THE LANE THAT HAD NO TURNING

CHAPTER I

THE RETURN OF MADELINETTE

His Excellency the Governor--the English Governor of French Canada--was
come to Pontiac, accompanied by a goodly retinue; by private secretary,
military secretary, aide-de-camp, cabinet minister, and all that. He was
making a tour of the Province, but it was obvious that he had gone out of
his way to visit Pontiac, for there were disquieting rumours in the air
concerning the loyalty of the district. Indeed, the Governor had arrived
but twenty-four hours after a meeting had been held under the presidency
of the Seigneur, at which resolutions easily translatable into sedition
were presented. The Cure and the Avocat, arriving in the nick of time,
had both spoken against these resolutions; with the result that the new-
born ardour in the minds of the simple habitants had died down, and the
Seigneur had parted from the Cure and the Avocat in anger.

Pontiac had been involved in an illegal demonstration once before.
Valmond, the bizarre but popular Napoleonic pretender, had raised his
standard there; the stones before the parish church had been stained with
his blood; and he lay in the churchyard of St. Saviour's forgiven and
unforgotten. How was it possible for Pontiac to forget him? Had he not
left his little fortune to the parish? and had he not also left twenty
thousand francs for the musical education of Madelinette Lajeunesse, the
daughter of the village forgeron, to learn singing of the best masters in