Marie Gourdon | Page 5

chieftain, he at length lost heart and gave up his idea.
Most of his men remained in the district, and intermarried with the
French families already settled there.
Poor Colonel McAllister never got over the blow to his hopes. For the
sake of the bonnie prince, so unworthy of his true devotion, he had

been estranged from his family, and had spent his small fortune in
coming to Canada. Here he was, perforce, obliged to remain.
After a while he settled down as a farmer, and managed to make
enough to keep body and soul together. Perhaps one of the most
sensible things he ever did was to marry Eugenie Laforge, the daughter
of the mayor of Rimouski. She was a pretty girl, and had a nice little
fortune, for money went further in those days than it does now; and
thus the McAllisters were fairly well to do.
Their life for ten years was a happy, uneventful one, most of it spent by
the colonel in writing an account of Prince Charlie's adventures. This
unfortunate young man, I need hardly remind the reader, had long ago,
in the dissipations of various European courts, forgotten that there still
existed such a person as Ivan McAllister.
True, the colonel did give certain spare hours to the education of his
son, but the Prince was ever first in his mind. One morning,--strangely
enough, the anniversary of the battle of Culloden--Ivan McAllister died
quietly after a few hours' illness. Even at the last he was true to his idol,
for his parting words were not addressed to wife or child, but it seemed
that memory, bridging over the gulf of years, brought him back to the
old days, and there was something very pathetic in his dying words:
"Oh, my Prince, my bonnie Prince, I shall see you soon!"
He was buried, according to a wish he had expressed some years before,
in the churchyard of Rimouski, and at the head of his grave was placed
a roughly hewn cross, bearing on it this inscription: "Here lies Ivan
McAllister, Colonel, of the 200th Regiment of Highlanders, second son
of The McAllister of Dunmorton Castle Fife, Scotland. R. I. P."
In his later days Ivan McAllister had, under the influence of the curé of
Rimouski, become a devout Roman Catholic.
His son inherited his little savings, and lived on at the farm, situated
between Father Point and Rimouski, and the McAllisters continued
there from father to son up to the year 1877, when my story opens.

Madame McAllister, sitting at the doorstep this summer afternoon was
the widow of a Robert McAllister, who had died two years ago, leaving
one son, a promising young man of three-and-twenty. Just now she was
waiting for the home-coming of her son Noël, who had been absent on
a long fishing expedition to the north shore of the St. Lawrence.
Suddenly the old lady lifted her head, for her quick ear heard the sound
of an approaching footstep. She rose hurriedly, as her son drew near,
and cried out in her pretty French voice: "Oh, Noël, my son, is that
you?--is it indeed you? How long you have been away! and, oh! how I
have missed you! Noël, my son, it is good to see you again."
"Yes, my mother, it is I. We landed at Father Point early this morning.
We have had such good sport, and very hard work. I am hungry, though,
my mother, for the walk up to Rimouski gave me an appetite."
"Yes, my son, you must be. For three days, at this hour I have had a
meal prepared for you, and yet you did not come. I was beginning to
get anxious, though the Gulf is like glass, and the curé said there were
no signs of a storm. To-night also your supper awaits you, so come in."
The old lady led the way into the house, which was small, but
exquisitely neat and well kept. The first apartment, which opened from
a tiny hall, served as sitting and dining room. Like most other French
Canadian houses, Madame McAllister's was carpeted in all the rooms
with a rag carpet of three colors--red, white and blue. This carpeting is
extensively woven by the good nuns at Rimouski Convent, and is pretty
and effective, besides having the advantage of being cheap.
On the walls of Madame McAllister's sitting room hung the inevitable
pictures of the Good St. Anne, the mother of the Blessed Virgin, and of
Pope Pius IX. Indeed, it would be difficult to find a house in the district
which did not possess one or more of these engravings.
Through a half-opened door could be seen a glimpse of madame's
bedroom--a dainty interior. The wooden floor was snowy white, with
here and there