Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence by Maud Ogilvy
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page 16 of 99 (16%)
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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. |
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