrated
by its unknown grave. At various times I
told Jacques the history of this strait, — its islands,
and points; but he evinced little interest. He listened
with some attention to my account of the battle
which took place on Dousman's farm, not far
from the British Landing; but when he found that
the English were victorious, he muttered a great oath

and refused to hear more. To him the English were
fiends incarnate. Had they not slowly murdered his
Emperor on their barren rock in the sea?

“Only once did I succeed in interesting the old
soldier. Then, as now, I received twice each year
a package of foreign pamphlets and papers; among
them came, that summer, a German ballad, written
by that strange being, Henri Heine. I give it to
you in a later English translation: —

“This simple ballad went straight to the heart of
old Jacques; tears rolled down his cheeks as I read,
and he would have it over and over again. `Ah!
that comrade was happy,' he said. `He died when
the Emperor was only taken. I too would have gone
to my grave smiling, could I have thought that my
Emperor would come riding over it with all his army
around him again! But he is dead, — my Emperor
is dead! Ah! that comrade was a happy man; he
died! He did not have to stand by while the English
— may they be forever cursed! — slowly, slowly murdered
him, — murdered the great Napoleon! No; that
comrade died. Perhaps he is with the Emperor now,
— that comrade-grenadier.'

“To be with his Emperor was Jacques's idea of
heaven.

“From that moment each time I visited the Agency
I must repeat the verses again and again; they became
a sort of hymn. Jacques had not the capacity to learn
the ballad, although he so often listened to it, but the
seventh verse he managed to repeat after a fashion
of his own, setting it to a nondescript tune, and crooning
it about the house as he came and went on his
little rounds. Gradually he altered the words, but I
could not make out the new phrases as he muttered
them over to himself, as if trying them.

“`What is it you are saying, Jacques?' I asked.

“But he would not tell me. After a time I discovered
that he had added the altered verse to his
prayers; for always when I was at the Agency I went
with him to his sanctuary, if for no other purpose
than to prevent the uttered imprecation that served
as amen for the whole. The verse, whatever it was,
came in before this.

“So the summer passed. The vague intention of
going on to the Red River of the North had faded
away, and Jacques lived along on the island as though
he had never lived anywhere else. He grew wonted
to the Agency, like some old family cat, until he
seemed to belong to the house, and all thought of
disturbing him was forgotten. `There is Jacques out
washing his clothes,' `There is Jacques going to buy

his coffee,' `There is Jacques sitting on the piazza,'
said the islanders; the old man served them instead
of a clock.

“One dark autumn day I came over from the Chenaux
to get the mail. The water was rough, and my
boat, tilted far over on one side, skimmed the crests of
the waves in the daring fashion peculiar to the Mackinac
craft; the mail-steamer had not come in, owing to
the storm outside, and I went on to the Agency to see
Jacques. He seemed as usual, and we had dinner over
the little fire, for the day was chilly; the meal over,
my host put everything in order again in his methodical
way, and then retired to his sanctuary for prayers.
I followed, and stood in the doorway while he knelt.
The room was dusky, and the uniform with its outstretched
sabre looked like a dead soldier leaning
against the wall; the face of Napoleon opposite seemed
to gaze down on Jacques as he knelt, as though listening.
Jacques muttered his prayers, and I responded
Amen! then, after a silence, came the altered verse;
then, with a quick glance toward me, another silence,
which I felt sure contained the unspoken curse.
Gravely he led the way back to the kitchen — for, owing
to the cold, he allowed me to dispense with the
parlor, — and there we spent the afternoon together,
talking, and watching for the mail-boat. `Jacques,'
I said, `what is that verse you have added to your
prayers? Come, my friend, why should you keep it
from me?'

“`It is nothing, mon père, — nothing,' he replied.
But again I urged him to tell me; more to pass away
the time than from any real interest. `Come,' I said,
`it may be your last chance. Who knows but that I
may be drowned on my way back to the Chenaux?'

“`True,' replied the old soldier, calmly. `Well, then,
here it is, mon père: my death-wish. Voilà!'

“`Something you wish to have done after death?'

“`Yes.'

“`And who is to do it?'

“`My Emperor.'

“`But, Jacques, the Emperor is dead.'

“`He will have it done all the same, mon père.'

“In vain I argued; Jacques was calmly obstinate.
He had mixed up his Emperor with the stories of the
Saints; why should not Napoleon do what they had
done?

“`What is the verse, any way?' I said at last.

“`It is my death-wish, as I said before, mon père.'
And he repeated the following. He said it in French,
for I had given him a French translation, as he knew
nothing of German; but I will give you the English, as
he had altered it: —

Amen.'

“So prays Grenadier Jacques.

“The old soldier had sacrificed the smooth metre;
but I understood what he meant.

“The storm increased, and I spent the night at the
Agency, lying on the bed of boughs, covered with a
blanket. The house shook in the gale, the shutters
rattled, and all the floors near and far creaked as
though feet were walking over them. I was wakeful
and restless, but Jacques slept quietly, and did not stir
until daylight broke over the stormy water, showing
the ships scudding by under bare poles, and the distant
mail-boat laboring up toward the island through
the heavy sea. My host made his toilet, washing
and shaving himself carefully, and putting on his old
clothes as though going on parade. Then came breakfast,
with a stew added in honor of my presence; and
as by this time the steamer was not far from Round
Island, I started down toward the little post-office,
anxious to receive some expected letters. The steamer
came in slowly, the mail was distributed slowly, and I
stopped to read my letters before returning. I had
a picture-paper for Jacques, and as I looked out across
the straits, I saw that the storm was over, and decided
to return to the Chenaux in the afternoon, leaving
word with my half-breeds to have the sail-boat in
readiness at three o'clock. The sun was throwing out
a watery gleam as, after the lapse of an hour or two, I
walked up the limestone road and entered the great

gate of the Agency. As I came through the garden
along the cherry-tree avenue I saw Jacques sitting on
that bench in the sun, for this was his hour for sunshine;
his staff was in his hand, and he was leaning
back against the side of the house with his eyes closed,
as if in revery. `Jacques, here is a picture-paper for
you,' I said, laying my hand on his shoulder. He did
not answer. He was dead.

“Alone, sitting in the sunshine, apparently without
a struggle or a pang, the soul of the old soldier had
departed. Whither? We know not. But — smile if
you will, madame — I trust he is with his Emperor.”

I did not smile; my eyes were too full of tears.

“I buried him, as he wished,” continued Father
Piret, “in his old uniform, with the picture of Napoleon
laid on his breast, the sabre by his side, and the
withered sprig in his lifeless hand. He lies in our
little cemetery on the height, near the shadow of
the great cross; the low white board tablet at the
head of the mound once bore the words `Grenadier
Jacques,' but the rains and the snows have washed
away the painted letters. It is as well.”

The priest paused, and we both looked toward the
empty bench, as though we saw a figure seated there,
staff in hand. After a time my little hostess came
out on to the piazza, and we all talked together of
the island and its past. “My boat is waiting,” said
Father Piret at length; “the wind is fair, and I must

return to the Chenaux to-night. This near departure
is my excuse for coming twice in one day to see you,
madame.”

“Stay over, my dear sir,” I urged. “I too shall
leave in another day. We may not meet again.”

“Not on earth; but in another world we may,”
answered the priest, rising as he spoke.

“Father, your blessing,” said the little hostess in a
low tone, after a quick glance toward the many windows
through which the bulwarks of Protestantism
might be gazing. But all was dark, both without and
within, and the Father gave his blessing to both of us,
fervently, but with an apostolic simplicity. Then he
left us, and I watched his tall form, crowned with
silvery hair, as he passed down the cherry-tree avenue.
Later in the evening the moon came out, and I saw a
Mackinac boat skimming by the house, its white sails
swelling full in the fresh breeze.

“That is Father Piret's boat,” said my hostess.
“The wind is fair; he will reach the Chenaux before
midnight.”

A day later, and I too sailed away. As the steamer
bore me southward, I looked back toward the island
with a sigh. Half hidden in its wild green garden
I saw the old Agency; first I could distinguish its
whole rambling length; then I lost the roofless piazza,
then the dormer-windows, and finally I could only
discern the white chimneys, with their crumbling

crooked tops. The sun sank into the Strait off Waugoschance,
the evening gun flashed from the little fort
on the height, the shadows grew dark and darker, the
island turned into green foliage, then a blue outline,
and finally there was nothing but the dusky water.