The trader, his head held very high, drew out a large and bedizened snuffbox, and took snuff with ostentation.  “My father was of a great tribe—­I would say a great house—­in the country called France,” he explained, with dignity.  “Oh, he was of a very great name indeed!  His blood was—­what do you call it?—­blue.  I am the son of my father:  I am a Frenchman. Bien!  My father dies, having always kept me with him at Monacan-Town; and when they have laid him full length in the ground, Monsieur le Marquis calls me to him.  ‘Jean,’ says he, and his voice is like the ice in the stream, ’Jean, you have ten years, and your father—­may le bon Dieu pardon his sins!—­has left his wishes regarding you and money for your maintenance.  To-morrow Messieurs de Sailly and de Breuil go down the river to talk of affairs with the English Governor.  You will go with them, and they will leave you at the Indian school which the English have built near to the great college in their town of Williamsburgh.  There you will stay, learning all that Englishmen can teach you, until you have eighteen years.  Come back to me then, and with the money left by your father you shall be fitted out as a trader.  Go!’ ...  Yes, I went to school here; but I learned fast, and did not forget the things I learned, and I played with the English boys—­there being no scholars from France—­on the other side of the pasture.”

He waved his hand toward an irruption of laughing, shouting figures from the north wing of the college.  The white man under the tree had been quietly observant of the two wayfarers, and he now rose to his feet, and came over to the rail fence against which they leaned.

“Ha, Jean Hugon!” he said pleasantly, touching with his thin white hand the brown one of the trader.  “I thought it had been my old scholar!  Canst say the belief and the Commandments yet, Jean?  Yonder great fellow with the ball is Meshawa,—­Meshawa that was a little, little fellow when you went away.  All your other playmates are gone,—­though you did not play much, Jean, but gloomed and gloomed because you must stay this side of the meadow with your own color.  Will you not cross the fence and sit awhile with your old master?”

As he spoke he regarded with a humorous smile the dusty glories of his sometime pupil, and when he had come to an end he turned and made as if to beckon to the Indian with the ball.  But Hugon drew his hand away, straightened himself, and set his face like a flint toward the town.  “I am sorry, I have no time to-day,” he said stiffly.  “My friend and I have business in town with men of my own color.  My color is white.  I do not want to see Meshawa or the others.  I have forgotten them.”

He turned away, but a thought striking him his face brightened, and plunging his hand into his pocket he again brought forth his glittering store.  “Nowadays I have money,” he said grandly.  “It used to be that Indian braves brought Meshawa and the others presents, because they were the sons of their great men.  I was the son of a great man, too; but he was not Indian and he was lying in his grave, and no one brought me gifts.  Now I wish to give presents.  Here are ten coins, master.  Give one to each Indian boy, the largest to Meshawa.”