Oh, fools! What matter of a few years more or less? He counted all his years by his heart's youth, as here he was in Tadoussac to prove.
"And whither away?"--"To see Mère Guillardeau?"--"To visit once again in Richelieu-en-Bas?"--"Or else Trois Rivières where long ago the maskinonge leaped for him?" "To see the Seigniory of Lamoral where lived his grandpère's seignior, lived and died?"--"A pilgrimage? Sainte Anne de Beaupré, then?"--"Or Indian Lorette just by Quebec?" The questions multiplied. "Come, tell us all." And André told them all.
"'Tis true," he said, "that there upon the Upper Saguenay strange tales are rife. From o'er the distant sea the English came to camp within the wilds, and I was guide. I listened to their tales whene'er the camp-fire crackled and the snow, the feather-snow that melted from the pines, fell hissing on the glowing arch of logs."
How André loved that sound! How dear to him was that one time in all the year's full round, when freeze the nights, the sap grows chill and numb; when warms the rising sun at early dawn and that sweet ichor runs! It kept him young; within him stirred his youthful forest hopes and joys with that first mounting life. And loud he laughed, nor gave the secret of his youth, his woodsman's lasting joys.
He told them how with mien impassive he had listened well, reflected long on what the English said, till May clouds, mirrored in the darkling pools, foreshadowed substance for those haunting dreams of glories human eyes had never seen; for far away upon the Lake there stood a city marvellous, the English said,--and they to André never yet had lied,--and who beheld it saw with naked eye the glories of the New Jerusalem.
And André, marking how the little runs were earlier loosened from their icy chains, how soft beneath the black and sodden leaves the water trickled free with here and there a bubble rising, proving spring had come--old André, listening so, the echo caught of that far song of storm-tossed Michigan as its wild waters, mingling with the rest, pursued their steady seaward course and swept with undertones enticing past the gorge of Saguenay and sang in André's ear:
"Viens, viens, tu trouveras Là bas, là bas, Le royaume cher et merveilleux Du bon Dieu."