PAPINEAU THE SHOEMAKER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1163, 15 June 1894, Page 8

PAPINEAU THE SHOEMAKER.

I always went to Papineau to have my shoes mended. He did his work intelligently and well—that was something—and In those days I had a great deal of cobbling to do, for I was very poor. But often I dropped in on Papineau when I brought no work at all, for I was endeavouring to master the patois, and never was tho shoemaker loath to have achat with me. One day two grey nuns came into the shop vs hile I was there. They were soliciting alms for the poor. I did not pay much attention to them, for in Montreal it is considered a sacrilege to stare at the nuns ; but I could not help noticing that the first nun's left hand was gone. Instead of fingers, her arm terminated in a small iron hook. Just as I had caught a good glimp.se of this detail the nun herself gave vent to a quick, sharp cry, and leant upon her companion for support. Darting a glance at Papineau, I saw that he was deathly pale. In the next instant the nuns had hurried out of the shop. " This is curious," I said to myself ; " what has happened ?" and then I said aloud—- " Come, friend Papineau, pull yourself together. What did the sister mean by screaming like that? Have you seen her before ?" Papineau, the shoemaker, arose, and went to the dingy old doorway and looked down the street, shading his face with his hand. After a while he came back and sat down by me—not on his cobbler's bench, but in the little rickety class-room chair, whose back had been broken off by the students, "Mr Dick," he muttered, " the time is come when, if you care to hear my story, I will tell it you, because, after what has happened, I do not care to keep it longer a secret. One of the holy sisters who came in here just now—many years ago—ncany years a g o Here Papineau stopped short, just as if he had a lump in his throat and drew the back of his hand across his eves. He took up his awl again and the boot he had been cobbling and went back to the bench.

"It is this way,' ho said, '• I will begin at the beginning. The Papineaus and the Perviers had adjoining farms in the seigneury where I was born. Shortly after my birth my mother died, and my father Jacques Papineau, married again. From the first this woman was different from most stepmothers 1 had known or heard of, for I loved her dearly, even better, perhaps, than I should have loved my real mother, but that is neither here nor there When I was fourteen my father fell into the river and was drowned, and from the very moment when my stepmother heard of it she began to act queerly. •« She shut herself up in her room for days at a time, and when she came out she used to say that she had seen my father in the flesh, and had long tales to tell us children of what he had said, besides other things she had s>cn. For I must not neglect to tell you, Mr Dick, that although I had neither brothers nor sisters, Felice Pernor and I were almost inseparable. Felice was two years younger than I, and it had been loug agreed between her father and mine that we should marry. But my father's death put a new light on this matter of our marriage, although it did not change the extreme fondness Felice and I had for each othor.in the least. On the contrary, it only helped to strengthen our affection. But "my stepmother grew distasteful to the Pervicrs, who had once been seigneurs and were still very proud of themselves.

" Her actions became more and more mysterious. She began to tell fortunes and explain dreams, so that the country folk in a year or two came miles to see and hear her, although my step-mother, who had aged rapidly since my father's death, was still as foud of me as ever. But all this conduct scandalised the Perviers to such a point that they finally decided to break oil the match.

" By this time Felice was a handsome little creature of seventeen, and the news that we were not to marry caused her the greatest wretchedness, Furthermore, her father forbade her to have any more communication with the stepson of old Lisa, the fortune teller, as my father's widow was now called among the peasantry. These and other circumstances caused me at length to turn my love of my stepmother into hate, for I realised that she and her cursed signs and omens were at the bottom of all my misery. •' One day I heard that Felice was to be married. This drove me into despair. In vain I tried to seek an interview with her—she was guarded too well. Tongue cannot tell the rage I was in with the old hag, my stepmother, whose eccentricities by this time were making me the laughing-stock of the village. In fair time she set up a booth, whither many of the country folk flocked to have their fortunes told by means of cards and chiromancy. " One day in the previous summer Felice called upon her with one of her playmates, in order to have my stepmother explain a curious dream. That was a year and some months before we were so cruelly torn apart, but I saw that she was deeply impressed with old Lisa's powers, and promised that whenever she was in trouble she would come again. " On the day set for Felice's marriage I wandered about the village like a man in a dream. The day was line, and the people assembled at the little church waited long and patiently for the noce to begin. The bridegroom had arrived, and old Pervier was at his wits' end, for the bride was nowhere to be found 1 He cursed and stamped, and tore his hair, to the great scandal of the vicaire, but still the search for Felice was unavailing. " It seems that Felice, under some pretext or other, had stolen that morning out of the cottage to have a last interview with Lisa, the fortune-teller. Her heart beat violently upou her approaching marriage, about which she had many misgivings. She therefore passed through the crowd unobserved, and sought the small canvas booth of my step,

mother, and entered it tremulously. When the old hag heard her visitor's mission, her eyes glittered, and she left tho tent for a moment. When she returned she said—

11 ' Hold out your hand, my dear." " Felice held it out as she was told. With one swift movement, the hag drew a sharp hatchet from behind her dress, and brought it down sharply upon the table. F6lire, with a shriek of pain, sprang backwards. Her little hand—her pretty, fair, white handhad been severed at fhe wrist.

" 'There, ye little fool !' cried, or rather croaked, my stepmother. ■Go and be married to old Casgrain's son —go ! Let him put the ring on thy dainty tinger. Ha, ha ! What a dull coquet! o thou art, to be sure.'

" I rushed in just in time to catch Felice from falling. " When the deed became known, her parents and the villagers were furious against us both, and my stepmother and I were compelled to llee the countiy. *' For fifteen years," concluded Papineau, " I have been a shoemaker, and in all this time I have never seen or heard of Lisa tho fortune-teller. As for Felice, I have never seen her either until to-day ; but I heard that she shortly afterwards came to Montreal and entered the Grey Nunnery."—Beckles Wilson in The Million.