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. finery and weapons. A company of young girls followed, hung about with garlands. Then came the bell. This was borne by a troop of stout youths, upon a pole heavily wreathed with flowers. Its unrusted surface had caught no stain from its journey over the snow or its burial in the earth. The cross upon it glowed brightly forth, and plain about the crown ran the motto, "Ad majorem Dei gloriam." Its other legend was also clear, "O Maria, tuis precibus protege nos." It was covered by a canopy of crimson velvet, supported by six of the leading habitants, among whom Thankful beheld Antoine, now promoted to an office of responsibility in the provincial militia. Father Mériel came next, in priestly attire of great richness, bearing in his hands a handsome missal. Immediately before the canopy, two strong men bore a heavy burden of flowers, which were strewn continually upon the path by acolytes in surplices. Four other acolytes, children, with thuribles of silver, wafted incense toward the bell, and behind, a group of singers, from time to time in the pauses of the instruments, chanted an anthem in its honor, of which Thankful caught these words: —

"Laudate Dominum in cymbalis sonantibus; Laudate eum in cymbalis jubilationis."

Following the Father, walked, two and two, a company of Ursuline nuns, stationed in Belleau, partly for the education of the children of the habitants, but more especially to train the families of the half-converted savages who abounded in the neighborhood in the mysteries of the Faith. As they moved on in their sable robes, with capes and caps of spotless white linen, their faces meanwhile wearing looks of good-will, they gave great solemnity to the train, without imparting gloom. While the line was moving, the people fell upon their knees on every side, and those within the houses could be seen kneeling at the windows. When the bell had passed, all fell into line in the rear, and marched toward the chapel.

When the little elevation was reached upon which the chapel stood, the procession paused. A lithe Indian youth climbed quickly into a tall oak-tree, the branches of which overhung the chancel, and by means of thongs, which were speedily adjusted, the bell was soon hoisted to a

stout limb just above the eaves. The long line then entered the chapel, the people following until the interior space overflowed; a larger congregation were gathered in front than within, who, through door and windows thrown open wide, could see in the distance the high altar. The celebration of the mass straightway began. The chapel itself was a light and simple structure. The permanence of the settlements of New France in those days was a matter of uncertainty and, except in the close vicinity of Montreal and Quebec, fear of the Iroquois and their English allies disposed the settlers to expend little time or means on buildings which might so easily fall a prey to such incendiaries.

The richness of the appointments of the chapel, however, far in the wilderness as it was, had already struck Thankful with surprise, and on this day there seemed to her untutored eyes to be a real splendor about the adornments and utensils; she in her seclusion, certainly, had never seen an approach to it.

"The Father has given all his wealth to the Faith," said Annette.

Vestments and vessels were of exceeding beauty. Candles made from the wax of the wild laurel burned on the altar in chased candlesticks. The wine pressed from wild grapes was held in a chalice of gold. In a niche above the crucifix the painting of a hovering dove, surrounded by a halo, was hung against the roof of bark this symbolized the Holy Ghost, and was associated by the Indians with the thunder-bird of their own superstitions, and so regarded by them with a quite extraordinary awe. High upon the wall was fixed a painting of St. Francis Xavier, his attenuated palms crossed upon his breast, his face upturned in adoration, a face wan but beautiful, with aspiration and self-sacrifice written in the eyes and upon the features. Presently the Jesuit entered with his acolytes. As he stood before the altar in sweeping alb and chasuble his mien was more imposing than ever. His movements were, as always, full of dignity; but his heightened color and a tremor of the voice indicated this day unusual emotion. Now he turned toward the assembly with folded hands, now raised his arm to make the sign of the cross, now bent with his face toward the altar while he murmured the Latin ascrip

tions. In the chants the voices of the Indian women were low and sweet; deep and resonant the tones of the men; and the music rolled with solemn effect, in the intervals of the service, from the little temple into the space beyond.

--

Meantime the Indians on their bare knees, the impressible women, the gaunt voyageurs in their fringes and sashes, reverently knelt. The tall figure of the priest bent in the frequent genuflexions, the incense rose, and Thankful, Puritan though she was, felt her soul subdued before the sonorous rhythm and all-conquering harmony of Miserere and Gloria. At length, as the priest, extending his hands on high, lifted up the host, - just then, when the awe was deepest, the mufflings fell from the bell. Thankful had heard its tones last when it had rung its mysterious summons to Father Mériel, listening alone upon the snow, upon the eve of the attack at Meadowboro. Once, twice, thrice, now it sounded. Thankful says it had its old melody, its old pathetic melancholy; but at the same time there was a sympathetic tremor that in some indescribable way struck her as indicating content and rest. The sound went deep into the dark forest, among the homes of the village, over the sweeping stream, where it mingled with the low roar of the distant rapids, until the air, thrilled with its pulsations, seemed consecrated.

One sees plainly, on many a page of the narrative, that Thankful's spirit was very reverent, its sensibility to beauty most acute. One understands it all when she declares she was almost overborne at this time through sympathy with the company around her. A tide of feeling swelled within her until her soul seemed well-nigh bursting, and it was with an effort that she held back from prostrating herself with the villagers and making the sign of the cross. By an exertion of will she kept herself up, her head being the only one, as she supposed, which was not bent to the earth in the solemnity of the moment. She saw the shoulders of Father Mériel, whose face was towards the altar, heave powerfully, as if he were almost convulsed with excess of feeling. When he faced again the assembly, his countenance bore traces of a struggle which had not yet subsided. One would have said there had been great joy and triumph there which

he had striven hard to suppress; whether because he did not wish to betray a secret of his soul to the multitude, or because he felt it to be in ill-accord with the rite he was celebrating, Thankful could not determine.

While she was fancying to herself that she alone of the great throng stood with head unbowed, she suddenly became aware, and it was with a shock, that she was not, after all, solitary. Her eye fell upon the figure of the Sieur in his armor, who had knelt indeed, but who held his body stubbornly erect. It was plain that he believed himself to be unobserved, while the congregation were absorbed in devotion. His position was to one side, partly concealed by a pillar that supported the roof, half screened by which, his gaze was fixed upon the form of the priest. The Sieur's face, too, indicated intense emotion, and lo! it had the expression which Thankful had seen but once before, and which, though stamped marvellously in her memory, she had come to feel she might have merely fancied and not really seen. The countenance bent on Father Mériel was dark with what could only be hatred, the eyes lurid with malignant fury.

After the mass the day was given over to feasting and mirth. The houses were thrown open in the delicious midsummer air, garlands abounded, and from several places came the sound of violins and flutes, and the beat of dancing feet. Thankful, now feeling much at home, not only at the hearth of Antoine, but with the villagers in general, looked in smilingly upon more than one company. There was always a

certain deference in the manner of the people toward her, as became peasants before one whom they believed to be a high-born lady, but to-day several brownfaced foresters were bold enough to extend invitation to her to trip it with them to the sound of the fiddle. She was not far past the period of youth, and now that she felt some ease of mind, much of the beauty that had made her a few years before the pride of Meadowboro, we may be sure was coming back to her face. She had not quite come to the point when she could be so un-Puritan as to take part in the dancing, though she admits that all the careless gayety was a pleasant sight to her, and that her ear was quite charmed by the lively music which some really good per

formers among the habitants shook out from their bows, nodding and swaying to the rhythm of the air.

As the long day waned the abandon of the festival increased. The eyes of the French girls snapped and sparkled with merry excitement, and the blood glowed warm in their brown cheeks, as they followed with their tripping feet each note of the quickest and most intricate caprices of the fiddlers. The fringes of the buckskin-clad voyageurs fluttered and flew as they leaped to the tune, clapping their hands, and bursting into ecstacies of voluble chattering. The green plat in the village centre was alive with nimble couples; -now opposing ranks of antic dancers swayed and flourished to one another in answering capers; - now a tripping line, maid and man alternate, threaded its sinuous way beneath arches made of hands clasped and held on high. The old men and women meanwhile, scarcely less active, kept time with foot-beats, and a quick clapping of palms upon their knees. So in electric reciprocation that seemed to grow more responsive and intimate as the day advanced, musicians and dancers mutually gave and took enthusiasm until the festival became a jovial frenzy.

Thankful, with her own pulses on a quiver, contrasted in her mind the frank rejoicing with the over-gloomy life which she had heretofore known, not to the advantage of the latter. The gayety seemed to her quite innocent; there was no excess nor aught unseemly, and as the slow-coming darkness fell at last, the mirth grew quieter. There was, however, one exception.

From the direction of the camp of the soldiers, close at the riverside, at some distance from the cabins, sounds of a wilder revelry were heard, which became more plain as a hush fell upon the village in general. Indians had mingled with the soldiers, and brandy was passing freely about among them.

As Thankful came out of a cabin in the twilight, she was not far from the chapel, and saw Father Mériel, partly screened by the thick foliage, sitting at the door of the lodge close at hand in which he dwelt. A huge Indian came staggering from the direction of the soldiers' camp, quite overcome by drink. He paused on the grass in front of the church, then presently, while the eyes of the priest were turned

elsewhere, reeled in at the door, which was standing open. In a few minutes he came stumbling out again, singing incoherently, and holding in his hand nothing less than the golden chalice, which he had evidently taken in his drunken lawlessness from the altar itself. Father Mériel now turned his head, as his attention was for the first time attracted by the noise; then he calmly rose and went toward the savage. The latter, however, as the Father approached, obeying a wayward impulse, dashed the cup violently to the ground. Father Mériel, quietly stooping, picked up the vessel, then, with a mild rebuke to the drunkard, went into the chapel to replace it. The Indian stumbled forward a few steps, then returned toward the chapel. His mind apparently was not so far clouded but that he remembered in some dim way the object which that day had concentrated attention upon itself. In his drunken whim, at any rate, he staggered toward the tree containing the bell, made ready to swing himself into the branches, and drew his knife, with a design apparently of cutting the thongs which held the bell in its place.

As Thankful relates, just at this moment Father Mériel appeared again from the chapel and became aware of what was going forward. An utter change at once took place in his conduct. His face suddenly grew white; with a rapid bound or two he fell upon the savage, with whom he grappled with a certain desperate vehemence. The position was a dangerous one. The Indian was powerful, and the usual respect for the person of the priest for the time being quite overcome by liquor. He turned with his keen knife upon Father Mériel, who unhesitatingly closed with him, and a close grapple began. From the nearest dwellings men ran with all speed to the rescue. The wretch was at length laid prostrate and bound, but not until the black robe of the Jesuit had been heavily slashed, and in one place a stain of blood indicated that his flesh had been reached by the sharp blade.

It was soon ascertained that no serious wound had been inflicted. The priest stood beneath the tree, still pale and trembling in his excitement, and as the people were dispersing, with what seemed like over-anxiety he appeared desirous to explain his outburst. The bell was a sacred

utensil, he said: it would have been sacrilege had it been rudely hurled to the ground: there was no way but for him to interfere. The whole scene had passed under the sharp observation of Thankful, who also heard his words at the close. The contrast between the Jesuit's manner when he rescued the chalice and when he rescued the bell, seemed to her singular. In the former case it was done quietly, without a trace of emotion: when the bell was threatened, however, he suddenly became the subject of uncontrollable passion. What should make the bell more sacred than the cup from the altar, that he should defend it with especial eagerness? What lay back of the confused explanation with which he now seemed to seek to parry the curiosity that had been aroused in lookerson?

As she turned in the heavy dusk which was now settling down upon the scene, to go to Antoine's cottage, the Sieur rushed past her with a hasty stride. It was not too dark for her to see that his face, also, wore an expression of excitement. He had evidently just heard of the event. He sought with eagerness Father Mériel's side, whose hand he clasped, apparently with great warmth, and the two disappeared in intimate converse within the Jesuit's lodge.

"What is the relation of Father Mériel and the Sieur?" said Thankful to Annette, as she told the story of the priest's escape, on her return.

and the fine heroes that wrote the Relations des Jésuites, in the beatific state in which I hope the noble fellows are now living after the tortures they underwent upon earth, feel an added touch of pleasure because Thankful has, so to speak, come to life to testify to their truthfulness?"

Indeed, I believe I may claim to have done my generation, if not the blessed dead, some service in editing Thankful's narration, and yet my path in the matter has not been unvexed by thorns. The Gradgrind who edits the county paper, for instance, has repeatedly sought to belittle my discoveries. "A possessed bell, forsooth! as if it were possible such a thing could have a life of its own, changing its tone according to circumstances and shining with a light from within itself! Is the schoolmaster an impostor, or has he himself been imposed upon? Granting that he has really found the ancient manuscript, as he pretends, what is it but a record of hallucination, and what value can we attach to any statement from a creature weak-minded enough to be so deceived?"

I may throw myself confidingly, I am sure, into the arms of a sympathetic public. What though nowadays bells are never strange! We have to do here with the bells of one hundred and eighty years ago. I shall at any rate discharge my duty. Here is Thankful's narration, shortened and systematized as our busy world will demand that it should be, but no change is made in her statement. She was the victim of morbid fancies, says the end of the 19th century; the poor woman was bewitched, says the beginning of the 18th. I, fortunately, have not to judge, but only faithfully to present the details.

MONTH after month Thankful watched the movements of the priest. Her feeling was far enough from entire approval of his life. It was rumored in the village that he wore next his skin a girdle studded with spikes; and she herself, returning from the river-bank one night when he was holding a vigil, heard the sound of a scourge from his lodge. Far more than this asceticism, a certain artfulness of which Father Mériel seemed capable, offended the frank nature of Thankful, a specimen of which she had seen in his baptism of the dying child during the retreat. From the first the

Father had treated her with friendliness, and in one of their conversations she candidly expressed to him her scruples. The Jesuit without hesitation admitted all that Thankful charged, declaring that to save a soul in peril a deception might be allowed. What was it, after all, but a choice between evils? and of the two evils, the slight deception and the eternal suffering of a soul, could any one doubt that the former was the smaller? When multitudes were on the path to perdition, it was no time for paltering. To practise a certain art, even though one did not come short of actual untruth, was but to show the wisdom of the serpent, which was not at all inconsistent with the innocence and harmlessness of the dove; and the Jesuit with a benevolent smile quoted from Escobar and Sanchez, casuists of the order, in support of his claim. Nor could Thankful find in her heart that the Jesuit's motive was the highest. He was ready to encounter any hardship, torture, or any form of death to advance the Faith; but, so far as she could find out, it was in expectation that after death he would be admitted straightway to the fellowship of angels and an enjoyment of the bliss of heaven. was the motive, after all, but selfishness at bottom - somewhat more long-headed than that of men in general, but still selfishness—a postponement of enjoyment, which was the great good, until the world to come, in the thought that a little waiting would bring it in greater amount.

What

Thankful says that when she coolly thought, all these considerations were present to her mind, yet they tended constantly to retire into the background. In spite of them, she could not do otherwise than behold with admiration the amiable grace with which Father Mériel mingled in the life of the village, the meek patience with which he stooped to the youngest and poorest, and to the repulsive savages from the woods. Genuine as was the respect with which the Meadowboro people had regarded Mr. Wooderoffe, it was plain to Thankful that his influence had been quite different from that which Father Mériel exercised over the habitants. It was in part due, no doubt, to the fact that the habitants themselves were of a more tractable nature than the Puritans. Making this abatement, however, the ascendency of the priest as he walked among his flock was

far more complete and impressive than that of the rugged and sturdy English divine, respected though he was. When Father Mériel's dark-robed figure appeared in the street, his shadow falling upon a group of children at play would at once bring them to pause. He would give them his benediction, his face lighting up with spiritual beauty. Men and women turned to him in doubt and sorrow with a confidence that was touching; nor, on the other hand, did any festival pass without his presence, his features taking on condescension and gracious affability as he moved among singers and dancers. His words fell like consoling balm upon the afflicted, peace through him was established in families that were at variance, the blameworthy were corrected with reprimands softened by the spirit of charity. Was the sadness which his face habitually wore the effect of some sorrow in that mysterious past from which he had come, or did it follow naturally from his faith and discipline? This was a question which Thankful was long unable to

answer.

As Thankful, one summer morning, was passing the building in which the school of the Ursuline nuns was held, doors and windows were thrown open and she looked in. The French and Indian children were seated side by side, as Annette had explained, that the little barbarians might the more rapidly learn to kneel and make the sign of the cross. Upon the platform at the end of the room, together with two of the nuns, stood the priest, the tonsure plain upon his uncovered head, his features full of their usual benignity. At a sign the children knelt with him, crossing themselves, while into the outer air came the pleasant murmur of reverent young voices, repeating the Pater Noster in concert. When this had been done in French, Latin, and Indian, a familiar morning-hymn from the breviary was sung, which now Thankful had often heard, and which she well understood.