# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Father Jacques's Vengeance

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FATHER JACQUES'S VENGEANCE
IN one of the forays of red men, so horribly frequent in the old days, a family of French people on an island on the Otonabee, near Ludgate's Hill, was exterminated, all save a little girl of two years, whom the Indians, in adopting, named Sajo. The Ojibway raiders were perhaps the more cruel in this act because they, too, had suffered from an incursion of their foes about that time, and among the captives who had been led away from their camp by the Hurons was the chief's son, Long Snake. Years passed after these acts of evil, and wounds had time to heal. If the old chief, Swan, sometimes mourned his son, the charm of his white captive, who had become to him as a daughter, softened his grief, and so in time he came to think of Long Snake as dead. A gentler spirit moved the Ojibways, for the "black-coats" had come among them, teaching peace. Father Jacques especially had their love and confidence, for he treated them as men, not as brutes or children, and proved what right-living people the whites could be. Thus, ​on the day when Father Jacques rowed to the island of Otonabee, where the massacre had taken place, but where the tribe now had a village, the people promised to give a respectful hearing to his appeal, though they had heard it was not to be to their liking. He had come to plead for Sajo's liberty, for she had been seen by a young white settler who loved her and was prepared to offer a ransom in money, goods, or service. No, they did not wish her to leave them. She was their daughter, their sister, and when she married it should be as the chief directed, to one of their own people.
The priest made his appeal to chief Swan: "You, brother, have known the sorrow that comes of severance from those you love. Long Snake was stolen from your home in his childhood. How if I were to tell you that he lives? Should not Sajo then go free? How if I were to bring him back to you? How if at this moment he hears my voice, is awaiting in that thicket and will do my bidding? Long Snake, come forth. Behold your son, O Swan, and you, lad, see your father." The chief gazed long at the young man, grown so tall and strong, and, slowly approaching him, dropped his hands on his shoulders. "It is he," faltered the old man; then, in a gush of that feeling that inheres in every race, savage or civilized, he caught the boy in his embrace. The company remained silent during this scene. At last an elderly hunter said, "He is worthy to be Sajo's husband." The ​suggestion was caught up in a general acclaim. It was a turn in affairs that the priest had not expected.
"Stop!" he cried, "I have done good to you and have never asked for reward, but I must do so now. am akin to Sajo, and I demand her as her guardian. She is loved by a pale-faced brave, who will give you many guns and blankets when you let her go. Let her be brought here."
The girl was summoned from a wigwam at the edge of the settlement, for women seldom had a voice in the councils of the tribe, and she made obeisance before the black-robed minister.
"She is worthy to be my son's wife," exclaimed the chief, struck anew by her beauty and grace. "Look, my son, this girl is yours. You, Sajo, shall be still more my daughter than before; you shall wed my son."
"Chief Swan! Chief Swan!" cried the priest, "I beg, I command you not to press this child of the white people into a marriage without love. She is my relative."
"How can the black-coat make his words good?"
"Listen to my confession. I thought, when I was in France, to have been a soldier rather than a priest, and had I so decided I might have come among you not as a teacher but as a destroyer. I loved my cousin, Josephine Disette, and she loved me until she met one Picot, a merchant, my better ​in wealth. Meeting the two walking arm in arm one evening, I was so struck by her perfidy that I clutched a chain which I had given to her and brutally tore it from her neck. An ivory carving that bung from it remained in my hand. Picot aimed at me with his cane and broke the ornament, a smaller piece falling to the ground. I would have answered the blow but for the appeal in the woman's eye, that brought me to my senses, and I hurried away in rage and shame. I went to Paris and entered the priesthood, coming to Quebec soon after. There I but recently learned that Picot and his wife—my cousin—had lost their money and had come to this land, too. They settled here. The ruin of their home is yonder. They were killed by you, for in those days your eyes were darkened. Now for my proof. On Sajo's breast hangs an image of the Good Son of the Great Spirit. Is it not so?"
"No. There is an ornament, but it has been broken."
Father Jacques placed his hand on the girl's head. "Benedicite, daughter," said he,—"daughter in the church, but cousin in kin. In my youth I vowed a vengeance on your father and mother for a fancied wrong. I redeem you to the world again for your sake, and for the sake of a good man's love. That shall be my revenge. See, my people." Drawing from his breast a little bag, he took out of it a broken ornament of ivory, and ​placing it against the fragment worn by Sajo it was seen to be complete. It showed the crucifixion with the name in gold, "Josephine." "In the name of the Good Son, whose likeness is there, I claim my kinswoman." And with no word of protest, though with sad eyes, the Ojibways saw the departure of their daughter.