Annette - The Metis Spy

"A la claire fontaine

Je m'allais promener,

J'ai trouve l'eau si belle

Que je me suis baigne"

Her song ended with her work, and as she passed the strangers with

her two flowing pails of yellow milk, Riel whispered softly, as he

touched her sweet little hand: "Ah, ma petite amie!"

The same flash came in her eyes, the same proud blood appeared red

through the dusk of her cheek, but she restrained herself. He was a

guest under her father's roof, and she would suffer the offence to

pass. The persistent gallant was more crest-fallen by this last

silent rebuke than by the first with its angry words. The first, in

his vanity, he had deemed an outburst of petulance, instead of an

expression of personal dislike, especially as the girl had so

suddenly calmed herself, and extended hospitalities.

He gnashed his teeth that a half-breed girl, in an obscure village,

should resent his advances; he for whom, if his own understanding was

to be trusted, so many bright eyes were languishing. At the evening

meal he received courteous, kindly attention from Annette; but this

was all. He related with much eloquence all that he had seen in the

big world in the East, during his school days, and took good care

that his hosts should know how important a person he was in the

colony of Red River. To his mortification, he frequently observed in

the midst of one of his most self-glorifying speeches that the girl's

eyes were abstracted. He was certain that she was not interested in

him, or in his exploits.

"Can she have a lover?" he asked himself, a keen arrow of jealousy

entering at his heart, and vibrating through his veins. "No, this

cannot be. She said in her musings on the prairie, that she had

nobody who would sing a sad song if she were to go to the South.

Stop! She may love, and not find her passion requited. I shall stay

here until the morrow, and let the great cause wait. Through the

evening I shall reveal who I am, and then see what is in the wind."

During the course of the evening the audacious stranger was somewhat

confounded to learn that the father of his fair hostess was none

other than Colonel Marton, an ex-officer of the Hudson Bay Company, a

man of wide influence among all the Metis people, and one of the most

sturdy champions of the half-breed cause. Indeed he was aware that

Colonel Marton was at this very time about preaching resistance to

the people, organising forces, and preparing to strike a blow at the

authority of the Government in the North-West.