Old Kaskaskia | Page 3

office fronted this, and gave him a door to the street. Its bottles and jars and iron mortar and the vitreous slab on which he rolled pills were all lost in twilight now. There were many other doctors' offices in Kaskaskia, but this was the best equipped one, and was the lair of a man who had not only been trained in Europe, but had sailed around the entire world. Dr. Dunlap's books, some of them in board covers, made a show on his shelves. He had an articulated skeleton, and ignorant Kaskaskians would declare that they had seen it whirl past his windows many a night to the music of his violin.
"What did you say had happened since I went away?" he inquired, sauntering back and tuning his fiddle as he came.
"There's plenty of news," responded Father Baby. "Antoine Lamarche's cow fell into the Mississippi."
Dr. Dunlap uttered a note of contempt.
"It would go wandering off where the land crumbles daily with that current setting down from the northwest against us; and Antoine was far from sneering in your cold-blooded English manner when he got the news."
"He tore his hair and screamed in your warm-blooded French manner?"
"That he did."
The doctor stood in the bar of candle-light which one of the shop sconces extended across the room, and lifted the violin to his neck. He was so large that all his gestures had a ponderous quality. His dress was disarranged by riding, and his blond skin was pricked through by the untidy growth of a three-days' beard, yet he looked very handsome.
Dr. Dunlap stood in the light, but Father Baby chose the dark for those ecstatic antics into which the fiddle threw him. He leaped high from the floor at the first note, and came down into a jig of the most perfect execution. The pat of his bare soles was exquisitely true. He raised the gown above his ankles, and would have seemed to float but for his response in sound. Yet through his most rapturous action he never ceased to be conscious of the shop. A step on the sill would break the violin's charm in the centre of a measure.
But this time no step broke it, and the doctor kept his puppet friar going until his own arm began to weary. The tune ended, and Father Baby paused, deprived of the ether in which he had been floating.
Dr. Dunlap sat down, nursing the instrument on his crossed knees while he altered its pitch.
"Are you not going to Colonel Menard's at all?" inquired the friar.
"It would be a great waste of good dancing not to," said the doctor lazily. "But you haven't told me who else has lost a cow or had an increase of goats while I was away."
"The death of even a beast excites pity in me."
"Yes, you are a holy man. You would rather skin a live Indian than a dead sheep."
The doctor tried his violin, and was lifting it again to position when Father Baby remarked:--
"They doubtless told you on the road that a party has come through from Post Vincennes."
"Now who would doubtless tell me that?"
"The governor's suite, since they must have known it. The party was in almost as soon as you left. Perhaps," suggested the friar, taking a crafty revenge for much insolence, "nobody would mention it to you on account of Monsieur Zhone's sister."
The violin bow sunk on the strings with a squeak.
"What sister?"
"The only sister of Monsieur Reece Zhone, Mademoiselle Zhone, from Wales. She came to Kaskaskia with the party from Post Vincennes."
On Dr. Dunlap's face the unshorn beard developed like thorns on a mask of wax. The spirit of manly beauty no longer infused it.
"Why didn't you tell me this at first?" he asked roughly.
"Is the name of Zhone so pleasant to you?" hinted the shrugging friar. "But take an old churchman's advice now, my son, and make up your quarrel with the lawyer. There will be occasion. That pretty young thing has crossed the sea to die. I heard her cough."
The doctor's voice was husky as he attempted to inquire,--
"Did you hear what she was called?"
"Mademoiselle Mareea Zhone."
The young man sagged forward over his violin. Father Baby began to realize that his revel was over, and reluctantly stuck his toes again into his wooden shoes.
"Will you have something to eat and drink before you start?"
"I don't want anything to eat, and I am not going to Colonel Menard's to-night."
"But, my son," reasoned the staring friar, "are you going to quit your victuals and all good company because one more Zhone has come to town, and that one such a small, helpless creature? Mademoiselle Saucier will be at Menard's."
Dr. Dunlap wiped his forehead. He, and not the cool friar, appeared to have been the dancer. A chorus of slaves