The habitans of en haut and the habitans
of en bas commingled, as they rarely did, in a friendly way. Nor
was anything to provoke a quarrel said even to the Acadians, whose
rude patois was a source of merry jest to the better-speaking
Canadians.
The Acadians had flocked in great numbers into Quebec on the seizure
of their Province by the English, sturdy, robust, quarrelsome
fellows, who went about challenging people in their reckless way,--
Etions pas mon maitre, monsieur?--but all were civil to-day, and
tuques were pulled off and bows exchanged in a style of easy
politeness that would not have shamed the streets of Paris.
The crowd kept increasing in the Rue Buade. The two sturdy beggars
who vigorously kept their places on the stone steps of the barrier,
or gateway, of the Basse Ville reaped an unusual harvest of the
smallest coin--Max Grimau, an old, disabled soldier, in ragged
uniform, which he had worn at the defence of Prague under the
Marshal de Belleisle, and blind Bartemy, a mendicant born--the
former, loud-tongued and importunate, the latter, silent and only
holding out a shaking hand for charity.
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