Castle Nowhere

C >> Constance Fenimore Woolson >> Castle Nowhere

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In times of danger formality drops from us. During those long hours,
when the next moment might have brough 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 realise 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
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
flowerbeds, 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 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 from 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 to 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 shadow
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
too I 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 jackknife. 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 patiently, even reverently, although I was much the
younger; at intervals he replied, "Oui, mon pere," 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 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 cafe, 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 to 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.

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