The Golden Dog [143]
words.
"I say, Master Felix, that but for Mere Eve there would have been no curse upon men, to make them labor when they do not want to, and no sin either. As the Cure says, we could have lain on the grass sunning ourselves all day long. Now it is nothing but work and pray, never play, else you will save neither body nor soul. Master Felix, I hope you will remember me if I come up to the Manor house."
"Ay, I will remember you, Jose," replied Felix, tartly; "but if labor was the curse which Eve brought into the world when she ate the apple, I am sure you are free from it. So ride up with the carts, Jose, and get out of the way of my Lady's carriage!"
Jose obeyed, and taking off his cap, bowed respectfully to the Lady de Tilly as she passed, leaning on the arm of Pierre Philibert, who escorted her to her carriage.
A couple of sleek Canadian horses, sure-footed as goats and strong as little elephants, drew the coach with a long, steady trot up the winding road which led to the Manor House.
The road, unfenced and bordered with grass on each side of the track, was smooth and well kept, as became the Grande Chaussee of the Barony of Tilly. It ran sometimes through stretches of cultivated fields--green pastures or corn-lands ripening for the sickle of the censitaire. Sometimes it passed through cool, shady woods, full of primeval grandeur,--part of the great Forest of Tilly, which stretched away far as the eye could reach over the hills of the south shore. Huge oaks that might have stood there from the beginning of the world, wide-branching elms, and dark pines overshadowed the highway, opening now and then into vistas of green fields where stood a cottage or two, with a herd of mottled cows grazing down by the brook. On the higher ridges the trees formed a close phalanx, and with their dark tops cut the horizon into a long, irregular line of forest, as if offering battle to the woodman's axe that was threatening to invade their solitudes.
Half an hour's driving brought the company to the Manor House, a stately mansion, gabled and pointed like an ancient chateau on the Seine.
It was a large, irregular structure of hammered stone, with deeply- recessed windows, mullioned and ornamented with grotesque carvings. A turret, loopholed and battlemented, projected from each of the four corners of the house, enabling its inmates to enfilade every side with a raking fire of musketry, affording an adequate defence against Indian foes. A stone tablet over the main entrance of the Manor House was carved with the armorial bearings of the ancient family of Tilly, with the date of its erection, and a pious invocation placing the house under the special protection of St. Michael de Thury, the patron saint of the House of Tilly.
The Manor House of Tilly had been built by Charles Le Gardeur de Tilly, a gentleman of Normandy, one of whose ancestors, the Sieur de Tilly, figures on the roll of Battle Abbey as a follower of Duke William at Hastings. His descendant, Charles Le Gardeur, came over to Canada with a large body of his vassals in 1636, having obtained from the King a grant of the lands of Tilly, on the bank of the St. Lawrence, "to hold in fief and seigniory,"--so ran the royal patent,--"with the right and jurisdiction of superior, moyenne and basse justice, and of hunting, fishing, and trading with the Indians throughout the whole of this royal concession; subject to the condition of foi et hommage, which he shall be held to perform at the Castle of St. Louis in Quebec, of which he shall hold under the customary duties and dues, agreeably to the coutume de Paris followed in this country."
Such was the style of the royal grants of seignioral rights conceded in New France, by virtue of one of which this gallant Norman gentleman founded his settlement and built this Manor House on the shores of the St. Lawrence.
A broad, smooth carriage road led up to the mansion across a park dotted with clumps of evergreens and deciduous trees. Here and there an ancient patriarch of the forest stood alone,--some old
"I say, Master Felix, that but for Mere Eve there would have been no curse upon men, to make them labor when they do not want to, and no sin either. As the Cure says, we could have lain on the grass sunning ourselves all day long. Now it is nothing but work and pray, never play, else you will save neither body nor soul. Master Felix, I hope you will remember me if I come up to the Manor house."
"Ay, I will remember you, Jose," replied Felix, tartly; "but if labor was the curse which Eve brought into the world when she ate the apple, I am sure you are free from it. So ride up with the carts, Jose, and get out of the way of my Lady's carriage!"
Jose obeyed, and taking off his cap, bowed respectfully to the Lady de Tilly as she passed, leaning on the arm of Pierre Philibert, who escorted her to her carriage.
A couple of sleek Canadian horses, sure-footed as goats and strong as little elephants, drew the coach with a long, steady trot up the winding road which led to the Manor House.
The road, unfenced and bordered with grass on each side of the track, was smooth and well kept, as became the Grande Chaussee of the Barony of Tilly. It ran sometimes through stretches of cultivated fields--green pastures or corn-lands ripening for the sickle of the censitaire. Sometimes it passed through cool, shady woods, full of primeval grandeur,--part of the great Forest of Tilly, which stretched away far as the eye could reach over the hills of the south shore. Huge oaks that might have stood there from the beginning of the world, wide-branching elms, and dark pines overshadowed the highway, opening now and then into vistas of green fields where stood a cottage or two, with a herd of mottled cows grazing down by the brook. On the higher ridges the trees formed a close phalanx, and with their dark tops cut the horizon into a long, irregular line of forest, as if offering battle to the woodman's axe that was threatening to invade their solitudes.
Half an hour's driving brought the company to the Manor House, a stately mansion, gabled and pointed like an ancient chateau on the Seine.
It was a large, irregular structure of hammered stone, with deeply- recessed windows, mullioned and ornamented with grotesque carvings. A turret, loopholed and battlemented, projected from each of the four corners of the house, enabling its inmates to enfilade every side with a raking fire of musketry, affording an adequate defence against Indian foes. A stone tablet over the main entrance of the Manor House was carved with the armorial bearings of the ancient family of Tilly, with the date of its erection, and a pious invocation placing the house under the special protection of St. Michael de Thury, the patron saint of the House of Tilly.
The Manor House of Tilly had been built by Charles Le Gardeur de Tilly, a gentleman of Normandy, one of whose ancestors, the Sieur de Tilly, figures on the roll of Battle Abbey as a follower of Duke William at Hastings. His descendant, Charles Le Gardeur, came over to Canada with a large body of his vassals in 1636, having obtained from the King a grant of the lands of Tilly, on the bank of the St. Lawrence, "to hold in fief and seigniory,"--so ran the royal patent,--"with the right and jurisdiction of superior, moyenne and basse justice, and of hunting, fishing, and trading with the Indians throughout the whole of this royal concession; subject to the condition of foi et hommage, which he shall be held to perform at the Castle of St. Louis in Quebec, of which he shall hold under the customary duties and dues, agreeably to the coutume de Paris followed in this country."
Such was the style of the royal grants of seignioral rights conceded in New France, by virtue of one of which this gallant Norman gentleman founded his settlement and built this Manor House on the shores of the St. Lawrence.
A broad, smooth carriage road led up to the mansion across a park dotted with clumps of evergreens and deciduous trees. Here and there an ancient patriarch of the forest stood alone,--some old