At Albany and Schenectady we stored our pelts, and so on to New York, where my father shipped them over the sea."
"But he could ill spare you surely?"
"Very ill. But as he was rich, he thought it best that I should learn some things that are not to be found in the woods. And so he sent me in the _Golden Rod_, under the care of Ephraim Savage."
"Who is also of New York?"
"Nay; he is the first man that ever was born at Boston."
"I cannot remember the names of all these villages."
"And yet there may come a day when their names shall be as well known as that of Paris."
De Catinat laughed heartily. "The woods may have given you much, but not the gift of prophecy, my friend. Well, my heart is often over the water even as yours is, and I would ask nothing better than to see the palisades of Point Levi again, even if all the Five Nations were raving upon the other side of them. But now, if you will look there in the gap of the trees, you will see the king's new palace."
The two young men pulled up their horses, and looked down at the wide-spreading building in all the beauty of its dazzling whiteness, and at the lovely grounds, dotted with fountain and with statue, and barred with hedge and with walk, stretching away to the dense woods which clustered round them. It amused De Catinat to watch the swift play of wonder and admiration which flashed over his companion's features.
"Well, what do you think of it?" he asked at last.
"I think that God's best work is in America, and man's in Europe."
"Ay, and in all Europe there is no such palace as that, even as there is no such king as he who dwells within it."
"Can I see him, think you?"
"Who, the king? No, no; I fear that you are scarce made for a court."
"Nay, I should show him all honour."
"How, then? What greeting would you give him?"
"I would shake him respectfully by the hand, and ask as to his health and that of his family."
"On my word, I think that such a greeting might please him more than the bent knee and the rounded back, and yet, I think, my son of the woods, that it were best not to lead you into paths where you would be lost, as would any of the courtiers if you dropped them in the gorge of the Saguenay. But _hola_! what comes here? It looks like one of the carriages of the court."
A white cloud of dust, which had rolled towards them down the road, was now so near that the glint of gilding and the red coat of the coachman could be seen breaking out through it. As the two cavaliers reined their horses aside to leave the roadway clear, the coach rumbled heavily past them, drawn by two dapple grays, and the Horsemen caught a glimpse, as it passed, of a beautiful but haughty face which looked out at them. An instant afterwards a sharp cry had caused the driver to pull up his horses, and a white hand beckoned to them through the carriage window.
"It is Madame de Montespan, the proudest woman in France," whispered De Catinat. "She would speak with us, so do as I do."
He touched his horse with the spur, gave a _gambade_ which took him across to the carriage, and then, sweeping off his hat, he bowed to his horse's neck; a salute in which he was imitated, though in a somewhat ungainly fashion, by his companion.
"Ha, captain!" said the lady, with no very pleasant face, "we meet again."
"Fortune has ever been good to me, madame."
"It was not so this morning."
"You say truly. It gave me a hateful duty to perform."
"And you performed it in a hateful fashion."
"Nay, madame, what could I do more?"
The lady sneered, and her beautiful face turned as bitter as it could upon occasion.
"You thought that I had no more power with the king. You thought that my day was past. No doubt it seemed to you that you might reap favour with the new by being the first to cast a slight upon the old."
"But, madame--"
"You may spare your protestations. I am one who judges by deeds and not by words. Did you, then, think that my charm had so faded, that any beauty which I ever have had is so withered?"
"Nay, madame, I were blind to think that."
"Blind as a noontide owl," said Amos Green with emphasis.