half an hour later, brock followed nancy into the parlor. the lady of the maple leaf was at his side, and nancy had an instinctive feeling that they were in search of her. it was the lady who spoke.
“mr. brock has just been talking to your father in the hall,” she said; “and now he has asked me to give him a ceremonious introduction to you. as a rule, we aren’t so ceremonious, here in canada; but mr. brock insists upon it that the butter-knife and the mustard are no proper basis for acquaintance.”
“i have learned a thing or two from johnny bull,” the tall canadian added, as he placed himself in the window-seat beside nancy’s chair.
“johnny bull?”
“yes, an english fellow that has been stopping here for a few days. where is he? i haven’t seen him for a week,” he added, turning to the lady.
“he is ill; i expect him back in a day or two. please excuse me. i hear the telephone.” and she hurried out of the room.
nancy looked after her regretfully. even during the three days she had been there, she had gained a sound liking for the blithe little woman, always busy, never hurried, and invariably at leisure for a friendly word with any or all of her great family of boarders. brock’s glance followed that of nancy.
“yes, she is a remarkable woman,” he assented gravely to her unspoken words. for an instant, his keen gray eyes met nancy’s eyes, steadily, yet with no look of boldness. then his tone changed. “but about johnny bull. he is a revelation to the house, the son of a stiff-backed generation. he was here for a week, and left us all trying to get his accent and to imitate his manners.”
“and what became of him?”
“gone. the lady says he is ill. i hope we didn’t make him so. have you been here long, miss howard?”
“three days.”
“and have you seen anything at all of quebec?”
“yes, a little. i have been to the cathedral, and the basilica, and the gray nunnery, and the ursuline convent, and—”
“you appear to be of an ecclesiastical turn of mind,” brock suggested, laughing.
“so does quebec,” she retorted.
he laughed again.
“yes, i suppose it does to a stranger; but wait till you have been here a little longer.”
“what then?”
“you’ll forget that a church exists, except the one you go to, on sundays.”
she laughed in her turn.
“not unless i grow deaf. the ursuline bell begins to ring at four, and the one on the basilica at half-past. from that time on until midnight, the bells never stop for one single instant. under such circumstances, how can one forget that a church exists?”
he modified his statement.
“i mean that you’ll find that quebec has its worldly side.”
“which side?” she queried. “as far as i can discover, the city is bounded on the north by the gray nuns, and on the south by the franciscan sisters. moreover, i met friar tuck in the flesh, down in saint sauveur, yesterday.”
brock raised his brows questioningly.
“do you mean that your explorations have even extended into saint sauveur?”
“yes. still, there is hope for me. i haven’t been to the citadel yet, and i keep my guide-book strictly out of sight.”
“out of mind, too, i hope,” he advised her. “it holds one error to every two facts, and the average tourist carries away the impression that montgomery was shot in mid-air, like a hawk above a hen-roost. if you don’t believe me, go and listen to their comments upon his tablet.”
“where is it?”
“two thirds of the way up cape diamond, above little champlain street. it is labelled as being the spot where montgomery fell; but, as it is two hundred feet above the road, one can only infer that he came down from somewhere aloft. is this your first visit to quebec, miss howard?”
“yes. i have been in sainte anne-de-beaupré for three weeks, though.”
“any pilgrimages?” brock inquired, as he deliberately settled himself in a less tentative position and crossed his legs. a closer inspection of nancy was undermining his vigorous objection to red hair, and he suddenly determined that the parlor was a much more attractive spot than he had been wont to suppose.
“one; but it was a large one.”
“miracles, too?”
nancy laughed.
“one and a half,” she responded unexpectedly.
“meaning?” brock questioned.
“the half miracle was a man who threw away his crutches and crawled off without them.”
“and the whole one?”
nancy laughed again. then she said demurely,—
“that the good sainte anne answered my prayer for a little excitement.”
“was that a miracle?”
she answered question with question.
“did you ever stop at sainte anne?”
“yes, once for the space of two hours. we had all the excitement i cared for, though.”
nancy sat up alertly.
“was it a pilgrimage?”
“no; merely a pig on the track.”
she nestled back again in the depths of her chair.
“what anticlimax!” she protested.
“but you haven’t told me what form your own excitement took,” brock reminded her.
“it was an englishman.”
“oh, we’re used to those things,” he answered.
“then i pity you,” she said, with an explosiveness of which she was swift to repent. “oh, i beg your pardon,” she added contritely. “perhaps you are one of them, yourself.”
“no; merely a canadian,” brock reassured her.
“isn’t it the same thing?”
a mocking light came into brock’s gray eyes.
“not always,” he replied quietly.
“no.” nancy’s tone was thoughtful. “i am beginning to find it out. our englishman was unique.”
“ours?”
“yes, by adoption. the good sainte anne and i took him in charge.”
“with what success?”
“it remains to be seen. we did our best for him; but really he was very preposterous.”
“what became of him?”
“nothing.”
“nothing?”
“no. he is there now; at least, he was there, when we came away.”
“was he working out his novena?”
“no; just mending himself. he fell off from something, his dignity most likely, and bumped his head and sprained his ankle. i happened to be on the spot, and rashly admitted that my father was a doctor. then, before i really had grasped the situation, the poor man was bundled into a cart and deposited at our door, half fainting and wholly out of temper.”
“and then?”
“and then we couldn’t get a nurse for love or money, and i had to go to work and take care of him.”
“happy man!” brock observed. “i only hope he appreciated his luck.”
the corners of nancy’s mouth curved upwards, and a malicious light came into her eyes.
“i think he did. he not only expressed himself as pleased with my services; but, on one occasion, he gave me a—”
“a what?”
“a brand-new guinea.” and nancy’s laugh rang out so infectiously that brock would have joined in it, if she had been discussing the foibles of himself rather than of the unknown englishman.
“how exactly like our johnny bull!” he commented, when he found his voice once more.
suddenly nancy’s puritan conscience asserted itself.
“truly, i ought not to laugh about him, mr. brock. he had no idea that i was anything but a servant, and he thought he had every reason to tip me. he wasn’t bad, only very funny. he really knew a great deal and, according to his notions, he was a most perfect gentleman. it was only that our notions clashed sometimes. yes, daddy, i am coming. good night, mr. brock.” and she left him staring rather wishfully after the disappearing train of her dull blue gown.
it must be confessed that brock dawdled over his breakfast, the next morning; but his dawdling was quite in vain. nancy had taken her own breakfast long before he appeared, and, by the time brock had reached his second cup of coffee, she was walking rapidly along the terrace towards the citadel. at the end, she paused for a moment of indecision. then, with a glance up at the union jack above her head, she slowly mounted the long flight of steps and came out on the narrow upper terrace which skirts the outer wall of the fortress. there she paused again and stood, her arms folded on the railing, looking down on the picture at her feet. she had been there once before; to-day, however, the impression was keener, more enjoyable. the change might have come from the sunshine that lay in yellow splashes over the city beneath; it might have come in part from the memory of her idle talk with brock, the night before. in all that town of antiquity and of strangers, it had been good to meet some one whose age and viewpoint corresponded to her own. the direct gaze of brock’s clear eyes had pleased nancy. she had liked his voice, and the unconscious ease with which he carried his seventy-three inches of height. too outward seeming, his type was as unfamiliar as that of the englishman, and nancy liked it vastly better. with barth, she had been standing on tiptoe, psychologically speaking. with brock, she could be her every-day, normal self.
it had been at brock’s suggestion that she had gone to the upper terrace, that morning; and she shook off the memory of his gray eyes in order to recall the dozen sentences with which he had characterized the salient points of the view beneath. then she gave up the attempt. in the face of all that beauty, it was impossible to fix one’s mind upon mere questions of geography. at her left, the city sloped down to saint roch and the charles river beyond, and beyond that again was the long white village of beauport straggling along the bluff above the river. at her right, quarter of a mile beyond the citadel, were the ruined hillocks of the old french fortifications; and, on the opposite shore, the town of lévis was crested with its trio of forts and dotted with tapering spires of gray. from one of the piers below, a little steamer was swinging out into midstream and heading towards the point where sillery church overlooks the valley; and, close against the base of the cliff, the irregular roofs of champlain street lay huddled in a long line of shadow. the river was shadowy, too; but above the city a rift in the clouds sent the strong sun pouring down over the guns on the eastern ramparts, over the southern tower of the basilica and over the spires of laval. as she looked, nancy drew a long breath of sheer delight and, all at once and for no assignable cause, she decided that she was glad she had come. then abruptly she turned her back upon a tall figure crossing dufferin terrace, and walked swiftly away past cape diamond and came out on the cove fields beyond.
when she came in to dinner, she was flushed and animated. as brock had predicted, she had discovered that quebec’s interest did not centre wholly in its churches. true, there had been a certain disillusion in finding a portly englishman playing golf with himself upon the ground over which the french troops had marched out to face the invading, conquering foe, in seeing a martello tower begirt with clothes-lines and flapping garments, and in discovering a brand-new rifle factory risen up, ph?nix-like, from the ashes of the old-time battleground. the impression was blurred a little; nevertheless, it was there, and nancy, as her feet wandered up and down the trail of the armies upon that thirteenth of september of the brave year ’fifty-nine, took a curious satisfaction in the fact that wolfe, too, had been banned with a head of red hair. her own ancestors were english. perhaps some of their kin had landed at sillery cove, to scale the cliff and die like gentlemen upon the plains of abraham. her blood flowed more quickly at the thought. in nancy’s mind, this was the hour of england. she even forgot the shining golden guinea that reposed among her extra hairpins.
nancy came into the house to find the lady packing a dinner into an elaborate system of pails and cosies. the lady looked up with a smile.
“our invalid has come back again,” she explained; “and i am sending his dinner over to his room.”
