Show M 44 il F MM l l the plains of f abraham oi by james oliver aliver curwood 5 by doubleday doran co ino service i si t CHAPTER XIV she paused as if re visioning what had bad passed then said there were a few moments with alone that night we stood on the shore while took the blood from tits his wound god must have made tiaona love me teems jeems almost as he be had loved the one whose place I 1 had taken when I 1 found him lie he was so cold and still in the darkness darene that he might marlit have been stone instead of flesh but he promised to make tt it possible for you to come to me as soon as he could do so without arousing the suspicions of his people and then he touched nip me for the first time as lie must have caressed cures red silver heels lie he held my braid in fit hla fits hand and spoke her name in a way I 1 had never heard him speak kit it before I 1 kissed him film I 1 put my arms around his neck and kissed him and it seemed that even aliet he loved me my lips touched stone yet he loved me and because been use of that I 1 have wondered through all these years why he be did not send you to me jeems jekins could not tell her it was because lie he hit had killed tiaona As 1 the mel melody dy 0 of the bell h had ad fallen like a benediction over the plains of abraham so peace and happiness followed in the footsteps of the conquerors of new france I rance at the stroke of a pen half a continent changed hands and from the pulpits of the canadas as well us front from those of the english li colonies v voices were raised in gratitude to god that the conflict was ended even t tl e beaten rejoiced for during the mo moulds tillis of its final agony the heart of the nation had been by corruption and dishonesty until falth had crumbled in m mens ans souls and british presence pre nonce caroe came to be regarded its as it a guarantee of liberty and riot not as tho the calamity alain ity of defeat at last there Is an end to war on this continent pren clied elied thomas foxcroft pastor of the old church in boston for like a million others of hla his countrymen lie he did not forsee the still greater conflict for american inde pen deme less than fifteen years ahead and the echo was repented repeated at last there Is an end to war again the sun aun was golden in fit its promise men called the days their own the frontiers slumbered the most vengeful of f the savages retreated to their fast nesses women sang and chil children dien played with new visions in their eyes these were the days of a nations nation birth when the briton mingled with those whom lie he had find defeated and transformed new france into canada in the spring of 1 1701 7 jeems returned to the richelieu madame Tont eur her spirit subdued and her malice chastened chasteney chast ened placed place into his hands and those of her daughter the broad domain of manor which it was her desire never to see again that the home of their future was wai to he built amid the ic nei of f it a tragedy which had brought them together and where they would feel the presence ot loved ones who had found happiness there as aa well as death brought to tobnette Tot nette and jeems a joy which only they could understand for the charred ruins of manor manor s end nd Forbidden of IF valley were home even to adams ana anen jeems reached the hallowed ground he had left five years before lie he wrote tol nette who waited in quebec telling her how the hills smiled their welcome how green the abandoned meadows were and that everywhere flowers had come to bless the solitude and the resting places of their dead then he set to wort with the men who had come with him and in the golden flush of september he went for tobnette Tol nette and tits his boy A haze of smoke drifted once more from the chimneys of cot tapes in the valley lands and alt with another summer the lowing of cattle and the bleating of sheep rose at evening time and the old mill wheel turned again and often tobnette Tol nette rode beside teems jeems toward forbidden v valley al sometimes with her hair in curls with a ribbon streaming from them it was in this second year when the enest chestnut nut burrs were green on the ridges that strangers came down the trall trail from hill one evening two men and a woman a girl the men were Se and the miller who met them first eyed them with suspicion as well as wonder for while the girl was pretty and the woman white the men who accompanied them were fierce and tall and marked by battle they were also extremely proud and passed the miller without heeding his command to make themselves known striking to the front of the big house followed by the woman and the girl where tobnette Tol nette saw them and gave such a cry that the miller ran back for his gun in this way elanga came to manor to show jeems the sear scar hla his arrow had made and with him were wood pigeon and and mary D dagh agh len fen for many years after this until he was killed in the frontier fighting which preceded the american war tor for independence returned often to the valley of 0 the richelieu and as time went on the pack of soft skins and bright feathers he brought with him grew larger for another boy was given to tobnette Tol nette and then a girl so that with three children always watching and hoping for his arrival the warrior was kept busy bugy accumulating treasures for them once each year mary alary and visited manor and with them came their children when they grew old enough to travel through the wilderness wood pigeon did not return to yokana her crippled father had given up its his vallant valiant struggle the preceding winter and had died she lived with tobnette Tol nette and seems until she was nineteen when she married a young french landowner named de poncy from one of a sheaf of yellow letters may be read these lines dated june 14 1767 1707 written to nancy lot billere gagnon by marle marie antoinette thil aln my own dear nancy sadness has fallen alien over us here at manor banor odd Is dead I 1 no longer have a doubt that god has haa given souls to the beasts for wherever we look we miss him and a fortnight has passed since we burled buried him close to the chapel yard it Is like missing a child who loved us or more thu that one who guarded us as aa he loved even last night little marie antoinette sobbed herself to sleep because lie he cannot come when she calls him I 1 cannot keep tears from my own eyes when I 1 think of him and even jeems strong as he Is turns from me when we pass the chapel yard yand ashamed of what I 1 might see in his face odd was all we had left to us of other days daya he and hepsibah and it Is bah tor for whom roy my heart aches most for years dear old odd has guided him in tits his blindness with a cord attached to his neck and I 1 believe they knew how to talk to each other now sits alone so much keeping away from others and every evening we see him groping about the gate to the chapel yard as aa if hoping to find some one there oh what a terrible ter Tible thing Is death which rends us all with its grief la in time I 1 but I 1 must not moralize or unburden my gloom or you will wish I 1 ha and d remained silent another month it Is a glorious june here the roses one wonders if the misty mist spots on the yellow page sire tears THE END |