Rose à Charlitte
by Marshall Saunders · English · Gutenberg #41296 · 646,773 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Rose à Charlitte
Author: Marshall Saunders
Illustrator: H. de M. Young
Release date: November 5, 2012 [eBook #41296]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41296
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROSE À CHARLITTE ***
ROSE À CHARLITTE
[Illustration: "ROSE À CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER."
(_See page 58_.)]
ROSE À CHARLITTE
+An Acadien Romance+
BY
MARSHALL SAUNDERS
AUTHOR OF "BEAUTIFUL JOE," "THE HOUSE OF ARMOUR," ETC.
+Illustrated by+
H. DE M. YOUNG
[Illustration]
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_Copyright, 1898_
BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_Entered at Stationers' Hall, London_
+Colonial Press+:
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A.
+Dedication+
I inscribe this story of the Acadiens to one who was their warm friend
and helper while administering the Public Systems of Education in Nova
Scotia and in New Brunswick, to a man whose classic verse is rich in
suggestion caught from the picturesque Evangeline land, and who is a
valued and lifelong friend of my beloved father,--
TO
+Theodore Harding Rand, D. C. L.+
OF McMASTER UNIVERSITY
TORONTO
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
ROSE À CHARLITTE.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. VESPER L. NIMMO 11
II. A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD 21
III. FROM BOSTON TO ACADIE 28
IV. THE SLEEPING WATER INN 47
V. AGAPIT THE ACADIEN 67
VI. VESPER SUGGESTS AN EXPLANATION 82
VII. A DEADLOCK 90
VIII. ON THE SUDDEN SOMETHING ILL 98
IX. A TALK ON THE WHARF 108
X. BACK TO THE CONCESSION 122
XI. NEWS OF THE FIERY FRENCHMAN 138
XII. AN UNHAPPY RIVER 154
XIII. AN ILLUMINATION 161
XIV. WITH THE OLD ONES 178
XV. THE CAVE OF THE BEARS 196
XVI. FOR THE HONOR OF THEIR RACE 210
XVII. THE SUBLIMEST THING IN THE WORLD 222
XVIII. NARCISSE GOES IN SEARCH OF THE ENGLISHMAN 236
XIX. AN INTERRUPTED MASS 251
XX. WITH THE WATERCROWS 262
XXI. A SUPREME ADIEU 281
BOOK II.
BIDIANE.
I. A NEW ARRIVAL AT SLEEPING WATER 303
II. BIDIANE GOES TO CALL ON ROSE À CHARLITTE 319
III. TAKEN UNAWARES 334
IV. AN UNKNOWN IRRITANT 353
V. BIDIANE PLAYS AN OVERTURE 361
VI. A SNAKE IN THE GRASS INTERFERES WITH THE
EDUCATION OF MIRABELLE MARIE 372
VII. GHOSTS BY SLEEPING WATER 386
VIII. FAIRE BOMBANCE 404
IX. LOVE AND POLITICS 419
X. A CAMPAIGN BEGUN IN BRIBERY 434
XI. WHAT ELECTION DAY BROUGHT FORTH 451
XII. BIDIANE FALLS IN A RIVER 463
XIII. CHARLITTE COMES BACK 474
XIV. BIDIANE RECEIVES A SHOCK 483
XV. THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER GOES AWAY WITHOUT
HER CAPTAIN 499
XVI. AN ACADIEN FESTIVAL 506
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
"ROSE À CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER" _Frontispiece_
"THEY WERE FRIENDS" 60
"'AGAPIT,' SHE MURMURED, 'CAN WE NOT TELL HIM?'" 229
"'MADEMOISELLE, I SALUTE YOUR RETURN'" 311
"'EITHER THAT MAN OR I MUST LEAVE THIS HOUSE'" 409
"THROWING HER ARM AROUND THE NECK OF HER RECOVERED CHILD" 513
BOOK I.
ROSE À CHARLITTE
CHAPTER I.
VESPER L. NIMMO.
"Hast committed a crime, and think'st thou to escape?
Alas, my father!"--_Old Play._
"Evil deeds do not die," and the handsome young man stretched out in an
easy chair by the fire raised his curly black head and gazed into the
farthest corner of the comfortably furnished room as if challenging a
denial of this statement.
No one contradicted him, for he was alone, and with a slightly satirical
smile he went on. "One fellow sows the seeds, and another has to reap
them--no, you don't reap seeds, you reap what springs up. Deadly plants,
we will say, nightshades and that sort of thing; and the surprised and
inoffensive descendants of sinful sires have to drop their ordinary
occupations and seize reaping-hooks to clean out these things that shoot
up in their paths. Here am I, for example, a comparatively harmless
product of the nineteenth century, confronted with a upas-tree planted
by my great-grandfather of the eighteenth,--just one hundred and forty
years ago. It was certainly very heedless in the old boy," and he smiled
again and stared indolently at the leaping flames in the grate.
The fire was of wood,--sections of young trees cut small and laid
crosswise,--and from their slender stems escaping gases choked and
sputtered angrily.
"I am burning miniature trees," drawled the young man; "by the way, they
seem to be assisting in my soliloquy. Perhaps they know this little
secret," and with sudden animation he put out his hand and rang the bell
beside him.
A colored boy appeared. "Henry," said the young man, "where did you get
this wood?"
"I got it out of a schooner, sir, down on one of the wharves."
"What port did the schooner hail from?"
"From Novy Scoshy, sir."
"Were the crew Acadiens?"
"What, sir?"
"Were there any French sailors on her?"
"Yes, sir, I guess so. I heard 'em jabbering some queer kind of talk."
"Listen to the wood in that fire,--what does it say to you?"
Henry grinned broadly. "It sounds like as if it was laughing at me,
sir."
"You think so? That will do."
The boy closed the door softly and went away, and the young man
murmured, "Just what I thought. They do know. Now, Acadien treelets,
gasping your last to throw a gleam of brightness into my lazy life, tell
me, is anything worth while? If there had been a curse laid on your
ancestors in the forest, would you devote your last five minutes to
lifting it?"
The angry gasping and sobbing in the fire had died away. Two of the
topmost billets of wood rolled gently over and emitted a soft muttering.
"You would, eh?" said the young man, with a sweet, subtle smile. "You
would spend your last breath for the good of your race. You have left
some saplings behind you in the forest. You hope that they will be
happy, and should I, a human being, be less disinterested than you?"
"Vesper," said a sudden voice, from the doorway, "are you talking to
yourself?"
The young man deliberately turned his head. The better to observe the
action of the sticks of wood, and to catch their last dying murmurs, he
had leaned forward, and sat with his hands on his knees. Now he got up,
drew a chair to the fire for his mother, then sank back into his own.
"I do not like to hear you talking to yourself," she went on, in a
querulous, birdlike voice, "it seems like the habit of an old man or a
crazy person."
"One likes sometimes to have a little confidential conversation, my
mother."
"You always were secretive and unlike other people," she said, in acute
maternal satisfaction and appreciation. "Of all the boys on the hill
there was none as clever as you in keeping his own counsel."
"So you think, but remember that I happened to be your son," he said,
protestingly.
"Others have remarked it. Even your teachers said they could never make
you out," and her caressing glance swept tenderly over his dark curly
head, his pallid face, and slender figure.
His satirical yet affectionate eyes met hers, then he looked at the
fire. "Mother, it is getting hot in Boston."
"Hot, Vesper?" and she stretched out one little white hand towards the
fireplace.
"This is an exceptional day. The wind is easterly and raw, and it is
raining. Remember what perfect weather we have had. It is the first of
June; it ought to be getting warm."
"I do not wish to leave Boston until the last of the month," said the
little lady, decidedly, "unless,--unless," and she wistfully surveyed
him, "it is better for your health to go away."
"Suppose, before we go to the White Mountains, I take a trial trip by
myself, just to see if I can get on without coddling?"
"I could not think of allowing you to go away alone," she said, with a
shake of her white head. "It would seriously endanger your health."
"I should like to go," he said, shortly. "I am better now."
He had made up his mind to leave her, and, after a brief struggle with
herself, during which she clasped her hands painfully on her lap, the
little lady yielded with a good grace. "Where do you wish to go?"
"I have not decided. Do you know anything about Nova Scotia?"
"I know where it is, on the map," she said, doubtfully. "I once had a
housemaid from there. She was a very good girl."
"Perhaps I will take a run over there."
"I have never been to Nova Scotia," she said, gently.
"If it is anything of a place, I will take you some other time. I don't
know anything about the hotels now."
"But you, Vesper," she said, anxiously, "you will suffer more than I
would."
"Then I shall not stay."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I do not know,--mother, your expression is that of a concerned hen
whose chicken is about to have its first run. I have been away from you
before."
"Not since you have been ill so much," and she sighed, heavily. "Vesper,
I wish you had a wife to go with you."
"Really,--another woman to run after me with pill-boxes and
medicine-bottles. No, thank you."
Her face cleared. She did not wish him to get married, and he knew it.
Slightly moving his dark head back and forth against the cushions of his
chair, he averted his eyes from the widow's garments that she wore. He
never looked at them without feeling a shock of sympathy for her,
although her loss in parting from a kind and tender husband had not been
equal to his in losing a father who had been an almost perfect being to
him. His mother still had him,--the son who was the light of her frail
little life,--and he had her, and he loved her with a kind, indulgent,
filial affection, and with sympathy for her many frailties; but, when
his heart cried out for his departed father, he quietly absented himself
from her. And that father--that good, honorable, level-headed man--had
ended his life by committing suicide. He had never understood it. It was
a most bitter and stinging mystery to him even now, and he glanced at
the box of dusty, faded letters on the floor beside him.
"Vesper," said Mrs. Nimmo, "do you find anything interesting among those
letters of your father?"
"Not my father's. There is not one of his among them. Indeed, I think he
never could have opened this box. Did you ever know of his doing so?"
"I cannot tell. They have been up in the attic ever since I was married.
He examined some of the boxes, then he asked you to do it. He was always
busy, too busy. He worked himself to death," and a tear fell on her
black dress.
"I wish now that I had done as he requested," said the young man,
gravely. "There are some questions that I should have asked him. Do you
remember ever hearing him say anything about the death of my
great-grandfather?"
She reflected a minute. "It seems to me that I have. He was the first of
your father's family to come to this country. There is a faint
recollection in my mind of having heard that he--well, he died in some
sudden way," and she stopped in confusion.
"It comes back to me now," said Vesper. "Was he not the old man who got
out of bed, when his nurse was in the next room, and put a pistol to his
head?"
"I daresay," said his mother, slowly. "Of course it was temporary
insanity."
"Of course."
"Why do you ask?" she went on, curiously. "Do you find his name among
the old documents?"
Vesper understood her better than to make too great a mystery of a thing
that he wished to conceal. "Yes, there is a letter from him."
"I should like to read it," she said, fussily fumbling at her waist for
her spectacle-case.
Vesper indifferently turned his head towards her. "It is very long."
Her enthusiasm died away, and she sank back in her rocking-chair.
"My great-grandfather shot himself, and my grandfather was lost at sea,"
pursued the young man, dreamily.
"Yes," she said, reluctantly; then she added, "my people all die in
bed."
"His ship caught on fire."
She shuddered. "Yes; no one escaped."
"All burnt up, probably; and if they took to their boats they must have
died of starvation, for they were never heard of."
They were both silent, and the same thought was in their minds. Was this
very cool and calm young man, sitting staring into the fire, to end his
days in the violent manner peculiar to the rugged members of his
father's family, or was he to die according to the sober and methodical
rule of the peaceful members of his mother's house?
Out of the depths of a quick maternal agony she exclaimed, "You are more
like me than your father."
Her son gave her an assenting and affectionate glance, though he knew
that she knew he was not at all like her. He even began to fancy, in a
curious introspective fashion, whether he should have cared at all for
this little white-haired lady if he had happened to have had another
woman for a mother. The thought amused him, then he felt rebuked, and,
leaning over, he took one of the white hands on her lap and kissed it
gently.
"We should really investigate our family histories in this country more
than we do," he said. "I wish that I had questioned my father about his
ancestors. I know almost nothing of them. Mother," he went on,
presently, "have you ever heard of the expulsion of the Acadiens?" and
bending over the sticks of wood neatly laid beside him, he picked up one
and gazed at a little excrescence in the bark which bore some
resemblance to a human face.
"Oh, yes," she replied, with gentle rebuke, "do you not remember that I
used to know Mr. Longfellow?"
Vesper slowly, and almost caressingly, submitted the stick of wood to
the leaping embrace of the flames that rose up to catch it. "What is
your opinion of his poem 'Evangeline?'"
"It was a pretty thing,--very pretty and very sad. I remember crying
over it when it came out."
"You never heard that our family had any connection with the expulsion?"
"No, Vesper, we are not French."
"No, we certainly are not," and he relapsed into silence.
"I think I will run over to Nova Scotia, next week," he said, when she
presently got up to leave the room. "Will you let Henry find out about
steamers and trains?"
"Yes, if you think you must go," she said, wistfully. "I daresay the
steamer would be easier for you."
"The steamer then let it be."
"And if you must go I will have to look over your clothes. It will be
cool there, like Maine, I fancy. You must take warm things," and she
glided from the room.
"I wish you would not bother about them," he said; "they are all right."
But she did not hear him.
CHAPTER II.
A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD.
"The glossing words of reason and of song,
To tell of hate and virtue to defend,
May never set the bitter deed aright,
Nor satisfy the ages with the wrong."
J. F. HERBIN.
"Now let me read this effusion of my thoughtless grandparent once more,"
said Vesper, and he took the top paper from the box and ran over its
contents in a murmuring voice.
I, John Matthew Nimmo, a Scotchman, born in Glasgow, at present a
dying man, in the town of Halifax, Nova Scotia, leave this last
message for my son Thomas Nimmo, now voyaging on the high seas.
My son Thomas, by the will of God, you, my only child, are abroad
at this time of great disease and distress with me. My eyes will
be closed in death ere you return, and I am forced to commit to
paper the words I would fain have spoken with living voice to you.
You, my son, have known me as a hard and stern man. By the grace
of God my heart is now humbled and like that of a little child. My
son, my son, by the infinite mercies of our Saviour, let me
supplicate you not to leave repentance to a dying bed. On the
first day of the last week, I, being stricken down with paralysis,
lay here on my couch. The room was quiet; I was alone. Suddenly I
heard a great noise, and the weeping and wailing of women and
children, and the groans of men. Then a heavy bell began to toll,
and a light as of a bright fire sprang up against my wall.
I entered into a great swoon, in which I seemed to be a young man
again,--a stout and hearty man, a high liver, a proud swearer. I
had on my uniform; there was a sword in my hand. I trod the deck
of my stout ship, the _Confidence_. I heard the plash of waves
against the sides, and I lifted my haughty eyes to heaven; I was
afraid of none, no not the ruler of the universe.
Down under the planks that my foot pressed were prisoners, to wit,
the Acadiens, that we were carrying to the port of Boston. What
mattered their sufferings to me? I did not think of them. I called
for a bottle of wine, and looked again over the sea, and wished
for a fair wind so that we might the sooner enter our prisoners at
the port of Boston, and make merry with our friends.
My son, as I, in my swoon, contemplated my former self, it is not
in the power of mortal man to convey to you my awful scorn of what
I then was,--my gross desires, my carnal wishes. I was no better
than the beasts of the fields.
After a time, as I trod the deck, a young Acadien was brought
before me. My officers said that he had been endeavouring to stir
up a mutiny among the prisoners, and had urged them to make
themselves masters of the ship and to cast us into the sea.
I called him a Papist dog. I asked him whether he wished to be
thrown to the fishes. I could speak no French, but he knew
somewhat of English, and he answered me proudly. He stretched out
his hand to the smoking village of Grand Pré that we were
leaving. He called to heaven for a judgment to be sent down on the
English for their cruelty.
I struck him to the deck. He could not rise. I thought he would
not; but in a brief space of time he was dead, the last words on
his lips a curse on me and my children, and a wish that in our
dying moments we might suffer some of the torments he was then
enduring. I had his body rolled into the sea, and I forgot him, my
son. In the unrighteous work to which I had put my hand in the
persecution of the French, a death more or less was a circumstance
to be forgotten.
I was then a young man, and in all the years that have intervened
I have been oblivious of him. The hand of the Lord has been laid
upon me; I have been despoiled of my goods; nothing that I have
done has prospered; and yet I give you my solemn word I never,
until now, in these days of dying, have reflected that a curse has
been upon me and will descend to you, my son, and to your sons
after you.
Therefore, I leave this solemn request. Methinks I shall not lie
easy in my narrow bed until that some of my descendants have made
restitution to the seed of the Frenchman. I bethink me that he was
one Le Noir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand Pré, from a
birthmark on his face, but of his baptismal name I am ignorant.
That he was a married man I well know, for one cause of his
complaint was that he had been separated from his wife and child,
which thing was not of my doing, but by the orders of Governor
Lawrence, who commanded the men and the women to be embarked
apart. But seek them not in the city of Boston, my son, nor in
that of Philadelphia, where his young wife was carried, but come
back to this old Acadien land, whither the refugees are now
tending. Ah me! it seems that I am yet a young man, that he is
still alive,--the man whom I killed. Alas! I am old and about to
die, but, my son, by the love and compassion of God, let me
entreat you to carry out the wishes of your father. Seek the
family of the Frenchman; make restitution, even to the half of
your goods, or you will have no prosperity in this world nor any
happiness in the world to come. If you are unable to carry out
this, my last wish, let this letter be handed to your children.
Eschew riotous living, and fold in your heart my saying, that the
forcible dispossession of the Acadien people from their land and
properties was an unrighteous and unholy act, brought about
chiefly by the lust of hatred and greed on the part of that
iniquitous man, Governor Lawrence, of this province, and his
counsellors.
May God have mercy on my soul. Your father, soon to be a clod of
clay,
JOHN MATTHEW NIMMO.
HALIFAX, May 9, 1800.
With a slight shudder Vesper dropped the letter back in the box and
wiped the dust from his fingers. "Unhappy old man,--there is not the
slightest evidence that his callous son Thomas paid any heed to his
exhortations. I can imagine the contempt with which he would throw this
letter aside; he would probably remark that his father had lost his
mind. And yet was it a superstition about altering the fortunes of the
family that made him shortly after exchange his father's grant of land
in Nova Scotia for one in this State?" and he picked up another faded
document, this one of parchment and containing a record of the transfer
of certain estates in the vicinity of the town of Boston to Thomas
Nimmo, removing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the State of
Massachusetts.
"Then Thomas got burnt for despising the commands of his father; but my
poor sire,--where does his guilt come in? He did not know of the
existence of this letter,--that I could swear, for with his kind heart
and streak of romance he would have looked up this Acadien ghost and
laid it. If I were also romantic, I should say it killed him. As it is,
I shall stick to my present opinion that he killed himself by overwork.
"Now, shall I be cynical and let this thing go, or shall I, like a
knight of the Middle Ages, or an adventurous fool of the present, set
out in quest of the seed of the Fiery Frenchman? _Ciel!_ I have already
decided. It is a floating feather to pursue, an occupation just serious
enough for my convalescent state. _En route_, then, for Acadie," and he
closed his eyes and sank into a reverie, which was, after the lapse of
an hour, interrupted by the entrance of the colored boy with a handful
of papers.
"Good boy, Henry," said his master, approvingly.
"Mis' Nimmo, she tole me to hurry," said the boy, with a flash of his
resplendent ivories, "'cause she never like you to wait for nothing. So
I jus' run down to Washington Street."
Vesper smiled, and took up one of the folders. "H'm, Evangeline route.
The Nova Scotians are smart enough to make capital out of the
poem--Henry, come rub my left ankle, there is some rheumatism in it.
What is this? 'The Dominion Atlantic Railway have now completed their
magnificent system to the Hub of the Universe by placing on the route
between it and Nova Scotia a steamship named after one of the
heirs-presumptive of the British throne.' Henry, where is the Hub of the
Universe?"
Henry looked up from the hearth-rug. "I dunno, sir; ain't it heaven?"
"It ought to be," said the young man; and he went on, "'This steamship
is a dream of beauty, with the lines of an exquisite yacht. Her
appointments are as perfect as taste and science can suggest, in
music-room, dining-room, smoking-room, parlor, staterooms, bathrooms,
and all other apartments. The cabinet work is in solid walnut and oak,
the softened light falling through domes and panels of stained glass,
the upholstery is in figured and other velvets, the tapestries are of
silk. There is a perfect _cuisine_, and a union of comfort and luxury
throughout.'"
The young man laid down the folder. "How would you like to go to sea in
that royal craft, Henry?"
"It sounds fine," said the boy, smacking his lips.
"No mention is made of seasickness, nor of going to the bottom. A pity
it would be to waste all that finery on the fishes--don't rub quite so
hard. Let me see," and he took up the folder again. "What days does she
leave? Go to-morrow to the office, Henry, and engage the most
comfortable stateroom on this bit of magnificence for next Thursday."
CHAPTER III.
FROM BOSTON TO ACADIE.
"For this is in the land of Acadie,
The fairest place of all the earth and sea."
J. F. H.
It is always amusing to be among a crowd of people on the Lewis Wharf,
in Boston, when a steamer is about to leave for the neighboring province
of Nova Scotia. The provincials are so slow, so deliberate, so
determined not to be hurried. The Americans are so brisk, so
expeditious, so bewildering in the multitude of things they will
accomplish in the briefest possible space of time. They surround the
provincials, they attempt to hurry them, to infuse a little more life
into their exercises of volition, to convince them that a busy wharf is
not the place to weigh arguments for or against a proposed course of
action, yet the provincials will not be hurried; they stop to plan,
consider, deliberate, and decide, and in the end they arrive at
satisfactory conclusions without one hundredth part of the worry and
vexation of soul which shortens the lives of their more nervous cousins,
the Americans.
At noon, on the Thursday following his decision to go to Nova Scotia,
Vesper Nimmo stood on the deck of the _Royal Edward_, a smile on his
handsome face,--a shrewd smile, that deepened and broadened whenever he
looked towards the place where stood his mother, with a fluffy white
shawl wrapped around her throat, and the faithful Henry for a bodyguard.
Express wagons, piled high with towers of Babel in the shape of trunks
that shook and quivered and threatened to fall on unsuspecting heads,
rattled down and discharged their contents on the already congested
wharf, where intending passengers, escorting friends, custom officials,
and wharf men were talking, gesticulating, admonishing, and escaping
death in varied forms, such as by crushing, falling, squeezing, deaths
by exhaustion, by kicks from nervous horse legs, or by fright from being
swept into the convenient black pool of the harbor.
However, scorning the danger, the crowd talked and jabbered on, until,
finally, the last bit of freight, the last bit of luggage, was on board.
A signal was given, the ambulance drew back,--the dark and mournful
wagon from which, alas, at nearly every steamer's trip, a long, light
box is taken, in which one Canadian is going home quite still and mute.
A swarm of stewards from the steamer descended upon their quarry, the
passengers, and a separation was made between the sheep and the foolish
goats, in the company's eyes, who would not be persuaded to seek the
fair Canadian pastures. Carefully the stewards herded and guarded their
giddy sheep to the steamer, often turning back to recover one skipping
behind for a last parley with the goats. At last they were all up the
gangway, the gorgeous ship swung her princely nose to the stream, and
Vesper Nimmo felt himself really off for Nova Scotia.
He waved an adieu to his mother, then drew back to avoid an onset of
stolid, red-cheeked Canadian sheep and lambs, who pressed towards the
railing, some with damp handkerchiefs at their eyes, others cheerfully
exhorting the goats to write soon.
His eye fell on a delicate slip of a girl, with consumption written all
over her shaking form; and, swinging on his heel, he went to stroll
about the decks, and watch, with proud and passionate concealed emotion,
the yellow receding dome of the State House. He had been brought up in
the shadow of that ægis. It was almost as sacred to him as the blue sky
above, and not until he could no longer see it did he allow his eyes to
wander over other points of interest of the historic harbor. How many
times his sturdy New England forefathers had dropped their hoes to man
the ships that sailed over these blue waters, to hew down the Agag of
Acadie! What a bloodthirsty set they were in those days! Indians,
English, French,--how they harried, and worried, and bit, and tore at
each other!
He thoughtfully smoothed the little silky mustache that adorned his
upper lip, and murmured, "Thank heaven, I go on a more peaceful errand."
Once out of the harbor, and feeling the white deck beneath his feet
gracefully dipping to meet the swell of the ocean, he found a seat and
drew a guide-book from his pocket. Of ancient Acadie he knew something,
but of this modern Acadie he had, strange to say, felt no curiosity,
although it lay at his very doors, until he had discovered the letter of
his great-grandfather.
The day was warm and sunshiny. It was the third of June, and for some
time he sat quietly reading and bathed in golden light. Then across his
calm, peaceful state of content, stole a feeling scarcely to be
described, and so faint that it was barely perceptible. He was not quite
happy. The balm had gone from the air; the spirit of the writer, who so
eloquently described the lure of the Acadien land, no longer communed
with his. He read on, knowing what was coming, yet resolved not to yield
until he was absolutely forced to do so.
In half an hour he had flung down his book, and was in his stateroom,
face downward, his window wide open, his body gently swaying to and fro
with the motion of the steamer, the salt air deliciously lapping his
ears, the back of his neck, and his hands, but unable to get at his
face, obstinately buried in the pillow.
"Sick, sir?" inquired a brisk voice, with a delicate note of suggestion.
Vesper uncovered one eye, and growled, "No,--shut that door."
The steward disappeared, and did not return for some hours, while
Vesper's whole sensitive system passed into a painless agony, the only
movement he made being to turn himself over on his back, where he lay,
apparently calm and happy, and serenely staring at the white ceiling of
his dainty cell.
"Can I do anything for you, sir?" asked the steward's voice once more.
Vesper, who would not have spoken if he had been offered the _Royal
Edward_ full of gold pieces, did not even roll an eyeball at him, but
kept on gravely staring upward.
"Your collar's choking you, sir," said the man, coming forward; and he
deftly slipped a stud from its place and laid it on the wash-stand.
"Shall I take off your boots?"
Vesper submitted to having his boots withdrawn, and his feet covered,
with as much indifference as if they belonged to some other man, and
continued to spend the rest of the day and the night in the same state
of passivity. Towards morning he had a vague wish to know the time, but
it did not occur to him, any more than it would have occurred to a stone
image, to put up his hand to the watch in his breast pocket.
Daylight came, then sunlight streaming into his room, and cheery sounds
of voices without, but he did not stir. Not until the thrill of contact
with the land went through the steamer did he spring to his feet, like a
man restored to consciousness by galvanic action. He was the first
passenger to reach the wharf, and the steward, who watched him going,
remarked sarcastically that he was glad to see "that 'ere dead man come
to life."
Vesper was himself again when his feet touched the shore. He looked
about him, saw the bright little town of Yarmouth, black rocks, a blue
harbor, and a glorious sky. His contemplation of the landscape over, he
reflected that he was faint from hunger. He turned his back on the
steamer, where his fellow passengers had recently breakfasted at fine
tables spread under a ceiling of milky white and gold, and hurried to a
modest eating-house near by from which a savory smell of broiled steak
and fried potatoes floated out on the morning air.
He entered it, and after a hasty wash and brush-up ate his breakfast
with frantic appetite. He now felt that he had received a new lease of
life, and buttoning his collar up around his neck, for the temperature
was some degrees lower than that of his native city, he hurried back to
the wharf, where the passengers and the customs men were quarrelling as
if they had been enemies for life.
With ingratiating and politic calmness he pointed out his trunk and
bicycle, assured the suspicious official that although he was an
American he was honest and had nothing to sell and nothing dutiable in
the former, and that he had not the slightest objection to paying the
thirty per cent deposit required on the latter; then, a prey to inward
laughter at the enlivening spectacle of open trunks and red faces, he
proceeded to the railway station, looking about him for other signs that
he was in a foreign country.
Nova Scotia was very like Maine so far. Here were the Maine houses, the
Maine trees and rocks, even the Maine wild flowers by the side of the
road. He thoughtfully boarded the train, scrutinized the comfortable
parlor-car, and, after the lapse of half an hour, decided that he was
not in Maine, for, if he had been, the train would certainly have
started.
As he was making this reflection, a dapper individual, in light
trousers, a shiny hat, and with the indescribable air of being a
travelling salesman, entered the car where Vesper sat in solitary
grandeur.
Vesper slightly inclined his head, and the stranger, dropping a neat
leather bag in the seat next him, observed, "We had a good passage."
"Very good," replied Vesper.
"Nobody sick," pursued the dapper individual, taking off his hat,
brushing it, and carefully replacing it on his head.
"I should think not," returned Vesper; then he consulted his watch. "We
are late in starting."
"We're always late," observed the newcomer, tartly. "This is your first
trip down here?"
Vesper, with the reluctance of his countrymen to admit that they have
done or are doing something for the first time, did not contradict his
statement.
"I've been coming to this province for ten years," said his companion.
"I represent Stone and Warrior."
Vesper knew Stone and Warrior's huge dry-goods establishment, and had
due respect for the opinion of one of their travellers.
"And when we start we don't go," said the dry-goods man. "This train
doesn't dare show its nose in Halifax before six o'clock, so she's just
got to put in the time somewhere. Later in the season they'll clap on
the Flying Bluenose, which makes them think they're flying through the
air, because she spurts and gets in two hours earlier. How far are you
going?"
"I don't know; possibly to Grand Pré."
"A pretty country there, but no big farms,--kitchen-gardening compared
with ours."
"That is where the French used to be."
"Yes, but there ain't one there now. The most of the French in the
province are down here."
Vesper let his surprised eyes wander out through the car window.
"Pretty soon we'll begin to run through the woods. There'll be a shanty
or two, a few decent houses and a station here and there, and you'd
think we were miles from nowhere, but at the same time we're running
abreast of a village thirty-five miles long."
"That is a good length."
"The houses are strung along the shores of this Bay," continued the
salesman, leaning over and tapping the map spread on Vesper's knee. "The
Bay is forty miles long."
"Why didn't they build the railway where the village is?"
"That's Nova Scotia," said the salesman, drily. "Because the people were
there, they put the railroad through the woods. They beat the Dutch."
"Can't they make money?"
"Like the mischief, if they want to," and the salesman settled back in
his seat and put his hands in his pockets. "It makes me smile to hear
people talking about these green Nova Scotians. They'll jump ahead of
you in a bargain as quick as a New Yorker when they give their minds to
it. But I'll add 'em up in one word,--they don't care."
Vesper did not reply, and, after a minute's pause his companion went on,
with waxing indignation. "They ought to have been born in the cannibal
isles, every man Jack of 'em, where they could sit outdoors all day and
pick up cocoanuts or eat each other. Upon my life, you can stand in the
middle of Halifax, which is their capital city, and shy a stone at half
a dozen banks and the post-office, and look down and see grass growing
between the bricks at your feet."
"Very unprogressive," murmured Vesper.
The salesman relented. "But I've got some good chums there, and I must
say they've got a lot of soft soap,--more than we have."
"That is, better manners?"
"Exactly; but"--and he once more hardened his heart against the Nova
Scotians,--"they've got more time than we have. There ain't so many of
'em. Look at our Boston women at a bargain-counter,--you've got a lot of
curtains at four dollars a pair. You can't sell 'em. You run 'em up to
six dollars and advertise, 'Great drop on ten-dollar curtains.' The
women rush to get 'em. How much time have they to be polite? About as
much as a pack of wolves."
"What is the population of Halifax?" asked Vesper.
"About forty thousand," said the salesman, lolling his head on the back
of the seat, and running his sentences as glibly from his lips as if he
were reciting a lesson, "and a sly, sleepy old place it is, with lots of
money in it, and people pretending they are poor. Suburbs fine, but the
city dirty from the soft coal they burn. A board fence around every lot
you could spread a handkerchief on,--so afraid neighbors will see into
their back yards. If they'd knock down their fences, pick up a little of
the trash in the streets, and limit the size of their hotel keys, they'd
get on."
"Are there any French people there?"
The salesman was not interested in the French. "No," he said, "not that
I ever heard of. They could make lots of money there," he went on, with
enthusiasm, "if they'd wake up. You know there's an English garrison,
and our girls like the military; but these blamed provincials, though
they've got a big pot of jam, won't do anything to draw our rich flies,
not even as much as to put up a bathing-house. They don't care a
continental.
"There's a hotel beyond Halifax where a big excursion from New York used
to go every year. Last year the manager said, 'If you don't clean up
your old hotel, and put a decent boat on the lake, you'll never see me
again.' The hotel proprietor said, 'I guess this house is clean enough
for us, and we haven't been spilt out of the boat yet, and you and your
excursion can go to Jericho.' So the excursion goes to Jericho now, and
the hotel man gets more time for sleep."
"Have you ever been in this French village?" asked Vesper.
"No," and the salesman stifled a yawn. "I only call at the principal
towns, where the big stores are. Good Lord! I wish those
stick-in-the-muds would come up from the wharf. If I knew how to run an
engine I'd be off without 'em," and he strolled to the car door. "It's
as quiet as death down there. The passengers must have chopped up the
train-hands and thrown 'em in the water. If my wife made up her mind to
move to this province, I'd die in ten days, for I'd have so much time to
think over my sins. Glory hallelujah, here they come!" and he returned
to his seat. "The whole tribe of 'em, edging along as if they were a
funeral procession and we were the corpses on ahead. We're off," he
said, jocularly, to Vesper, and he kicked out his little dapper legs,
stuck his ticket in the front of his shiny hat, and sank into a seat,
where he was soon asleep.
Vesper was rather out of his reckoning. It had not occurred to him, in
spite of Longfellow's assurance about naught but tradition remaining of
the beautiful village of Grand Pré, that no French were really to be
found there. Now, according to the salesman, he should look for the
Acadiens in this part of the province. However, if the French village
was thirty-five miles long there was no hurry about leaving the train,
and he settled back and watched his fellow passengers leisurely climbing
the steps. Among those who entered the parlor-car was a stout,
gentlemanly man, gesticulating earnestly, although his hands were full
of parcels, and turning every instant to look with a quick, bright eye
into the face of his companion, who was a priest.
The priest left him shortly after they entered the car, and the stout
man sat down and unfolded a newspaper on which the name and place of
publication--_L'Évangéline, Journal Hebdomadaire, Weymouth_--met
Vesper's eye with grateful familiarity. The title was, of course, a
pathetic reminder of the poem. Weymouth, and he glanced at his map, was
in the line of villages along the bay.
The gentleman for a time read the paper intently. Then his nervous hands
flung it down, and Vesper, leaning over, politely asked if he would lend
it to him.
It was handed to him with a bow, and the young American was soon deep in
its contents. It had been founded in the interests of the Acadiens of
the Maritime Provinces, he read in fluent modern French, which greatly
surprised him, as he had expected to be confronted by some curious
_patois_ concocted by this remnant of a foreign race isolated so long
among the English. He read every word of the paper,--the cards of
professional men, the advertisements of shopkeepers, the remarks on
agriculture, the editorials on Canadian politics, the local news, and
the story by a Parisian novelist. Finally he returned _L'Évangéline_ to
its owner, whose quick eyes were looking him all over in mingled
curiosity and gratification, which at last culminated in the remark that
it was a fine morning.
Vesper, with slow, quiet emphasis, which always imparted weight and
importance to his words, assented to this, with the qualification that
it was chilly.
"It is never very warm here until the end of June," said the stout
gentleman, with a courteous gesture, "but I find this weather most
agreeable for wheeling. I am shortly to leave the train and take to my
bicycle for the remainder of my journey."
Vesper asked him whether there was a good road along the shores of the
Bay.
"The best in the province, but I regret to say that the roads to it from
the stations are cut up by heavy teaming."
"And the hotels,--are they good?"
"According to the guide-books there are none in Frenchtown," said the
gentleman, with lively sarcasm. "I know of one or two where one can be
comfortable. Here, for instance," and one of his facile hands indicated
a modest advertisement in _L'Évangéline_.
Sleeping Water Inn. This inn, well patronized in the past, is still
the rendezvous for tourists, bicyclists, etc. The house is airy,
and the table is good. A trustworthy teamster is always at the
train to carry trunks and valises to the inn. Rose de Forêt,
Proprietress.
Vesper looked up, to find his neighbor smiling involuntarily. "Pardon
me," he said, with contrition, "I am thinking that you would find the
house satisfactory."
"It is kept by a woman?"
"Yes," said the stranger, with preternatural gravity; "Rose à
Charlitte."
Vesper said nothing, and his face was rarely an index of his thoughts,
yet the stranger, knowing in some indefinable way that he wished for
further information, continued. "On the Bay, the friendly fashion
prevails of using only the first name. Rose à Charlitte is rarely called
Madame de Forêt."
Vesper saw that some special interest attached to the proprietress of
the Acadien inn, yet did not see his way clear to find out what it was.
His new acquaintance, however, had a relish for his subject of
conversation, and pursued it with satisfaction. "She is very
remarkable, and makes money, yet I hope that fate will intervene to
preserve her from a life which is, perhaps, too public for a woman of
her stamp. A rich uncle, one Auguste Le Noir, whose beautiful home among
orange and fig trees on the Bayou Vermillon in Louisiana I visited last
year, may perhaps rescue her. Not that she does anything at all out of
the way," he added, hastily, "but she is beautiful and young."
Vesper repressed a slight start at the mention of the name Le Noir, then
asked calmly if it was a common one among the Acadiens.
The Le Noirs and Le Blancs, the gentleman assured him, were as
plentiful as blackberries, while as to Melançons, there were eighty
families of them on the Bay. "This has given rise to the curious
house-that-Jack-built system of naming," he said. "There is Jean à
Jacques Melançon, which is Jean, the son of Jacques,--Jean à Basile,
Jean à David, and sometimes Jean à Martin à Conrade à Benoit Melançon,
but"--and he checked himself quickly--"I am, perhaps, wearying you with
all this?" He was as a man anxious, yet hesitating, to impart
information, and Vesper hastened to assure him that he was deeply
interested in the Acadiens.
The cloud swept from the face of the vivacious gentleman. "You gratify
me. The old prejudice against my countrymen still lingers in this
province in the shape of indifference. I rarely discuss them unless I
know my listener."
"Have I the pleasure of addressing an Acadien?" asked Vesper.
"I have the honor to be one," said the stout gentleman, and his face
flushed like that of a girl.
Vesper gave him a quick glance. This was the first Acadien that he had
ever seen, and he was about as far removed from the typical Acadien that
he had pictured to himself as a man could be. This man was a gentleman.
He had expected to find the Acadiens, after all the trials they had gone
through in their dispossession of property and wanderings by sea and
land, degenerated into a despoiled and poverty-stricken remnant of
peasantry. Curiously gratified by the discovery that here was one who
had not gone under in the stress of war and persecution, he remarked
that his companion was probably well-informed on the subject of the
expulsion of his countrymen from this province.
"The expulsion,--ah!" said the gentleman, in a repressed voice. Then,
unable to proceed, he made a helpless gesture and turned his face
towards the window.
The younger man thought that there were tears in his eyes, and forbore
to speak.
"One mentions it so calmly nowadays," said the Acadien, presently,
looking at him. "There is no passion, no resentment, yet it is a living
flame in the breast of every true Acadien, and this is the reason,--it
is a tragedy that is yet championed. It is commonly believed that the
deportation of the Acadiens was a necessity brought about by their
stubbornness."
"That is the view I have always taken of it," said Vesper, mildly. "I
have never looked into the subject exhaustively, but my conclusion from
desultory reading has been that the Acadiens were an obstinate set of
people who dictated terms to the English, which, as a conquered race,
they should not have done, and they got transported for it."
"Then let me beg you, my dear sir, to search into the matter. If you
happen to visit the Sleeping Water Inn, ask for Agapit Le Noir. He is an
enthusiast on the subject, and will inform you; and if at any time you
find yourself in our beautiful city of Halifax, may I not beg the
pleasure of a call? I shall be happy to lay before you some historical
records of our race," and he offered Vesper a card on which was
engraved, Dr. Bernardin Arseneau, Barrington Street, Halifax.
Vesper took the card, thanked him, and said, "Shall I find any of the
descendants of the settlers of Grand Pré among the Acadiens on this
Bay?"
"Many, many of them. When the French first came to Nova Scotia, they
naturally selected the richest portions of the province. At the
expulsion these farms were seized. When, through incredible hardships,
they came struggling back to this country that they so much loved, they
could not believe that their lands would not be restored to them. Many
of them trudged on foot to fertile Grand Pré, to Port Royal, and other
places. They looked in amazement at the settlers who had taken their
homes. You know who they were?"
"No, I do not," said Vesper.
"They were your own countrymen, my dear sir, if, as I rightly judge, you
come from the United States. They came to this country, and found
waiting for them the fertile fields whose owners had been seized,
imprisoned, tortured, and carried to foreign countries, some years
before. Such is the justice of the world. For their portion the returned
Acadiens received this strip of forest on the Bay Saint-Mary. You will
see what they have made of it," and, with a smile at once friendly and
sad, the stout gentleman left the train and descended to a little
station at which they had just pulled up.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SLEEPING WATER INN.
"Montrez-moi votre menu et je vous montrerai mon coeur."
A few minutes later, the train had again entered the forest, and Vesper,
who had a passion for trees and ranked them with human beings in his
affections, allowed the mystery and charm of these foreigners to steal
over him. In dignified silence and reserve the tall pines seemed to draw
back from the rude contact of the passing train. The more assertive firs
and spruces stood still, while the slender hackmatacks, most beautiful
of all the trees of the wood, writhed and shook with fright, nervously
tossing their tremulous arms and tasselled heads, and breathing long
odoriferous sighs that floated after, but did not at all touch the
sympathies of the roaring monster from the outer world who so often
desecrated their solitude.
Vesper's delicate nostrils dilated as the spicy odors saluted them, and
he thought, with tenderness, of the home trees that he loved, the elms
of the Common and those of the square where he had been born. How many
times he had encircled them with admiring footsteps, noting the
individual characteristics of each tree, and giving to each one a
separate place in his heart. Just for an instant he regretted that for
to-night he could not lie down in their shadow. Then he turned irritably
to the salesman, who was stretching and shaking out his legs, and
performing other calisthenic exploits as accompaniments of waking.
"Haven't we come to Great Scott yet?" he asked, getting up, and
sauntering to Vesper's window.
Vesper consulted his folder. Among the French names he could discover
nothing like this, unless it was Grosses Coques, so called, his
guide-book told him, because the Acadiens had discovered enormous clams
there.
The salesman settled the question by dabbing at the name with his fat
forefinger. "Confound these French names, and thank the Lord they're
beginning to give them up. This Sleeping Water we're coming to used to
be _L'Eau Dormante_. If I had my way, I'd string up on these pines every
fellow that spoke a word of this gibberish. That would cure 'em. Why
can't they have one language, as we do?"
"How would you like to talk French?" asked Vesper, quietly.
The little man laughed shrewdly, and not unkindly. "Every man to his
liking. I guess it's best not to fight too much."
"I get off here," said Vesper, gathering up his papers.
"Happy you,--you won't have to wait for all of Evangeline's heifers to
step off the track between here and Halifax."
Vesper nodded to him, and, swinging himself from the car, went to find
the conductor.
There was ample time to get that gentlemanly official's consent to have
his wheel and trunk put off at this station, instead of at Grand Pré,
and ample time for Vesper to give a long look at the names in the line
of cars, which were, successively, Basil the Blacksmith, Benedict the
Father, René the Notary, and Gabriel the Lover, before the locomotive
snuffed its nostrils and, panting and heaving, started off to trail its
romantic appendages through the country of Evangeline.
When the train had disappeared, Vesper looked about him. He was no
longer in the heart of the forest. An open country and scattering houses
appeared in the distance, and here he could distinctly feel a
mischievous breeze from the Bay that playfully ruffled his hair, and
tossed back the violets at his feet every time that they bent over to
look at their own sweet faces in the black, mirror-like pool of water
set in a mossy bed beside them.
He stooped and picked one of the wistful purple blossoms, then stepped
up on the platform of the gabled station-house. Inside the kitchen, a
woman, sitting with her back to the passing trains, was spinning, and at
the same time rocking a cradle, while near the door stood an individual
who, to Vesper's secret amusement, might have posed either as a member
of the human species, or as one of the class _aves_.
He had many times seen the fellows of this white-haired, smooth-faced
old man, in the Southern States in the shape of cardinal-birds. Those
resplendent creatures in the male sex are usually clothed in gay red
jackets. This male's plumage was also red, but, unlike the
cardinal-birds, it had a trimming of pearl buttons and white lace. The
bird's high and conical crest was expressed in the man by a pointed red
cap. The bird is nondescript as to the legs,--so also was the man; and
the loud and musical note of the Southern songster was reproduced in the
fife-like tones of the Acadien, when he presently spoke.
He was an official, and carried in his hand a locked bag containing her
Majesty's mail for her Acadien subjects of the Bay. Vesper had seen the
mail-carriers along the route, tossing their bags to the passing train,
and receiving others in return, but none as gorgeous as this one, and he
was wondering why the gentle-faced septuagenarian made himself so
peculiar, when he was addressed in a sweet, high voice.
"Sir," said the bird-man, in French,--for was he not Emmanuel Victor De
la Rive, lineal descendant of a French marquis who had married a queen's
maid of honor, and had subsequently bequeathed his bones and his large
family of children to his adored Acadie?--"Sir, is it possible that you
are a guest for the inn?"
"It is possible," said Vesper, gravely.
"Alas!" said the old man, turning to the dark-eyed woman, who had left
her cradle and spinning-wheel, "is it not always so? When Rose à
Charlitte does not send, there are arrivals. When she does, there are
not. She will be in despair. Sir, shall I have the honor of taking you
over in my road-cart?"
"I have a wheel," said Vesper, pointing to the bicycle, leaning
disconsolately against his trunk.
The black-eyed woman immediately put out her hand for his checks.
"Then may I have the honor of showing you the way?" said Monsieur De la
Rive, bowing before Vesper as if he were a divinity. "There are sides of
the road which it is well to avoid."
"I shall be most happy to avail myself of your offer."
"I will send the trunk over," said the station woman. "There is a
constant going that way."
Vesper thanked her, and left the station in the wake of the
cardinal-bird, who sat perched on his narrow seat as easily as if it
were a branch of a tree, turning his crested head at frequent intervals
to look anxiously at the mail-bag which, for reasons best known to
himself, he carried slung to a nail in the back of his cart.
At frequent intervals, too, he piped shrill and sweet remarks to Vesper.
"Courage; the road will soon improve. It is the ox-teams that cut it up.
They load schooners in the Bay. Here at last is a good spot. Monsieur
can mount now. Beware of the sharp stones. All the bones of the earth
stick up in places. Does monsieur intend to stay long in Sleeping Water?
Was it monsieur that Rose à Charlitte expected when she drove through
the pouring rain to the station, two days since? What did he say in the
letter that he sent yesterday in explanation of his change of plans? Did
monsieur come from Halifax, or Boston? Did he know Mrs. de la Rive,
laundress, of Cambridge Street? Had he samples of candy or tobacco in
that big box of his? How much did he charge a pound for his best
peppermints?"
Vesper, fully occupied with keeping his wheel out of the ruts in the
road, and in maintaining a safe distance from the cart, which pressed
him sore if he went ahead and waited for him if he dallied behind,
answered "yes" and "no" at random, until at length he had involved
himself in such a maze of contradictions that Monsieur de la Rive felt
himself forced to pull up his brown pony and remonstrate.
"But it is impossible, monsieur, that you should have seen Mrs. de la
Rive, who has been dying for weeks, dancing at the wedding of the
daughter of her step-uncle, the baker, and yet you say 'yes' when I
remark that she was not there."
The stop and the remonstrance were so birdlike and so quick, that
Vesper, taken aback, fell off his wheel and broke his cyclometer.
He picked himself out of the dust, swearing under his breath, and
Monsieur de la Rive, being a gentleman, and seeing that this quiet young
stranger was disinclined for conversation, suddenly whipped up his pony
and sped madly on ahead, the tails of his red coat streaming out behind
him, the tip of his pointed cap fluttering and nodding over his thick
white locks of hair.
After the lapse of a few minutes, Vesper had recovered his composure,
and was looking calmly about him. The road was better now, and they were
nearing the Bay, that lay shimmering and shining like a great
sea-serpent coiled between purple hills. He did not know what Grand Pré
was like, and was therefore unaware of the extent of the Acadiens' loss
in being driven from it; but this was by no means a barren country. On
either side of him were fairly prosperous farms, each one with a light
painted wooden house, around which clustered usually a group of
children, presided over by a mother, who, as the mail-driver dashed by,
would appear in the doorway, thrusting forth her matronly face, often
partly shrouded by a black handkerchief.
These black handkerchiefs, _la cape Normande_ of old France, were almost
universal on the heads of women and girls. He could see them in the
fields and up and down the roads. They and the vivacious sound of the
French tongue gave the foreign touch to his surroundings, which he
found, but for these reminders, might once again have been those of an
out-of-the-way district in some New England State.
He noticed, with regret, that the forest had all been swept away. The
Acadiens, in their zeal for farming, had wielded their axes so
successfully that scarcely a tree had been left between the station and
the Bay. Here and there stood a lonely guardian angel, in the shape of a
solitary pine, hovering over some Acadien roof-tree, and turning a
melancholy face towards its brothers of the forest,--rugged giants
primeval, now prostrate and forlorn, and being trailed slowly along
towards the waiting schooners in the Bay.
The most of these fallen giants were loaded on rough carts drawn by
pairs of sleek and well-kept oxen who were yoked by the horns. The carts
were covered with mud from the bad roads of the forest, and muddy also
were the boots of the stalwart Acadien drivers, who walked beside the
oxen, whip in hand, and turned frankly curious faces towards the
stranger who flashed by their slow-moving teams on his shining wheel.
The road was now better, and Vesper quickly attained to the top of the
last hill between the station and the Bay.
Ah! now the fields did not appear bare, the houses naked, the whole
country wind-swept and cold, for the wide, regal, magnificent Bay lay
spread out before him. It was no longer a thread of light, a sea-serpent
shining in the distance, but a great, broad, beautiful basin, on whose
placid bosom all the Acadien, New England, and Nova Scotian fleets might
float with never a jostle between any of their ships.
A fire of admiration kindled in his calm eyes, and he allowed himself to
glide rapidly down the hill towards this brilliant blue sweep of water,
along whose nearer shores stretched, as far as his gaze could reach, the
curious dotted line of the French village.
The country had become flat, as flat as Holland, and the fields rolled
down into the water in the softest, most exquisite shades of green,
according to the different kinds of grass or grain flourishing along the
shores. The houses were placed among the fields, some close together,
some far apart, all, however, but a stone's throw from the water's edge,
as if the Acadiens, fearful of another expulsion, held themselves always
in readiness to step into the procession of boats and schooners moored
almost in their dooryards.
At the point where Vesper found himself threatened with precipitation
into the Bay, they struck the village line. Here, at the corner, was the
general shop and post-office of Sleeping Water. The cardinal-bird
fluttered his mail-bag in among the loafers at the door, saw the
shopkeeper catch it, then, swelling out his vermilion breast with
importance, he nimbly took the corner with one wheel in the air and
pulled up before the largest, whitest house on the street, and
flourished a flaming wing in the direction of a swinging sign,--"The
Sleeping Water Inn."
Vesper, biting his lip to restrain a smile, rounded the corner after
him, and leisurely stepped from his wheel in front of the house.
"Ring, sir, and enter," piped the bird, then, wishing him _bonne chance_
(good luck), he flew away.
Vesper pulled the bell, and, as no one answered his summons, he
sauntered through the open door into the hall.
So this was an Acadien house,--and he had expected a log hut. He could
command a view from where he stood of a staircase, a smoking-room, and a
parlor,--all clean, cool, and comfortably furnished, and having easy
chairs, muslin curtains, books, and pictures.
He smiled to himself, murmured "I wonder where the dining-room is? These
flies will probably know," and followed a prosperous-looking swarm
sailing through the hall to a distant doorway.
A table, covered by a snowy cloth and set ready for a meal, stood before
him. He walked around it, rapped on a door, behind which he heard a
murmur of voices, and was immediately favored with a sight of an Acadien
kitchen.
This one happened to be large, lofty, and of a grateful irregularity in
shape. The ceiling was as white as snow, and a delicate blue and cream
paper adorned the walls. The floor was of hard wood and partly covered
with brightly colored mats, made by the skilful fingers of Acadien
women. There were several windows and doors, and two pantries, but no
fireplace. An enormous Boston cooking range took its place. Every cover
on it glistened with blacking, every bit of nickel plating was polished
to the last degree, and, as if to show that this model stove could not
possibly be malevolent enough to throw out impurities in the way of soot
and ashes, there stood beside it a tall clothes-horse full of white
ironed clothes hung up to air.
But the most remarkable thing in this exquisitely clean kitchen was the
mistress of the inn,--tall, willowy Mrs. Rose à Charlitte, who stood
confronting the newcomer with a dish-cover in one hand and a clean
napkin in the other, her pretty oval face flushed from some sacrifice
she had been offering up on her huge Moloch of a stove.
[Illustration: "ROSE À CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER."]
"Can you give me some lunch?" asked Vesper, and he wondered whether he
should find a descendant of the Fiery Frenchman in this placid beauty,
whose limpid blue eyes, girlish, innocent gaze, and thick braid of hair,
with the little confusion of curls on the forehead, reminded him rather
of a Gretchen or a Marguerite of the stage.
"But yes," said Mrs. Rose à Charlitte, in uncertain yet pretty English,
and her gentle and demure glance scrutinized him with some shrewdness
and accurate guessing as to his attainments and station in life.
"Can you give it to me soon?" he asked.
"I can give it soon," she replied, and as she spoke she made an almost
imperceptible motion of her head in the direction of the neat
maid-servant behind her, who at once flew out to the garden for fresh
vegetables, while, with her foot, which was almost as slender as her
hand, Mrs. Rose à Charlitte pulled out a damper in the stove that at
once caused a still more urgent draft to animate the glowing wood
inside.
"Can you let me have a room?" pursued Vesper.
"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Rose, and she turned to the third occupant of the
kitchen, a pale child with a flowerlike face and large, serious eyes,
who sat with folded hands in a little chair. "Narcisse," she said, in
French, "wilt thou go and show the judge's room?"
The child, without taking his fascinated gaze from Vesper, responded, in
a sweet, drawling voice, "_Ou-a-a-y, ma ma-r-re_" (yes, my mother).
Then, rising, he trotted slowly through the dining-room and up the
staircase to a hall above, where he gravely threw open the door of a
good-sized chamber, whose chief ornament was a huge white bed.
"Why do you call this the judge's room?" asked Vesper, in French.
The child answered him in unintelligible childish speech, that made the
young man observe him intently. "I believe you look like me, you black
lily," he said, at last.
There was, indeed, a resemblance between their two heads. Both had pale,
inscrutable faces, dark eyes, and curls like midnight clustering over
their white foreheads. Both were serious, grave, and reserved in
expression. The child stared up at Vesper, then, seizing one of his
hands, he patted it gently with his tiny fingers. They were friends.
[Illustration: "THEY WERE FRIENDS."]
Vesper allowed the child to hold his hand until he plunged his head into
a basin of cold water. Then, with water dripping from his face, he
paused to examine a towel before he would press it against his sensitive
skin. It was fine and perfectly clean, and, with a satisfied air, he
murmured: "So far, Doctor Arseneau has not led me astray."
The child waited patiently until the stranger had smoothed down his
black curls, then, stretching out a hand, he mutely invited him to
descend to the parlor.
Upon arriving there, he modestly withdrew to a corner, after pointing
out a collection of photographs on the table. Vesper made a pretence of
examining them until the entrance of his landlady with the announcement
that his lunch was served.
She shyly set before him a plate of soup, and a dish which she called a
little _ragoût_, "not as good as the _ragoûts_ of Boston, and yet
eatable."
"How do you know that I am from Boston?" asked Vesper.
"I do not know," she murmured, with a quick blush. "Monsieur is from
Halifax, I thought. He seems English. I speak of Boston because it was
there that I learned to cook."
Vesper said nothing, but his silence seemed to invite a further
explanation, and she went on, modestly: "When I received news that my
husband had died of yellow fever in the West Indies, neighbors said,
'What will you do?' My stepmother said, 'Come home;' but I answered,
'No; a child that has left its father's roof does not return. I will
keep hotel. My house is of size. I will go to Boston and learn to cook
better than I know.' So I went, and stayed one week."
"That was a short time to learn cooking," observed Vesper, politely.
"I did not study. I bought _cuisine_ books. I went to grand hotels and
regarded the tables and tasted the dishes. If I now had more money, I
would do similar," and she anxiously surveyed her modest table and the
aristocratic young man seated at it; "but not many people come, and the
money lacks. However, our Lord knows that I wish to educate my child.
Strangers will come when he is older.
"And," she went on, after a time, with mingled reluctance and honesty,
"I must not hide from you that I have already in the bank two hundred
dollars. It is not much; not so much as the Gautreaus, who have six
hundred, and Agapit, who has four, yet it is a starting."
Vesper slightly wrinkled his forehead, and Mrs. Rose, fearful that her
cooking displeased him, for he had scarcely tasted the _ragoût_ and had
put aside a roast chicken, hastened to exclaim, "That pudding is but
overheated, and I did wrong to place it before you. Despise it if you
care, and it will please the hens."
"It is a very good pudding," said Vesper, composedly, and he proceeded
to finish it.
"Here is a custard which is quite fresh," said his landlady, feverishly,
"and bananas, and oranges, and some coffee."
"Thank you. No cream--may I ask why you call that room you put me in the
judge's room?"
"Because we have court near by, every year. The judge who comes exists
in that room. It is a most stirabout time, for many witnesses and
lawyers come. Perhaps monsieur passed the court-house and saw a lady
looking through the bars?"
"No, I did not. Who is the lady?"
"A naughty one, who sold liquor. She had no license, she could not pay
her fine, therefore she must look through those iron bars," and Mrs.
Rose à Charlitte shuddered.
Vesper looked interested, and presently she went on: "But Clothilde
Dubois has some mercies,--one rocking-chair, her own feather bed, some
dainties to eat, and many friends to visit and talk through the bars."
"Is there much drinking among the Acadiens on this Bay?" asked Vesper.
"They do not drink at all," she said, stoutly.
"Really,--then you never see a drunken man?"
"I never see a drunken man," rejoined his pretty hostess.
"Then I suppose there are no fights."
"There are no fights among Acadiens. They are good people. They go to
mass and vespers on Sunday. They listen to their good priests. In the
evening one amuses oneself, and on Monday we rise early to work. There
are no dances, no fights."
Vesper's meditative glance wandered through the window to a square of
grass outside, where some little girls in pink cotton dresses were
playing croquet. He was drinking his coffee and watching their graceful
behavior, when his attention was recalled to the room by hearing Mrs.
Rose à Charlitte say to her child, "There, Narcisse, is a morsel for thy
trees."
The little boy had come from the corner where he had sat like a patient
mouse, and, with some excitement, was heaping a plate with the food that
Vesper had rejected.
"Not so fast, little one," said his mother, with an apologetic glance at
the stranger. "Take these plates to the pantry, it will be better."
"Ah, but they will have a good dinner to-day," said the child. "I will
give most to the French willows, my mother. In the morning it will all
be gone."
"But, my treasure, it is the dogs that get it, not the trees."
"No, my mother," he drawled, "you do not know. In the night the long
branches stretch out their arms; they sweep it up," and he clasped his
tiny hands in ecstasy.
Vesper's curiosity was aroused, although he had not understood half that
the child had said. "Does he like trees?" he asked.
Rose à Charlitte made a puzzled gesture. "Sir, to him the trees, the
flowers, the grass, are quite alive. He will not play croquet with those
dear little girls lest his shoes hurt the grass. If I would allow, he
would take all the food from the house and lay under the trees and the
flowers. He often cries at night, for he says the hollyhocks and
sunflowers are hungry, because they are tall and lean. He suffers
terribly to see the big spruces and pines cut down and dragged to the
shore. The doctor says he should go away for awhile, but it is a puzzle,
for I cannot endure to have him leave me."
Vesper gave more attention than he yet had done to the perusal of the
child's sensitive yet strangely composed face. Then he glanced at the
mother. Did she understand him?
She did. In her deep blue eyes he could readily perceive the quick flash
of maternal love and sympathy whenever her boy spoke to her. She was
young, too, extremely young, to have the care of rearing a child. She
must have been married in her cradle, and with that thought in mind he
said, "Do Acadien women marry at an early age?"
"Not more so than the English," said Mrs. Rose, with a shrug of her
graceful, sloping shoulders, "though I was but young,--but seventeen.
But my husband wished it so. He had built this house. He had been long
ready for marriage," and she glanced at the wall behind Vesper.
The young man turned around. Just behind him hung the enlarged
photograph of a man of middle age,--a man who must have been many years
older than his young wife, and whose death had, evidently, not left a
permanent blank in her affections.
In a naïve, innocent way she imparted a few more particulars to Vesper
with regard to her late husband, and, as he rose from the table, she
followed him to the parlor and said, gently, "Perhaps monsieur will
register."
Vesper sat down before the visitors' book on the table, and, taking up a
pen, wrote, "Vesper L. Nimmo, _The Evening News_, Boston."
After he had pressed the blotting-paper on his words, and pushed the
book from him, his landlady stretched out her hand in childlike
curiosity. "Vesper," she said,--"that name is beautiful; it is in a
hymn to the blessed virgin; but _Evening News_,--surely it means not a
journal?"
Vesper assured her that it did.
The young French widow's face fell. She gazed at him with a sudden and
inexplicable change of expression, in which there was something of
regret, something of reproach. "_Il faut que je m'en aille_" (I must go
away), she murmured, reverting to her native language, and she swiftly
withdrew.
Vesper lifted his level eyebrows and languidly strolled out to the
veranda. "The Acadienne evidently entertains some prejudice against
newspaper men. If my dear father were here he would immediately proceed,
in his inimitable way, to clear it from her mind. As for me, I am not
sufficiently interested," and he listlessly stretched himself out on a
veranda settle.
"Monsieur," said a little voice, in deliberate French, "will you tell me
a story about a tree?"
Vesper understood Narcisse this time, and, taking him on his knee, he
pointed to the wooded hills across the Bay and related a wonderful tale
of a city beyond the sun where the trees were not obliged to stand still
in the earth from morning till night, but could walk about and visit men
and women, who were their brothers and sisters, and sometimes the young
trees would stoop down and play with the children.
CHAPTER V.
AGAPIT, THE ACADIEN.
"The music of our life is keyed
To moods that sweep athwart the soul;
The strain will oft in gladness roll,
Or die in sobs and tears at need;
But sad or gay, 'tis ever true
That, e'en as flowers from light take hue,
The key is of our mood the deed."
AMINTA. CORNELIUS O'BRIEN,
_Archbishop of Halifax_.
After Mrs. Rose à Charlitte left Vesper she passed through the kitchen,
and, ascending an open stairway leading to regions above, was soon at
the door of the highest room in the house.
Away up there, sitting at a large table drawn up to the window which
commanded an extensive view of the Bay, sat a sturdy, black-haired young
man. As Mrs. Rose entered the room she glanced about approvingly--for
she was a model housekeeper--at the neatly arranged books and papers on
tables and shelves, and then said, regretfully, and in French, "There is
another of them."
"Of them,--of whom?" said the young man, peevishly, and in the same
language.
"Of the foolish ones who write," continued Mrs. Rose, with gentle
mischief; "who waste much time in scribbling."
"There are people whose brains are continually stewing over
cooking-stoves," said the young man, scornfully; "they are incapable of
rising higher."
"La, la, Agapit," she said, good-naturedly. "Do not be angry with thy
cousin. I came to warn thee lest thou shouldst talk freely to him and
afterward be sorry."
The young man threw his pen on the table, pushed back his chair, and,
springing to his feet, began to pace excitedly up and down the room,
gesticulating eagerly as he talked.
"When fine weather comes," he exclaimed, "strangers flock to the Bay. We
are glad to see them,--all but these abominable idiots. Therefore when
they arrive let the frost come, let us have hail, wind, and snow to
drive them home, that we may enjoy peace."
"But unfortunately in June we have fine weather," said Mrs. Rose.
"I will insult him," said her black-haired cousin, wildly. "I will drive
him from the house," and he stood on tiptoe and glared in her face.
"No, no; thou wilt do nothing of the sort, Agapit."
"I will," he said, distractedly. "I will, I will, I will."
"Agapit," said the young woman, firmly, "if it were not for the
strangers I should have only crusts for my child, not good bread and
butter, therefore calm thyself. Thou must be civil to this stranger."
"I will not," he said, sullenly.
Mrs. Rose à Charlitte's temper gave way. "Pack up thy clothes," she
said, angrily; "there is no living with thee,--thou art so disagreeable.
Take thy old trash, thy papers so old and dusty, and leave my house.
Thou wilt make me starve,--my child will not be educated. Go,--I cast
thee off."
Agapit became calm as he contemplated her wrathful, beautiful face.
"Thou art like all women," he said, composedly, "a little excitable at
times. I am a man, therefore I understand thee," and pushing back his
coat he stuck his thumbs in the armholes and majestically resumed his
walk about the room.
"Come now, cease thy crying," he went on, uneasily, after a time, when
Rose, who had thrown herself into a chair and had covered her face with
her hands, did not look at him. "I shall not leave thee, Rose."
"He is very distinguished," she sobbed, "very polite, and his finger
nails are as white as thy bedspread. He is quite a gentleman; why does
he write for those wicked journals?"
"Thou hast been talking to him, Rose," said her cousin, suspiciously,
stopping short and fixing her with a fiery glance; "with thy usual
innocence thou hast told him all that thou dost know and ever wilt
know."
Rose shuddered, and withdrew her hands from her eyes. "I told him
nothing, not a word."
"Thou didst not tell him of thy wish to educate thy boy, of thy two
hundred dollars in the bank, of thy husband, who teased thy stepmother
till she married thee to him, nor of me, for example?" and his voice
rose excitedly.
His cousin was quite composed now. "I told him nothing," she repeated,
firmly.
"If thou didst do so," he continued, threateningly, "it will all come
out in a newspaper,--'Melting Innocence of an Acadien Landlady. She
Tells a Reporter in Five Minutes the Story of Her Life.'"
"It will not appear," said Mrs. Rose, hastily. "He is a worthy young
man, and handsome, too. There is not on the Bay a handsomer young man. I
will ask him to write nothing, and he will listen to me."
"Oh, thou false one," cried the young man, half in vexation, half in
perplexity. "I wish that thou wert a child,--I would shake thee till thy
teeth chattered!"
Mrs. Rose ran from the room. "He is a pig, an imbecile, and he terrifies
me so that I tell what is not true. What will Father Duvair say to me? I
will rise at six to-morrow, and go to confession."
Vesper went early to bed that night, and slept soundly until early the
next morning, when he opened his eyes to a vision of hazy green fields,
a wide sheet of tremulous water, and a quiet, damp road, bordered by
silent houses. He sprang from his bed, and went to the open window. The
sun was just coming from behind a bank of clouds. He watched the Bay
lighting up under its rays, the green fields brightening, the moisture
evaporating; then hastily throwing on his clothes, he went down-stairs,
unlatched the front door, and hurried across the road into a hay-field,
where the newly cut grass, dripping with moisture, wet his slippered but
stockingless feet.
Down by the rocks he saw a small bathing-house. He slipped off his
clothes, and, clad only in a thin bathing-suit, stood shivering for an
instant at the edge of the water. "It will be frightfully cold," he
muttered. "Dare I--yes, I do," and he plunged boldly into the
deliciously salt waves, and swam to and fro, until he was glowing from
head to foot.
As he was hurrying up to the inn, a few minutes later, he saw, coming
down the road, a small two-wheeled cart, in which was seated Mrs. Rose à
Charlitte. She was driving a white pony, and she sat demure, charming,
with an air of penitence about her, and wearing the mourning garb of
Acadien women,--a plain black dress, a black shawl, and a black silk
handkerchief, drawn hood-wise over her flaxen mop of hair and tied under
her chin.
The young man surveyed her approvingly. She seemed to belong naturally
to the cool, sweet dampness of the morning, and he guessed correctly
that she had been to early mass in the white church whose steeple he
could see in the distance. He was amused with the shy, embarrassed "_Bon
jour_" (good morning) that she gave him as she passed, and murmuring,
"The shadow of _The Evening News_ is still upon her," he went to his
room, and made his toilet for breakfast.
An hour later, a loud bell rang through the house, and Vesper, in making
his way to the dining-room, met a reserved, sulky-faced young man in the
hall, who bowed coolly and stepped aside for him to pass.
"H'm, Agapit LeNoir," reflected Vesper, darting a critical glance at
him. "The Acadien who was to unbosom himself to me. He does not look as
if he would enjoy the process," and he took his seat at the table, where
Mrs. Rose à Charlitte, grown strangely quiet, served his breakfast in an
almost unbroken silence.
Vesper thoughtfully poured some of the thick yellow cream on his
porridge, and enjoyably dallied over it, but when his landlady would
have set before him a dish of smoking hot potatoes and beefsteak, he
said, "I do not care for anything further."
Rose à Charlitte drew back in undisguised concern. "But you have eaten
nothing. Agapit has taken twice as much as this."
"That is the young man I met just now?"
"Yes, he is my cousin; very kind to me. His parents are dead, and he was
brought up by my stepmother. He is so clever, so clever! It is truly
strange what he knows. His uncle, who was a priest, left him many
papers, and all day, when Agapit does not work, he sits and writes or
reads. Some day he will be a learned man--"
Rose paused abruptly. In her regret at the stranger's want of appetite
she was forgetting that she had resolved to have no further conversation
with him, and in sudden confusion she made the excuse that she wished to
see her child, and melted away like a snowflake, in the direction of the
kitchen, where Vesper had just heard Narcisse's sweet voice asking
permission to talk to the Englishman from Boston.
The young American wandered out to the stable. Two Acadiens were there,
asking Agapit for the loan of a set of harness. At Vesper's approach
they continued their conversation in French, although he had distinctly
heard them speaking excellent English before he joined them.
These men were employing an almost new language to him. This was not the
French of _L'Évangéline_, of Doctor Arseneau, nor of Rose à Charlitte.
Nor was it _patois_ such as he had heard in France, and which would have
been unintelligible to him. This must be the true Acadien dialect, and
he listened with pleasure to the softening and sweetening of some
syllables and the sharpening and ruining of others. They were saying
_ung houmme_, for a man. This was not unmusical; neither was
_persounne_, for nobody; but the _ang_ sound so freely interspersing
their sentences was detestable; as was also the reckless introduction of
English phrases, such as "all right," "you bet," "how queer," "too
proud," "funny," "steam-cars," and many others.
Their conversation for some time left the stable, then it returned along
the line of discussion of a glossy black horse that stood in one of the
stalls.
"_Ce cheval est de bounne harage_" (this horse is well-bred), said one
of the Acadiens, admiringly, and Vesper's thoughts ran back to a word in
the Latin grammar of his boyhood. _Hara_, a pen or stable. _De bonne
race_, a modern Frenchman would be likely to say. Probably these men
were speaking the language brought by their ancestors to Acadie; without
doubt they were. On this Bay would be presented to him the curious
spectacle of the descendants of a number of people lifted bodily out of
France, and preserving in their adopted country the tongue that had been
lost to the motherland. In France the language had drifted. Here the
Acadiens were using the same syllables that had hung on the lips of
kings, courtiers, poets, and wits of three and four hundred years ago.
With keen interest, for he had a passion for the study of languages, he
carefully analyzed each sentence that he heard, until, fearing that his
attitude might seem impertinent to the Acadiens, he strolled away.
His feet naturally turned in the direction of the corner, the most
lively spot in Sleeping Water. In the blacksmith's shop a short, stout
young Acadien with light hair, blue eyes, and a dirty face and arms, was
striking the red-hot tip of a pickax with ringing blows. He nodded
civilly enough to Vesper when he joined the knot of men who stood about
the wide door watching him, but no one else spoke to him.
A farmer was waiting to have a pair of cream white oxen shod, a
stable-keeper, from another part of _la ville française_, was
impatiently chafing and fretting over the amount of time required to
mend his sulky wheel, and conversing with him were two well-dressed
young men, who appeared to be Acadiens from abroad spending their
holidays at home.
Vesper's arrival had the effect of dispersing the little group. The
stable-man moved away to his sulky, as if he preferred the vicinity of
his roan horse, who gazed at him so benevolently, to that of Vesper, who
surveyed him so indifferently. The farmer entered the shop and sat down
on a box in a dark corner, while the Acadien young men, after cold
glances at the newcomer, moved away to the post-office.
After a time Vesper remembered that he must have some Canadian stamps,
and followed them. Outside the shop five or six teams were lined up.
They were on their way to the wharf below, and were loaded with more of
the enormous trees that he had seen the day before. Probably their
sturdy strength, hoarded through long years in Acadien forests, would be
devoted to the support of some warehouse or mansion in his native
Puritan city, whose founders had called so loudly for the destruction of
the French.
Vesper cast a regretful glance in the direction of the trees, and
entered the little shop, whose well-stocked shelves were full of rolls
of cotton and flannel, and boxes of groceries, confectionery, and
stationery. The drivers of the ox-teams were inside, doing their
shopping. They were somewhat rougher in appearance than the inhabitants
of Sleeping Water, and were louder and noisier in their conversation.
Vesper saw a young Acadien whisper a few words to one of them, and the
teamster in return scowled fiercely at him, and muttered something about
"a goddam Yankee."
The young American stared coolly at him, and, going up to the counter,
purchased his stamps from a fat man in shirt-sleeves, who served him
with exquisite and distant courtesy. Then, leaving the shop, he shrugged
his shoulders, and went back the way he had come, murmuring, in amused
curiosity, "I must solve this mystery of _The Evening News_. My friend
Agapit is infecting all who come within the circle of his influence."
He walked on past the inn, staring with interest at the houses bordering
the road. A few were very small, a few very old. He could mark the
transition of a family in some cases from their larval state in a low,
gray, caterpillar-like house of one story to a gay-winged butterfly home
of two or three stories. However, on the whole, the dwellings were
nearly all of the same size,--there were no sharp distinctions between
rich and poor. He saw no peasants, no pampered landlords. These Acadiens
all seemed to be small farmers, and all were on an equality.
The creaking of an approaching team caught his attention. It was drawn
by a pair of magnificent red oxen, groomed as carefully as if they had
been horses, and beside them walked an old man, who was holding an
ejaculatory conversation with them in English; for the Acadiens of the
Bay Saint-Mary always address their oxen and horses as if they belonged
to the English race.
"I wonder whether this worthy man in homespun has been informed that I
am a kind of leper," reflected Vesper, as he uttered a somewhat guarded
"_Bon jour_."
"_Bon jour_," said the old man, delightedly, and he halted and
admonished his companions to do the same.
"_Il fait beau_" (it is a fine day), pursued Vesper, cautiously.
"_Oui, mais je crais qu'il va mouiller_" (yes, but I think it is going
to rain), said the Acadien, with gentle affability; then he went on,
apologetically, and in English, "I do not speak the good French."
"It is the best of French," said Vesper, "for it is old."
"And you," continued the old man, not to be outdone in courtesy, "you
speak like the sisters of St. Joseph who once called at my house. Their
words were like round pebbles dropping from their mouths."
Vesper smoothed his mustache, and glanced kindly at his aged companion,
who proceeded to ask him whether he was staying at the inn. "Ah, it is a
good inn," he went on, "and Rose à Charlitte is _très-smart,
très-smart_. Perhaps you do not understand my English," he added, when
Vesper did not reply to him.
"On the contrary, I find that you speak admirably."
"You are kind," said the old man, shaking his head, "but my English
langwidge is spiled since my daughter went to Bostons, for I talk to no
one. She married an Irish boy; he is a nusser."
"An usher,--in a theatre?"
"No, sir, in a cross-spittal. He nusses sick people, and gets two
dollars a day."
"Oh, indeed."
"Do you come from Bostons?" asked the old man.
"Yes, I do."
"And do you know my daughter?"
"What is her name?"
The Acadien reflected for some time, then said it was MacCraw, whereupon
Vesper assured him that he had never had the pleasure of meeting her.
"Is your trade an easy one?" asked the old man, wistfully.
"No; very hard."
"You are then a farmer."
"No; I wish I were. My trade is taking care of my health."
The Acadien examined him from head to foot. "Your face is beautifuller
than a woman's, but you are poorly built."
Vesper drew up his straight and slender figure. He was not surprised
that it did not come up to the Acadien's standard of manly beauty.
"Let us shake hands lest we never meet again," said the old man, so
gently, so kindly, and with so much benevolence, that Vesper responded,
warmly, "I hope to see you some other time."
"Perhaps you will call. We are but poor, yet if it would please you--"
"I shall be most happy. Where do you live?"
"Near the low down brook, way off there. Demand Antoine à Joe Rimbaut,"
and, smiling and nodding farewell, the old man moved on.
"A good heart," said Vesper, looking after him.
"Caw, caw," said a solemn voice at his elbow.
He turned around. One of the blackest of crows sat on a garden fence
that surrounded a neat pink cottage. The cottage was itself smothered in
lilacs, whose fragrant blossoms were in their prime, although the Boston
lilacs had long since faded and died.
"Do not be afraid, sir," said a woman in the inevitable handkerchief,
who jumped up from a flower bed that she was weeding, "he is quite
tame."
"_Un corbeau apprivoisé_" (a tame crow), said Vesper, lifting his cap.
"_Un corbeau privé_, we say," she replied, shyly. "You speak the good
French, like the priests out of France."
She was not a very young woman, nor was she very pretty, but she was
delightfully modest and retiring in her manner, and Vesper, leaning
against the fence, assured her that he feared the Acadiens were lacking
in a proper appreciation of their ability to speak their own language.
After a time he looked over the fields behind her cottage, and asked the
name of a church crowning a hill in the distance.
"It is the Saulnierville church," she replied, "but you must not walk so
far. You will stay to dinner?"
While Vesper was politely declining her invitation, a Frenchman with a
long, pointed nose, and bright, sharp eyes, came around the corner of
the house.
"He is my husband," said the woman. "Edouard, this gentleman speaks the
good French."
The Acadien warmly seconded the invitation of his wife that Vesper
should stay to dinner, but he escaped from them with smiling thanks and
a promise to come another day.
"They never saw me before, and they asked me to stay to dinner. That is
true hospitality,--they have not been infected. I will make my way back
to the inn, and interview that sulky beggar."
CHAPTER VI.
VESPER SUGGESTS AN EXPLANATION.
"Glad of a quarrel straight I clap the door;
Sir, let me see you and your works no more."
POPE.
At twelve o'clock Mrs. Rose à Charlitte was standing in her cold pantry
deftly putting a cap of icing on a rich rounded loaf of cake, when she
heard a question asked, in Vesper's smooth neutral tones, "Where is
madame?"
She stepped into the kitchen, and found that he was interrogating her
servant Célina.
"I should like to speak to that young man I saw this morning," he said,
when he saw her.
"He has gone out, monsieur," she replied, after a moment's hesitation.
"Which is his room?"
"The one by the smoking-room," she answered, with a deep blush.
Vesper's white teeth gleamed through his dark mustache, and, seeing that
he was laughing at her, she grew confused, and hung her head.
"Can I get to it by this staircase?" asked Vesper, exposing her petty
deceit. "I think I can by going up to the roof, and dropping down."
Mrs. Rose lifted her head long enough to flash him a scrutinizing
glance. Then, becoming sensible of the determination of purpose under
his indifference of manner, she said, in scarcely audible tones, "I will
show you."
"I have only a simple question to ask him," said Vesper, reassuringly,
as he followed her towards the staircase.
"Agapit is quick like lightning," she said, over her shoulder, "but his
heart is good. He helps to keep our grandmother, who spends her days in
bed."
"That is exemplary. I would be the last one to hurt the feelings of the
prop of an aged person," murmured Vesper.
Rose à Charlitte was not satisfied. She unwillingly mounted the stairs,
and pointed out the door of her cousin's room, then withdrew to the next
one, and listened anxiously in case there might be some disturbance
between the young men. There was none; so, after a time, she went
down-stairs.
Agapit, at Vesper's entrance, abruptly pushed back his chair from the
table and, rising, presented a red and angry face to his visitor.
"I have interrupted you, I fear," said Vesper, smoothly. "I will not
detain you long. I merely wish to ask a question."
"Will you sit down?" said Agapit, sulkily, and he forced himself to
offer the most comfortable chair in the room to his caller.
Vesper did not seat himself until he saw that Agapit was prepared to
follow his example. Then he looked into the black eyes of the Acadien,
which were like two of the deep, dark pools in the forest, and said, "A
matter of business has brought me to this Bay. I may have some inquiries
to make, in which I would find myself hampered by any prejudice among
persons I might choose to question. I fancy that some of the people here
look on me with suspicion. I am quite unaware of having given offence in
any way. Possibly you can explain,--I am not bent on an explanation, you
understand. If you choose to offer one, I shall be glad to listen."
He spoke listlessly, tapping on the table with his fingers, and allowing
his eyes to wander around the room, rather than to remain fixed on
Agapit's face.
The young Acadien could scarcely restrain a torrent of words until
Vesper had finished speaking.
"Since you ask, I will explain,--yes, I will not be silent. We are not
rude here,--oh, no. We are too kind to strangers. Vipers have crept in
among us. They have stolen heat and warmth from our bosoms"--he paused,
choking with rage.
"And you have reason to suppose that I may prove a viper?" asked Vesper,
indolently.
"Yes, you also are one. You come here, we receive you. You depart, you
laugh in your sleeve,--a newspaper comes. We see it all. The meek and
patient Acadiens are once more held up to be a laughing-stock."
Vesper wrinkled his level eyebrows. "Perhaps you will characterize this
viperish conduct?"
Agapit calmed himself slightly. "Wait but an instant. Control your
curiosity, and I will give you something to read," and he went on his
knees, and rummaged among some loose papers in an open box. "Look at
it," he said, at last, springing up and handing his caller a newspaper;
"read, and possibly you will understand."
Vesper's quick eye ran over the sheet that he held up. "This is a New
York weekly paper. Yes, I know it well. What is there here that concerns
you?"
"Look, look here," said Agapit, tapping a column in the paper with an
impatient gesture. "Read the nonsense, the drivel, the insanity of the
thing--"
"Ah,--'Among the Acadiens, Quaintness Unrivalled, Archaic Forms of
Speech, A Dance and a Wedding, The Spirit of Evangeline, Humorous
Traits, If You Wish a Good Laugh Go Among Them!'"
"She laughed in print, she screamed in black ink!" exclaimed Agapit.
"The silly one,--the witch."
"Who was she,--this lady viper?" asked Vesper, briefly.
"She was a woman--a newspaper woman. She spent a summer among us. She
gloomed about the beach with a shawl on her shoulders; a small dog
followed her. She laid in bed. She read novels, and then," he continued,
with rising voice, "she returned home, she wrote this detestability
about us."
"Why need you care?" said Vesper, coolly. "She had to reel off a certain
amount of copy. All correspondents have to do so. She only touched up
things a little to make lively reading."
"Not touching up, but manufacturing," retorted Agapit, with blazing
eyes. "She had nothing to go on, nothing--nothing--nothing. We are just
like other people," and he ruffled his coal-black hair with both his
hands, and looked at his caller fiercely. "Do you not find us so?"
"Not exactly," said Vesper, so dispassionately and calmly, and with such
statuesque repose of manner, that he seemed rather to breathe the words
than to form them with his lips.
"And you will express that in your paper. You will not tell the truth.
My countrymen will never have justice,--never, never. They are always
misrepresented, always."
"What a firebrand!" reflected Vesper, and he surveyed, with some
animation, the inflamed, suspicious face of the Frenchman.
"You also will caricature us," pursued Agapit; "others have done so, why
should not you?"
Vesper's lips parted. He was on the point of imparting to Agapit the
story of his great-grandfather's letter. Then he closed them. Why should
he be browbeaten into communicating his private affairs to a stranger?
"Thank you," he said, and he rose to leave the room. "I am obliged for
the information you have given me."
Agapit's face darkened; he would dearly love to secure a promise of good
behavior from this stranger, who was so non-committal, so reserved, and
yet so strangely attractive.
"See," he said, grandly, and flinging his hand in the direction of his
books and papers. "To an honest man, really interested in my people, I
would be pleased to give information. I have many documents, many
books."
"Ah, you take an interest in this sort of thing," said Vesper.
"An interest--I should die without my books and papers; they are my
life."
"And yet you were cut out for a farmer," thought Vesper, as he surveyed
Agapit's sturdy frame. "I suppose you have the details of the expulsion
at your fingers' ends," he said, aloud.
"Ah, the expulsion," muttered Agapit, turning deathly pale, "the
abominable, damnable expulsion!"
"Your feelings run high on the subject," murmured Vesper.
"It suffocates me, it chokes me, when I reflect how it was brought
about. You know, of course, that in the eighteenth century there
flourished a devil,--no, not a devil," contemptuously. "What is that for
a word? Devil, devil,--it is so common that there is no badness in it.
Even the women say, 'Poor devil, I pity him.' Say, rather, there was a
god of infamy, the blackest, the basest, the most infernal of created
beings that our Lord ever permitted to pollute this earth--"
For a minute he became incoherent, then he caught his breath. "This
demon, this arch-fiend, the misbegotten Lawrence that your historian
Parkman sets himself to whitewash--"
"I know of Parkman," said Vesper, coldly, "he was once a neighbor of
ours."
"Was he!" exclaimed Agapit, in a paroxysm of excitement. "A fine
neighbor, a worthy man! Parkman,--the New England story-teller, the
traducer, who was too careless to set himself to the task of
investigating records."
Vesper was not prepared to hear any abuse of his countryman, and,
turning on his heel, he left the room, while Agapit, furious to think
that, unasked, he had been betrayed into furnishing a newspaper
correspondent with some crumbs of information that might possibly be
dished up in appetizing form for the delectation of American readers,
slammed the door behind him, and went back to his writing.
CHAPTER VII.
A DEADLOCK.
"I found the fullest summer here
Between these sloping meadow-hills and yon;
And came all beauty then, from dawn to dawn,
Whether the tide was veiled or flowing clear."
J. F. H.
Three days later, Vesper had only two friends in Sleeping Water,--that
is, only two open friends. He knew he had a secret one in Mrs. Rose à
Charlitte, who waited on him with the air of a sorrowing saint.
The open friends were the child Narcisse, and Emmanuel Victor de la
Rive, the mail-driver. Rose could not keep her child away from the
handsome stranger. Narcisse had fallen into a passionate adoration for
him, and even in his dreams prattled of the Englishman from Boston.
On the third night of Vesper's stay in Sleeping Water a violent
thunder-storm arose. Lying in his bed and watching the weird lighting up
of the Bay under the vivid discharges of electricity, he heard a
fumbling at his door-knob, and, upon unlocking the door, discovered
Narcisse, pale and seraphic, in a long white nightgown, and with beads
of distress on his forehead.
"Mr. Englishman," he said to Vesper, who now understood his childish
lingo, "I come to you, for my mother sleeps soundly, and she cannot tell
me when she wakes,--the trees and the flowers, are they not in a
terrible fright?" and, holding up his gown with one hand, he went
swiftly to the window, and pointed out towards the willows, writhing and
twisting in the wind, and the gentle flowers laid low on the earth.
A yellow glare lighted up the room, a terrible peal of thunder shook the
house, but the child did not quail, and stood waiting for an answer to
his question.
"Come here," said Vesper, calmly, "and I will explain to you that the
thunder does not hurt them, and that they have a way of bending before
the blast."
Narcisse immediately drew his pink heels up over the side of Vesper's
bed. He was unspeakably soothed by the merest word of this stranger, in
whose nervous sensitiveness and reserve he found a spirit more congenial
to his own than in that of his physically perfect mother.
Vesper talked to him for some time, and the child at last fell asleep,
his tiny hand clasping a scapulary on his breast, his pretty lips
murmuring to the picture on it, "Good St. Joseph, Mr. Englishman says
that only a few of the trees and flowers are hurt by the storm. Watch
over the little willows and the small lilies while I sleep, and do not
let them be harmed."
Vesper at first patiently and kindly endured the pressure of the curly
head laid on his arm. He would like to have a beautiful child like this
for his own. Then thoughts of his childhood began to steal over him. He
remembered climbing into his father's bed, gazing worshipfully into his
face, and stroking his handsome head.
"O God, my father!" he muttered, "I have lost him," and, unable to
endure the presence of the child, he softly waked him. "Go back to your
mother, Narcisse. She may miss you."
The child sleepily obeyed him, and went to continue his dreams by his
mother's side, while Vesper lay awake until the morning, a prey to
recollections at once tender and painful.
Vesper's second friend, the mail-driver, never failed to call on him
every morning. If one could put a stamp on a letter it was permissible
at any point on the route to call, "_Arrête-toi_" (stop), to the crimson
flying bird. If one could not stamp a letter, it was illegal to detain
him.
Vesper never had, however, to call "_Arrête-toi_." Of his own accord
Emmanuel Victor de la Rive, upon arriving before the inn, would fling
the reins over his pony's back, and spring nimbly out. He was sure to
find Vesper lolling on the seat under the willows, or lying in the
hammock, with Narcisse somewhere near, whereupon he would seat himself
for a few minutes, and in his own courteous and curious way would ask
various and sundry questions of this stranger, who had fascinated him
almost as completely as he had Narcisse.
On the morning after the thunder-storm he had fallen into an admiration
of Vesper's beautiful white teeth. Were they all his own, and not
artificial? With such teeth he could marry any woman. He was a bachelor
now, was he not? Did he always intend to remain one? How much longer
would he stay in Sleeping Water? And Vesper, parrying his questions with
his usual skill, sent him away with his ears full of polite sentences
that, when he came to analyze them, conveyed not a single item of
information to his surprised brain.
However, he felt no resentment towards Vesper. His admiration rose
superior to any rebuffs. It even soared above the warning intimations he
received from many Acadiens to the effect that he was laying himself
open to hostile criticism by his intercourse with the enemy within the
camp.
Vesper was amused by him, and on this particular morning, after he
left, he lay back in the hammock, his mind enjoyably dwelling on the
characteristics of the volatile Acadien.
Narcisse, who stood beside him in the centre of the bare spot on the
lawn, by the hammock, in vain begged for a story, and at last, losing
patience, knelt down and put his head to the ground. The Englishman had
told him that each grass-blade came up from the earth with a tale on the
tip of its quivering tongue, and that all might hear who bent an ear to
listen. Narcisse wished to get news of the storm in the night, and
really fancied that the grass-blades told him it had prevailed in the
bowels of the earth. He sprang up to impart the news to Vesper, and
Agapit, who was passing down the lane by the house to the street,
scowled, disapprovingly, at the pretty, wagging head and animated
gestures.
Vesper gazed after him, and paid no attention to Narcisse. "I wonder,"
he murmured, languidly, "what spell holds me in the neighborhood of this
Acadien demagogue who has turned his following against me. It must be
the Bay," and in a trance of pleasure he surveyed its sparkling surface.
Always beautiful,--never the same. Was ever another sheet of water so
wholly charming, was ever another occupation so fitted for unstrung
nerves as this placid watching of its varying humors and tumults?
This morning it was like crystal. A fleet of small boats was dancing out
to the deep sea fishing-grounds, and three brown-sailed schooners were
gliding up the Bay to mysterious waters unknown to him. As soon as he
grew stronger, he must follow them up to the rolling country and the
fertile fields beyond Sleeping Water. Just now the mere thought of
leaving the inn filled him with nervous apprehension, and he started
painfully and irritably as the sharp clang of the dinner-bell rang out
through the open windows of the house.
Followed by Narcisse, he sauntered to the table, where he caused Rose à
Charlitte's heart a succession of pangs and anxieties.
"He does not like my cooking; he eats nothing," she said, mournfully, to
Agapit, who was taking a substantial dinner at the kitchen table.
"I wish that he would go away," said Agapit, "I hate his insolent face."
"But he is not insolent," said Rose, pleadingly. "It is only that he
does not care for us; he is likely rich, and we are but poor."
"Do many millionaires come to thy quiet inn?" asked Agapit, ironically.
Rose reluctantly admitted that, so far, her patrons had not been people
of wealth.
"He is probably a beggar," said Agapit. "He has paid thee nothing yet. I
dare say he has only old clothes in that trunk of his. Perhaps he was
forced to leave his home. He intends to spend the rest of his life
here."
"If he would work," said Rose, timidly, "he could earn his board. If
thou goest away, I shall need a man for the stable."
"Look at his white hands," said Agapit, "he is lazy,--and dost thou
think I would leave thee with that young sprig? His character may be of
the worst. What do we know of him?" and he tramped out to the stable,
while Mrs. Rose confusedly withdrew to her pantry.
An hour later, while Agapit was grooming Toochune, the thoroughbred
black horse that was the wonder of the Bay, Narcisse came and stood in
the stable door, and for a long time silently watched him.
Then he heaved a small sigh. He was thinking neither of the horse nor of
Agapit, and said, wistfully, "The Englishman from Boston sleeps as well
as my mother. I have tried to wake him, but I cannot."
Agapit paid no attention to him, but the matter was weighing on the
child's mind, and after a time he continued, "His face is very white, as
white as the breast of the ducks."
"His face is always white," growled Agapit.
Narcisse went away, and sat patiently down by the hammock, while Agapit,
who kept an eye on him despite himself, took occasion a little later to
go to the garden, ostensibly to mend a hole in the fence, in reality to
peer through the willows at Vesper.
What he saw caused him to drop his knife, and go to the well, where
Célina was drawing a bucket of water.
"The Englishman has fainted," he said, and he took the bucket from her.
Célina ran after him, and watched him thrust Narcisse aside and dash a
handful of water in Vesper's marble, immobile face.
Narcisse raised one of his tiny fists and struck Agapit a smart blow,
and, in spite of their concern for the Englishman, both the grown people
turned and stared in surprise at him. For the first time they saw the
sweet-tempered child in a rage.
"Go away," he said, in a choking voice, "you shall not hurt him."
"Hush, little rabbit," said the young man. "I try to do him good.
Christophe! Christophe!" and he hailed an Acadien who was passing along
the road. "Come assist me to carry the Englishman into the house. This
is something worse than a faint."
CHAPTER VIII.
ON THE SUDDEN SOMETHING ILL.
"Dull days had hung like curtained mysteries,
And nights were weary with the starless skies.
At once came life, and fire, and joys untold,
And promises for violets to unfold;
And every breeze had shreds of melodies,
So faint and sweet."
J. F. HERBIN.
One midnight, three weeks later, when perfect silence and darkness
brooded over Sleeping Water, and the only lights burning were the stars
up aloft, and two lamps in two windows of the inn, Vesper opened his
eyes and looked about him.
He saw for some dreamy moments only a swimming curtain of black, with a
few familiar objects picked out against the gloom. He could distinguish
his trunk sailing to and fro, a remembered mirror before which he had
brushed his hair, a book in a well-known binding, and a lamp with a soft
yellow globe, that immediately took him to a certain restaurant in
Paris, and made him fancy that he was dining under the yellow lights in
its ceiling.
Where was he,--in what country had he been having this long, dreamless
sleep? And by dint of much brain racking, which bathed his whole body in
a profuse perspiration, he at length retraced his steps back into his
life, and decided that he was in the last place that he remembered
before he fell into this disembodied-spirit condition of mind,--his room
in the Sleeping Water Inn.
There was the open window, through which he had so often listened to the
soothing murmur of the sea; there were the easy chairs, the chest of
drawers, the little table, that, as he remembered it last, was not
covered with medicine-bottles. The child's cot was a wholly new object.
Had the landlady's little boy been sharing his quarters? What was his
name? Ah, yes, Narcisse,--and what had they called the sulky Acadien who
had hung about the house, and who now sat reading in a rocking-chair by
the table?
Agapit--that was it; but why was he here in his room? Some one had been
ill. "I am that person," suddenly drifted into his tortured mind. "I
have been very ill; perhaps I am going to die." But the thought caused
him no uneasiness, no regret; he was conscious only of an indescribably
acute and nervous torture as his weary eyes glued themselves to the
unconscious face of his watcher.
Agapit would soon lift his head, would stare at him, would utter some
exclamation; and, in mute, frantic expectation, Vesper waited for the
start and the exclamation. If they did come he felt that they would kill
him; if they did not, he felt that nothing less than a sudden and
immediate felling to the floor of his companion would satisfy the
demands of his insane and frantic agitation.
Fortunately Agapit soon turned his anxious face towards the bed. He did
not start, he did not exclaim: he had been too well drilled for that;
but a quick, quiet rapture fell upon him that was expressed only by the
trembling of his finger tips.
The young American had come out of the death-like unconsciousness of
past days and nights; he now had a chance to recover; but while a
thanksgiving to the mother of angels was trembling on his lips, his
patient surveyed him in an ecstasy of irritation and weakness that found
expression in hysterical laughter.
Agapit was alarmed. He had never heard Vesper laugh in health. He had
rarely smiled. Possibly he might be calmed by the offer of something to
eat, and, picking up a bowl of jelly, he approached the bed.
Vesper made a supreme effort, slightly moved his head from the
descending spoon, and uttered the worst expression that he could summon
from his limited vocabulary of abuse of former days.
Agapit drew back, and resignedly put the jelly on the table. "He
remembers the past," he reflected, with hanging head.
Vesper did not remember the past; he was conscious of no resentment. He
was possessed only of a wild desire to be rid of this man, whose
presence inflamed him to the verge of madness.
After sorrowfully surveying him, while retreating further and further
from his inarticulate expressions of rage, Agapit stepped into the hall.
In a few minutes he returned with Rose, who looked pale and weary, as if
she, too, were a watcher by a sick-bed. She glanced quickly at Vesper,
suppressed a smile when he made a face at Agapit, and signed to the
latter to leave the room.
Vesper became calm. Instead of sitting down beside him, or staring at
him, she had gone to the window, and stood with folded hands, looking
out into the night. After some time she went to the table, took up a
bottle, and, carefully examining it, poured a few drops into a spoon.
Vesper took the liquid from her, with no sense of irritation; then, as
she quickly turned away, he felt himself sinking down, down, through his
bed, through the floor, through the crust of the earth, into regions of
infinite space, from which he had come back to the world for a time.
The next time he waked up, Agapit was again with him. The former
pantomime would have been repeated if Agapit had not at once
precipitated himself from the room, and sent Rose to take his place.
This time she smiled at Vesper, and made an effort to retain his
attention, even going so far as to leave the room and reënter with a wan
effigy of Narcisse in her arms,--a pale and puny thing that stared
languidly at him, and attempted to kiss his hand.
Vesper tried to speak to the child, lost himself in the attempt, then
roused his slumbering fancy once more and breathed a question to Mrs.
Rose,--"My mother?"
"Your mother is well, and is here," murmured his landlady. "You shall
see her soon."
Vesper's periods of slumber after this were not of so long duration, and
one warm and delicious afternoon, when the sunlight was streaming in and
flooding his bed, he opened his eyes on a frail, happy figure fluttering
about the room. "Ah, mother," he said, calmly, "you are here."
She flew to the bed, she hovered over him, embraced him, turned away,
came back to him, and finally, rigidly clasping her hands to ensure
self-control, sat down beside him.
At first she would not talk, the doctor would not permit it; but after
some days her tongue was allowed to take its course freely and
uninterruptedly.
"My dear boy, what a horrible fright you gave me! Your letters came
every day for a week, then they stopped. I waited two days, thinking you
had gone to some other place, then I telegraphed. You were ill. You can
imagine how I hurried here, with Henry to take care of me. And what do
you think I found? Such a curious state of affairs. Do you know that
these Acadiens hated you at first?"
"Yes, I remember that."
"But when you fell ill, that young man, Agapit, installed himself as
your nurse. They spoke of getting a Sister of Charity, but had some
scruples, thinking you might not like it, as you are a Protestant. Mrs.
de Forêt closed her inn; she would receive no guests, lest they might
disturb you. She and her cousin nursed you. They got an English doctor
to drive twelve miles every day,--they thought you would prefer him to a
French one. Then her little boy fell ill; he said the young man Agapit
had hurt you. They thought he would die, for he had brain fever. He
called all the time for you, and when he had lucid intervals, they could
only convince him you were not dead by bringing him in, and putting him
in this cot. Really, it was a most deplorable state of affairs. But the
charming part is that they thought you were a pauper. When I arrived,
they were thunderstruck. They had not opened your trunk, which you left
locked, though they said they would have done so if I had not come, for
they feared you might die, and they wanted to get the addresses of your
friends, and every morning, my dear boy, for three days after you were
taken ill, you started up at nine o'clock, the time that queer, red
postman used to come,--and wrote a letter to me."
Mrs. Nimmo paused, hid her face in her hands, and burst into tears. "It
almost broke my heart when I heard it,--to think of you rousing yourself
every day from your semi-unconsciousness to write to your mother. I
cannot forgive myself for letting you go away without me."
"Why did they not write from here to you?" asked Vesper.
"They did not know I was your mother. I don't think they looked at the
address of the letters you had sent. They thought you were poor, and an
adventurer."
"Why did they not write to _The Evening News_?"
"My dear boy, they were doing everything possible for you, and they
would have written in time."
"You have, of course, told them that they shall suffer no loss by all
this?"
"Yes, yes; but they seem almost ashamed to take money from me. That
charming landlady says, 'If I were rich I would pay all, myself.'
Vesper, she is a wonderful woman."
"Is she?" he said, languidly.
"I never saw any one like her. My darling, how do you feel? Mayn't I
give you some wine? I feel as if I had got you back from the grave, I
can never be sufficiently thankful. The doctor says you may be carried
out-of-doors in a week, if you keep on improving, as you are sure to do.
The air here seems to suit you perfectly. You would never have been ill
if you had not been run down when you came. That young man Agapit is
making a stretcher to carry you. He is terribly ashamed of his dislike
for you, and he fairly worships you now."
"I suppose you went through my trunk," said Vesper, in faint, indulgent
tones.
"Well, yes," said Mrs. Nimmo, reluctantly. "I thought, perhaps, there
might be something to be attended to."
"And you read my great-grandfather's letter?"
"Yes,--I will tell you exactly what I did. I found the key the second
day I came, and I opened the trunk. When I discovered that old yellow
letter, I knew it was something important. I read it, and of course
recognized that you had come here in search of the Fiery Frenchman's
children. However, I did not think you would like me to tell these
Acadiens that, so I merely said, 'How you have misunderstood my son! He
came here to do good to some of your people. He is looking for the
descendants of a poor unhappy man. My son has money, and would help
you.'"
Vesper tried to keep back the little crease of amusement forming itself
about his wasted lips. He had rarely seen his mother so happy and so
excited. She prattled on, watching him sharply to see the effect of her
words, and hovering over him like a kind little mother-bird. In some way
she reminded him curiously enough of Emmanuel de la Rive.
"I simply told them how good you are, and how you hate to have a fuss
made over you. The young Acadien man actually writhed, and Mrs. de Forêt
cried like a baby. Then they said, 'Oh, why did he put the name of a
paper after his name?' 'How cruel in you to say that!' I replied to
them. 'He does that because it reminds him of his dead father, whom he
adored. My husband was editor and proprietor of the paper, and my son
owns a part of it.' You should have seen the young Acadien. He put his
head down on his arms, then he lifted it, and said, 'But does your son
not write?' 'Write!' I exclaimed, indignantly, 'he hates writing. To me,
his own mother, he only sends half a dozen lines. He never wrote a
newspaper article in his life.' They would have been utterly overcome if
I had not praised them for their disinterestedness in taking care of
you in spite of their prejudice against you. Vesper, they will do
anything for you now; and that exquisite child,--it is just like a
romance that he should have fallen ill because you did."
"Is he better?"
"Almost well. They often bring him in when you are asleep. I daresay it
would amuse you to have him sit on your bed for awhile."
Vesper was silent, and, after a time, his mother ran on: "This French
district is delightfully unique. I never was in such an out-of-the-world
place except in Europe. I feel as if I had been moved back into a former
century, when I see those women going about in their black
handkerchiefs. I sit at the window and watch them going by,--I should
never weary of them."
Vesper said nothing, but he reflected affectionately and acutely that in
a fortnight his appreciative but fickle mother would be longing for the
rustle of silks, the flutter of laces, and the hum of fashionable
conversation on a veranda, which was her idea of an enjoyable summer
existence.
CHAPTER IX.
A TALK ON THE WHARF.
"Long have I lingered where the marshlands are,
Oft hearing in the murmur of the tide
The past, alive again and at my side,
With unrelenting power and hateful war."
J. F. H.
"There goes the priest of the parish in his buggy," said Mrs. Nimmo. "He
must have a sick call."
She sat on a garden chair, crocheting a white shawl and watching the
passers-by on the road.
"And there are some Sisters of Charity from one of the convents and an
old Indian with a load of baskets is begging from them--Don't you want
to look at these bicyclists, Vesper? One, two, three, four, five, six.
They are from Boston, I know, by the square collars on their jerseys.
The Nova Scotians do not dress in that way."
Vesper gave only a partial though pleased attention to his mother, who
had picked up an astonishing amount of neighborhood news, and as he lay
on a rug at her feet, with his hat pulled over his brows, his mind
soared up to the blue sky above him. During his illness he had always
seemed to be sinking down into blackness and desolation. With returning
health and decreased nervousness his soul mounted upward, and he would
lie for hours at a time bathed in a delicious reverie and dreaming of "a
nest among the stars."
"And there is the blacksmith from the corner," continued Mrs. Nimmo,
"who comes here so often to borrow things that a blacksmith is commonly
supposed to have. Yesterday he wanted a hammer. 'Not a hammer,' said
Célina to me, 'but a wife.'"
Vesper's brain immediately turned an abrupt somersault in a descent from
the sky to earth. "What did you say, mother?"
"Merely that the blacksmith wishes to marry our landlady. It will be an
excellent match for her. Don't you think so?"
"In some respects,--yes."
"She is too young, and too handsome, to remain a widow. Célina says that
she has had a great many admirers, but she has never seemed to fancy any
one but the blacksmith. She went for a drive with him last Sunday
evening. You know that is the time young Acadiens call on the girls they
admire. You see them walking by, or driving in their buggies. If a
girl's _fiancé_ did not call on her that evening she would throw him
over--There she is now with your beef tea," and Mrs. Nimmo admiringly
watched Rose coming from the kitchen and carefully guarding a dainty
china cup in her hand.
Vesper got up and took it from her. "Don't you think it is nonsense for
me to be drinking this every morning?" he asked.
Rose looked up at him as he stood, tall, keen-eyed, interested, and
waiting for her answer. "What does madame, your mother, say?" she asked,
indicating Mrs. Nimmo, by a pretty gesture.
"His mother says," remarked Mrs. Nimmo, indulgently, "that her son
should take any dose, no matter how disagreeable, if it has for its
object the good of his health."
Vesper glanced sharply at her, then poured the last few drops of his tea
on the ground.
"Ah," said Mrs. Rose, anxiously, "I feared that I had not put in enough
salt. Now I know."
"It was perfect," said Vesper. "I am only offering a libation to those
pansies," and he inclined his dark head towards Narcisse, who was seated
cross-legged in the hammock.
Rose took the cup, smiled innocently and angelically on her child and
the young man and his mother, and returned to the house.
Agapit presently came hurrying by the fence. "Ah, that is good!" he
exclaimed, when he saw Vesper sauntering to and fro; "do you not think
you could essay a walk to the wharf?"
"Yes," said Vesper, while his mother anxiously looked up from her work.
"Then come,--let me have the honor of escorting you," and Agapit showed
his big white teeth in an ecstatic smile.
Vesper extended a hand to Narcisse, and, lifting his cap to his mother,
went slowly down the lane to the road.
Agapit could scarcely contain his delight. He grinned broadly at every
one they met, tried to accommodate his pace to Vesper's, kept forgetting
and striding ahead, and finally, cramming his hands in his pockets, fell
behind and muttered, "I feel as if I had known you a hundred years."
"You didn't feel that way six weeks ago," said Vesper, good-humoredly.
"I blush for it,--I am ashamed, but can you blame me? Since days of long
ago, Acadiens have been so much maligned. You do not find that we are
worse than others?"
"Well, I think you would have been a pretty ticklish fellow to have
handled at the time of the expulsion."
"Our dear Lord knew better than to bring me into the world then," said
Agapit, naïvely. "I should have urged the Acadiens to take up arms.
There were enough of them to kill those devilish English."
"Do all the Acadiens hate the English as much as you do?"
"_I_ hate the English?" cried Agapit. "How grossly you deceive
yourself!"
"What do you mean then by that strong language?"
Agapit threw himself into an excited attitude. "Let you dare--you
youthful, proud young republic,--to insult our Canadian flag. You would
see where stands Agapit LeNoir! England is the greatest nation in the
world," and proudly swelling out his breast, he swept his glance over
the majestic Bay before them.
"Yes, barring the United States of America."
"I cannot quarrel with you," said Agapit, and the fire left his glance,
and moisture came to his eyes. "Let us each hold to our own opinion."
"And suppose insults not forthcoming,--give me some further explanation
meantime."
"My quarrel is not with the great-minded," said Agapit, earnestly, "the
eagerly anxious-for-peace Englishmen in years gone by, who reinforced
the kings and queens of England. No,--I impeach the low-born upstarts
and their colonial accomplices. Do you know, can you imagine, that the
diabolical scheme of the expulsion of the Acadiens was conceived by a
barber, and carried into decapitation by a house painter?"
"Not possible," murmured Vesper.
"Yes, possible,--let me find you a seat. I shall not forgive myself if I
weary you, and those women will kill me."
They had reached the wharf, and Agapit pointed to a pile of boards
against the wooden breastwork that kept the waves from dashing over in
times of storm.
"That infamous letter is always like a scroll of fire before me," he
exclaimed, pacing restlessly to and fro before Vesper and the child. "In
it the once barber and footman, Craggs, who was then secretary of state,
wrote to the governor of Nova Scotia: 'I see you do not get the better
of the Acadiens. It is singular that those people should have preferred
to lose their goods rather than be exposed to fight against their
brethren. This sentimentality is stupid.' Ah, let it be stupid!"
exclaimed Agapit, breaking off. "Let us once more have an expulsion. The
Acadiens will go, they will suffer, they will die, before they give up
sentimentality."
"Hear, hear!" observed Vesper.
Agapit surveyed him with a glowing eye. "Listen to further words from
this solemn official, this barber secretary: 'These people are evidently
too much attached to their fellow countrymen and to their religion ever
to make true Englishmen.' Of what are true Englishmen made, Mr.
Englishman from Boston?"
"Of poor Frenchmen, according to the barber."
"Now hear more courtly language from the honorable Craggs: 'It must be
avowed that your position is deucedly critical. It was very difficult to
prevent them from departing after having left the bargain to their
choice--'"
"What does he mean by that?" asked Vesper.
"Call to your memory the terms of the treaty of Utrecht."
"I don't remember a word of it,--bear in mind, my friend, that I am not
an Acadien, and this question does not possess for me the moving
interest it does for you. I only know Longfellow's 'Evangeline,'--which,
until lately, has always seemed to me to be a pretty myth dressed up to
please the public, and make money for the author,--some magazine
articles, and Parkman, my favorite historian, whom you, nevertheless,
seem to dislike."
Agapit dropped on a block of wood, and rocked himself to and fro, as if
in distress. "I will not characterize Parkman, since he is your
countryman; but I would dearly love--I would truly admire to say what I
think of him. Now as to the treaty of Utrecht; think just a moment, and
you will remember that it transferred the Acadiens as the subjects of
Louis XIV. of France to the good Queen Anne of England."
Vesper, instead of puzzling his brain with historical reminiscences,
immediately began to make preparations for physical comfort, and
stretched himself out on the pile of boards, with his arm for a pillow.
"Do not sleep, but conversate," said Agapit, eagerly. "It is cool here,
you possibly would get cold if you shut your eyes. I will change this
matter of talk,--there is one I would fain introduce."
Vesper, in inward diversion, found that a new solemnity had taken
possession of the young Acadien. He looked unutterable things at the
Bay, indescribable things at the sky, and mysterious things at the cook
of the schooner, who had just thrust his head through a window in his
caboose.
At last he gave expression to his emotion. "Would this not be a fitting
time to talk of the wonderful letter of which madame, your mother,
hinted?"
Vesper, without a word, drew a folded paper from his pocket, and handed
it to him.
Agapit took it reverently, swayed back and forth while devouring its
contents, then, unable to restrain himself, sprang up, and walked, or
rather ran, to and fro while perusing it a second time.
At last he came to a dead halt, and breathing hard, and with eyes
aflame, ejaculated, "Thank you, a thousand, thousand time for showing me
this precious letter." Then pressing it to his breast, he disappeared
entirely from Vesper's range of vision.
After a time he came back. Some of his excitement had gone from his head
through his heels, and he sank heavily on a block of wood.
"You do not know, you cannot tell," he said, "what this letter means to
us."
"What does it mean?"
"It means--I do not know that I can say the word, but I will
try--cor-rob-oration."
"Explain a little further, will you?"
"In the past all was for the English. Now records are being discovered,
old documents are coming to light. The guilty colonial authorities
suppressed them. Now these records declare for the Acadiens."
"So--this letter, being from one on the opposite side, is valuable."
"It is like a diamond unearthed," said Agapit, turning it over;
"but,"--in sudden curiosity,--"this is a copy mutilated, for the name of
the captain is not here. From whom did you have it, if I am permitted to
ask?"
"From the great-grandson of the old fellow mentioned."
"And he does not wish his name known?"
"Well, naturally one does not care to shout the sins of one's
ancestors."
"The noble young man, the dear young man," said Agapit, warmly. "He will
atone for the sins of his fathers."
"Not particularly noble, only business-like."
"And has he much money, that he wishes to aid this family of Acadiens?"
"No, not much. His father's family never succeeded in making money and
keeping it. His mother is rich."
"I should like to see him," exclaimed Agapit, and his black eyes flashed
over Vesper's composed features. "I should love him for his sensitive
heart."
"There is nothing very interesting about him," said Vesper. "A sick,
used-up creature."
"Ah,--he is delicate."
"Yes, and without courage. He is a college man and would have chosen a
profession if his health had not broken down."
"I pity him from my heart; I send good wishes to his sick-bed," said
Agapit, in a passion of enthusiasm. "I will pray to our Lord to raise
him."
"Can you give him any assistance?" asked Vesper, nodding towards the
letter.
"I do not know; I cannot tell. There are many LeNoirs. But I will go
over my papers; I will sit up at night, as I now do some writing for
the post-office. You know I am poor, and obliged to work. I must pay
Rose for my board. I will not depend on a woman."
Vesper half lifted his drooping eyelids. "What are you going to make of
yourself?"
"I wish to study law. I save money for a period in a university."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-three."
"Your cousin looks about that age."
"She is twenty-four,--a year older; and you,--may I ask your age?"
"Guess."
Agapit studied his face. "You are twenty-six."
"No."
"I daresay we are both younger than Rose," said Agapit, ingenuously,
"and she has less sense than either."
"Did your ancestors come from the south of France?" asked Vesper,
abruptly.
"Not the LeNoirs; but my mother's family was from Provence. Why do you
ask?"
"You are like a Frenchman of the south."
"I know that I am impetuous," pursued Agapit. "Rose says that I resemble
the tea-kettle. I boil and bubble all the time that I am not asleep,
and"--uneasily--"she also says that I speak too hastily of women; that
I do not esteem them as clever as they are. What do you think?"
Vesper laughed quickly. "Southerners all have a slight contempt for
women. However, they are frank about it. Is there one thought agitating
your bosom that you do not express?"
"No; most unfortunately. It chagrins me that I speak everything. I feel,
and often speak before I feel, but what can one do? It is my nature.
Rose also follows her nature. She is beautiful, but she studies nothing,
absolutely nothing, but the science of cooking."
"Without which philosophers would go mad from indigestion."
"Yes; she was born to cook and to obey. Let her keep her position, and
not say, 'Agapit, thou must do so and so,' as she sometimes will, if I
am not rocky with her."
"Rocky?" queried Vesper.
"Firmy, firm," said Agapit, in confusion. "The words twist in my mind,
unless my blood is hot, when I speak better. Will you not correct me?
Upon going out in the world I do not wish to be laughed."
"To be laughed at," said his new friend. "Don't worry yourself. You
speak well enough, and will improve."
Agapit grew pale with emotion. "Ah, but we shall miss you when you go!
There has been no Englishman here that we so liked. I hope that you will
be long in finding the descendants of the Fiery Frenchman."
"Perhaps I shall find some of them in you and your cousin," said Vesper.
"Ah, if you could, what joy! what bliss!--but I fear it is not so. Our
forefathers were not of Grand Pré."
Vesper relapsed into silence, only occasionally rousing himself to
answer some of Agapit's restless torrent of remarks about the ancient
letter. At last he grew tired, and, sitting up, laid a caressing hand on
the head of Narcisse, who was playing with some shells beside him.
"Come, little one, we must return to the house."
On the way back they met the blacksmith. Agapit snickered gleefully,
"All the world supposes that he is making the velvet paw to Rose."
"She drives with him," said Vesper, indifferently.
"Yes, but to obtain news of her sister who flouts him. She is down the
Bay, and Rose receives news of her. She will no longer drive with him if
she hears this gossip."
"Why should she not?"
"I do not know, but she will not. Possibly because she is no coquette."
"She will probably marry some one."
"She cannot," muttered Agapit, and he fell into a quiet rage, and out of
it again in the duration of a few seconds. Then he resumed a
light-hearted conversation with Vesper, who averted his curious eyes
from him.
CHAPTER X.
BACK TO THE CONCESSION.
"And Nature hath remembered, for a trace
Of calm Acadien life yet holds command,
Where, undisturbed, the rustling willows stand,
And the curved grass, telling the breeze's pace."
J. F. H.
Mrs. Rose à Charlitte served her dinner in the middle of the day. The
six o'clock meal she called supper.
With feminine insight she noticed, at supper, on a day a week later,
that her guest was more quiet than usual, and even dull in humor.
Agapit, who was nearly always in high spirits, and always very much
absorbed in himself, came bustling in,--sobered down for one minute to
cross himself, and reverently repeat a _bénédicité_, then launched into
a voluble and enjoyable conversation on the subject of which he never
tired,--his beloved countrymen, the Acadiens.
Rose withdrew to the innermost recesses of her pantry. "Do you know
these little berries?" she asked, coming back, and setting a glass
dish, full of a thick, whitish preserve, before Vesper.
"No," he said, absently, "what are they?"
"They are _poudabre_, or _capillaire_,--waxen berries that grow deep in
the woods. They hide their little selves under leaves, yet the children
find them. They are expensive, and we do not buy many, yet perhaps you
will find them excellent."
"They are delicious," said Vesper, tasting them.
"Give me also some," said Agapit, with pretended jealousy. "It is not
often that we are favored with _poudabre_."
"There are yours beside your plate," said Rose, mischievously; "you
have, if anything, more than Mr. Nimmo."
She very seldom mentioned Vesper's name. It sounded foreign on her lips,
and he usually liked to hear her. This evening he paid no attention to
her, and, with a trace of disappointment in her manner, she went away to
the kitchen.
After Vesper left the table she came back. "Agapit, the young man is
dull."
"I assure thee," said Agapit, in French, and very dictatorially, "he is
as gay as he usually is."
"He is never gay, but this evening he is troubled."
Agapit grew uneasy. "Dost thou think he will again become ill?"
Rose's brilliant face became pale. "I trust not. Ah, that would be
terrible!"
"Possibly he thinks of something. Where is his mother?"
"Above, in her room. Some books came from Boston in a box, and she
reads. Go to him, Agapit; talk not of the dear dead, but of the living.
Seek not to find out in what his dullness consists, and do not say
abrupt things, but gentle. Remember all the kind sayings that thou
knowest about women. Say that they are constant if they truly love. They
do not forget."
Agapit's fingers remained motionless in the bowl of the big pipe that he
was filling with tobacco. "_Ma foi_, but thou art eloquent. What has
come over thee?"
"Nothing, nothing," she said, hurriedly, "I only wonder whether he
thinks of his _fiancée_."
"How dost thou know he has a _fiancée_?"
"I do not know, I guess. Surely, so handsome a young man must belong
already to some woman."
"Ah,--probably. Rose, I am glad that thou hast never been a coquette."
"And why should I be one?" she asked, wonderingly.
"Why, thou hast ways,--sly ways, like most women, and thou art meek and
gentle, else why do men run after thee, thou little bleating lamb?"
Rose made him no answer beyond a shrug of her shoulders.
"But thou wilt not marry. Is it not so?" he continued, with tremulous
eagerness. "It is better for thee to remain single and guard thy child."
She looked up at him wistfully, then, as solemnly as if she were taking
a vow, she murmured, "I do not know all things, but I think I shall
never marry."
Agapit could scarcely contain his delight. He laid a hand on her
shoulder, and exclaimed, "My good little cousin!" Then he lighted his
pipe and smoked in ecstatic silence.
Rose occupied herself with clearing the things from the table, until a
sudden thought struck Agapit. "Leave all that for Célina. Let us take a
drive, you and I and the little one. Thou hast been much in the house
lately."
"But Mr. Nimmo--will it be kind to leave him?"
"He can come if he will, but thou must also ask madame. Go then, while I
harness Toochune."
"I am not ready," said Rose, shrinking back.
"Ready!" laughed Agapit. "I will make thee ready," and he pulled her
shawl and handkerchief from a peg near the kitchen door.
"I had the intention of wearing my hat," faltered Rose.
"Absurdity! keep it for mass, and save thy money. Go ask the young man,
while I am at the stable."
Rose meekly put on the shawl and the handkerchief, and went to the front
of the house.
Vesper stood in the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back. She
could only see his curly head, a bit of his cheek, and the tip of his
mustache. At the sound of her light step he turned around, and his face
brightened.
"Look at the sunset," he said, kindly, when she stood in embarrassment
before him. "It is remarkable."
It was indeed remarkable. A blood-red sun was shouldering his way in and
out of a wide dull mass of gray cloud that was unrelieved by a single
fleck of color.
Rose looked at the sky, and Vesper looked at her, and thought of a
grieving Madonna. She had been so gay and cheerful lately. What had
happened to call that expression of divine tenderness and sympathy to
her face? He had never seen her so ethereal and so spiritually
beautiful, not even when she was bending over his sick-bed. What a rest
and a pleasure to weary eyes she was, in her black artistic garments,
and how pure was the oval of her face, how becoming the touch of
brownness on the fair skin. The silk handkerchief knotted under her chin
and pulled hood-wise over the shock of flaxen hair combed up from the
forehead, which two or three little curls caressed daintily, gave the
finishing touch of quaintness and out-of-the-worldness to her
appearance.
"You are feeling slightly blue this evening, are you not?" he asked.
"Blue,--that means one's thoughts are black?" said Rose, bringing her
glance back to him.
"Yes."
"Then I am a very little blue," she said, frankly. "This inn is like the
world to me. When those about me are sad, I, too, am sad. Sometimes I
grieve when strangers go,--for days in advance I have a weight at heart.
When they leave, I shut myself in my room. For others I do not care."
"And are you melancholy this evening because you are thinking that my
mother and I must soon leave?"
Her eyes filled with tears. "No; I did not think of that, but I do now."
"Then what was wrong with you?"
"Nothing, since you are again cheerful," she said, in tones so doleful
that Vesper burst into one of his rare laughs, and Rose, laughing with
him, brushed the tears from her face.
"There was something running in my mind that made me feel gloomy," he
said, after a short silence. "It has been haunting me all day."
Her eager glance was a prayer to him to share the cause of his
unhappiness with her, and he recited, in a low, penetrating voice, the
lines:
"Mon Dieu, pour fuir la mort n'est-il aucun moyen?
Quoi? Dans un jour peut-être immobile et glacé....
Aujourd'hui avenir, le monde, la pensée
Et puis, demain, ... plus rien."
Rose had never heard anything like this, and she was troubled, and
turned her blue eyes to the sky, where a trailing white cloud was
soaring above the dark cloud-bank below. "It is like a soul going up to
our Lord," she murmured, reverently.
Vesper would not shock her further with his heterodoxy. "Forget what I
said," he went on, lightly, "and let me beg you never to put anything on
your head but that handkerchief. You Acadien women wear it with such an
air."
"But it is because we know how to tie it. Look,--this is how the Italian
women in Boston carry those colored ones," and, pulling the piece of
silk from her head, she arranged it in severe lines about her face.
"A decided difference," Vesper was saying, when Agapit came around the
corner of the house, driving Toochune, who was attached to a shining
dog-cart.
"Are you going with us?" he called out.
"I have not yet been asked."
"Thou naughty Rose," exclaimed Agapit; but she had already hurried
up-stairs to invite Mrs. Nimmo to accompany them. "Madame, your mother,
prefers to read," she said, when she came back, "therefore Narcisse will
come."
"Mount beside me," said Agapit to Vesper; "Rose and Narcisse will sit in
the background."
"No," said Vesper, and he calmly assisted Rose to the front seat, then
extended a hand to swing Narcisse up beside her. The child, however,
clung to him, and Vesper was obliged to take him in the back seat, where
he sat nodding his head and looking like a big perfumed flower in his
drooping hat and picturesque pink trousers.
"You smile," said Agapit, who had suddenly twisted his head around.
"I always do," said Vesper, "for the space of five minutes after getting
into this cart."
"But why?"
"Well--an amusing contrast presents itself to my mind."
"And the contrast, what is it?"
"I am driving with a modern Evangeline, who is not the owner of the
rough cart that I would have fancied her in, a few weeks ago, but of a
trap that would be an ornament to Commonwealth Avenue."
"Am I the modern Evangeline?" said Agapit, in his breakneck fashion.
"To my mind she was embodied in the person of your cousin," and Vesper
bowed in a sidewise fashion towards his landlady.
Rose crimsoned with pleasure. "But do you think I am like
Evangeline,--she was so dark, so beautiful?"
"You are passable, Rose, passable," interjected Agapit, "but you lack
the passion, the fortitude of the heroine of Mr. Nimmo's immortal
countryman, whom all Acadiens venerate. Alas! only the poets and
story-tellers have been true to Acadie. It is the historians who lie."
"Why do you think your cousin is lacking in passion and fortitude?"
asked Vesper, who had either lost his gloomy thoughts, or had completely
subdued them, and had become unusually vivacious.
"She has never loved,--she cannot. Rose, did you love your husband as I
did _la belle Marguerite_?"
"My husband was older,--he was as a father," stammered Rose. "Certainly
I did not tear my hair, I did not beat my foot on the ground when he
died, as you did when _la belle_ married the miller."
"Have you ever loved any man?" pursued Agapit, unmercifully.
"Oh, shut up, Agapit," muttered Vesper; "don't bully a woman."
Agapit turned to stare at him,--not angrily, but rather as if he had
discovered something new and peculiar in the shape of young manhood.
"Hear what she always says when young men, and often old men, drive up
and say, 'Rose à Charlitte, will you marry me?' She says, 'Love,--it is
all nonsense. You make all that.' Is it not so, Rose?"
"Yes," she replied, almost inaudibly; "I have said it."
"You make all that," repeated Agapit, triumphantly. "They can rave and
cry,--they can say, 'My heart is breaking;' and she responds,
'Love,--there is no such thing. You make all that.' And yet you call her
an Evangeline, a martyr of love who laid her life on its holy altar."
Rose was goaded into a response, and turned a flushed and puzzled face
to her cousin. "Agapit, I will explain that lately I do not care to say
'You make all that.' I comprehend--possibly because the blacksmith talks
so much to me of his wish towards my sister--that one does not make
love. It is something that grows slowly, in the breast, like a flower.
Therefore, do not say that I am of ice or stone."
"But you do not care to marry,--you just come from telling me so."
"Yes; I am not for marriage," she said, modestly, "yet do not say that I
understand not. It is a beautiful thing to love."
"It is," said Agapit, "yet do not think of it, since thou dost not care
for a husband. Let thy thoughts run on thy cooking. Thou wert born for
that. I think that thou must have arrived in this world with a little
stew-pan in thy hand, a tasting fork hanging at thy girdle. Do not wish
to be an Evangeline or to read books. Figure to yourself, Mr.
Nimmo,"--and he turned his head to the back seat,--"that last night she
came to my room, she begged me for an English book,--she who says often
to Narcisse, 'I will shake thee, my little one, if thou usest English
words.' She says now that she wishes to learn,--she finds herself
forgetful of many things that she learned in the convent. I said, 'Go to
bed, thou silly fool. Thy eyes are burning and have black rings around
them the color of thy stove,' and she whimpered like a baby."
"Your cousin is an egotist, Mrs. Rose," said Vesper, over his shoulder.
"I will lend you some books."
"Agapit is as a brother," she replied, simply.
"I have been a good brother to thee," he said, "and I will never forget
thee; not even when I go out into the world. Some day I will send for
thee to live with me and my wife."
"Perhaps thy wife will not let me," she said, demurely.
"Then she may leave me; I detest women who will not obey."
For some time the cousins chattered on and endeavored to snatch a
glimpse, in "time's long and dark prospective glass," of Agapit's future
wife, while Vesper listened to them with as much indulgence as if they
had been two children. He was just endeavoring to fathom the rationale
of their curious interchange of _thou_ and _you_, when Agapit said, "If
it is agreeable to you, we will drive back in the woods to the
Concession. We have a cousin who is ill there,--see, here we pass the
station," and he pointed his whip at the gabled roof near them.
The wheels of the dog-cart rolled smoothly over the iron rails, and they
entered upon a road bordered by sturdy evergreens that emitted a
deliciously resinous odor and occasioned Mrs. Rose to murmur,
reverently, "It is like mass; for from trees like these the altar boys
get the gum for incense."
Wild gooseberry and raspberry bushes lined the roadside, and under their
fruit-laden branches grew many wild flowers. A man who stopped Agapit to
address a few remarks to him gathered a handful of berries and a few
sprays of wild roses and tossed them in Narcisse's lap.
The child uttered a polite, "_Merci, monsieur_" (thank you, sir), then
silently spread the flowers and berries on the lap rug and allowed tears
from his beautiful eyes to drop on them.
Vesper took some of the berries in his hand, and carefully explained to
the sorrowing Narcisse that the sensitive shrubs did not shiver when
their clothes were stripped from them and their hats pulled off. They
were rather shaking their sides in laughter that they could give
pleasure to so good and gentle a boy. And the flowers that bowed so
meekly when one wished to behead them, were trembling with delight to
think that they should be carried, for even a short time, by one who
loved them so well.
Narcisse at last was comforted, and, drying his tears, he soberly ate
the berries, and presented the roses to his mother in a brilliant
nosegay, keeping only one that he lovingly fastened in his neck, where
it could brush against his cheek.
Soon they were among the clearings in the forest. Back of every farm
stood grim trees in serried rows, like soldiers about to close in on the
gaps made in their ranks by the diligent hands of the Acadien farmers.
The trees looked inexorable, but the farmers were more so. Here in the
backwoods so quiet and still, so favorable for farming, the forest must
go as it had gone near the shore.
About every farmhouse, men and women were engaged in driving in cows,
tying up horses, shutting up poultry, feeding pigs, and performing the
hundred and one duties that fall to the lot of a farmer's family.
Everywhere were children. Each farmer seemed to have a quiver full of
these quiet, well-behaved little creatures, who gazed shyly and
curiously at the dog-cart as it went driving by.
When they came to a brawling, noisy river, having on its banks a
saw-mill deserted for the night, Agapit exclaimed, "We are at last
arrived!"
Close to the mill was a low, old-fashioned house, situated in the midst
of an extensive apple orchard in which the fruit was already taking on
size and color.
"They picked four hundred barrels from it last year," said Agapit, "our
cousins, the Kessys, who live here. They are rich, but very simple," and
springing out, he tied Toochune's head to the gatepost. "Now let us
enter," he said, and he ushered Vesper into a small, dull room where an
old woman of gigantic stature sat smoking by an open fireplace.
Another tall woman, with soft black eyes, and wearing on her breast a
medal of the congregation of St. Anne, took Rose away to the sick-room,
while Agapit led Vesper and Narcisse to the fireplace. "Cousin
grandmother, will you not tell this gentleman of the commencement of the
Bay?"
The old woman, who was nearly sightless, took her pipe from her mouth,
and turned her white head. "Does he speak French?"
"Yes, yes," said Agapit, joyfully.
A light came into her face,--a light that Vesper noticed always came
into the faces of Acadiens, no matter how fluent their English, if he
addressed them in their mother tongue.
"I was born _en haut de la Baie_" (up the Bay), she began, softly.
"Further than Sleeping Water,--towards Digby," said Agapit, in an
undertone.
"Near Bleury," she continued, "where there were only eight families. In
the morning my mother would look out at the neighbors' chimneys; where
she saw smoke she would send me, saying, 'Go, child, and borrow fire.'
Ah! those were hard days. We had no roads. We walked over the beach
fifteen miles to Pointe à l'Eglise to hear mass sung by the good Abbé.
"There were plenty of fish, plenty of moose, but not so many boats in
those days. The hardships were great, so great that the weak died. Now
when my daughter sits and plays on the organ, I think of it. David
Kessy, my father, was very big. Once our wagon, loaded with twenty
bushels of potatoes, stuck in the mud. He put his shoulder against it
and lifted it. Nowadays we would rig a jack, but my father was strong,
so strong that he took insults, though he trembled, for he knew a blow
from his hand would kill a man."
The Acadienne paused, and fell into a gentle reverie, from which Agapit,
who was stepping nimbly in and out of the room with jelly and other
delicacies that he had brought for the invalid, soon roused her.
"Tell him about the derangement, cousin grandmother," he vociferated in
her ear, "and the march from Annapolis."
CHAPTER XI
NEWS OF THE FIERY FRENCHMAN.
"Below me winds the river to the sea,
On whose brown slope stood wailing, homeless maids;
Stood exiled sons; unsheltered hoary heads;
And sires and mothers dumb in agony.
The awful glare of burning homes, where free
And happy late they dwelt, breaks on the shades,
Encompassing the sailing fleet; then fades,
With tumbling roof, upon the night-bound sea.
How deep is hope in sorrow sunk! How harsh
The stranger voice; and loud the hopeless wail!
Then silence came to dwell; the tide fell low;
The embers died. On the deserted marsh,
Where grain and grass stirred only to the gale,
The moose unchased dare cross the Gaspereau."
J. F. HERBIN.
An extraordinary change came over the aged woman at Agapit's words. Some
color crept to her withered cheeks. She straightened herself, and, no
longer leaning on her cane, said, in a loud, firm voice, to Vesper, "The
Acadiens were not all stolen from Annapolis at the derangement. Did you
think they were?"
"I don't know that I ever thought about it, madame," he said,
courteously; "but I should like to know."
"About fifty families ran to the wood," she said, with mournful
vivacity; "they spent the winter there; I have heard the old people talk
of it when I was young. They would sit by the fire and cry. I would try
not to cry, but the tears would come. They said their good homes were
burnt. Only at night could they revisit them, lest soldiers would catch
them. They dug their vegetables from the ground. They also got one cow
and carried her back. Ah, she was a treasure! There was one man among
them who was only half French, and they feared him, so they watched. One
day he went out of the woods,--the men took their guns and followed.
Soon he returned, fifty soldiers marching behind him. 'Halt!' cried the
Acadiens. They fired, they killed, and the rest of the soldiers ran.
'Discharge me! discharge me!' cried the man, whom they had caught. 'Yes,
we will discharge you,' they said, and they put his back against a tree,
and once more they fired, but very sadly. At the end of the winter some
families went away in ships, but the Comeaus, Thibaudeaus, and Melançons
said, 'We cannot leave Acadie; we will find a quiet place.' So they
began a march, and one could trace them by the graves they dug. I will
not tell you all, for why should you be sad? I will say that the
Indians were good, but sometimes the food went, and they had to boil
their moccasins. One woman, who had a young baby, got very weak. They
lifted her up, they shook the pea-straw stuffing from the sack she lay
on, and found her a handful of peas, which they boiled, and she got
better.
"They went on and on, they crossed streams, and carried the little ones,
until they came here to the Bay,--to Grosses Coques,--where they found
big clams, and the tired women said, 'Here is food; let us stay.'
"The men cut a big pine and hollowed a boat, in which they went to the
head of the Bay for the cow they had left there. They threw her down,
tied her legs, and brought her to Grosses Coques. Little by little they
carried also other things to the Bay, and made themselves homes.
"Then the families grew, and now they cover all the Bay. Do you
understand now about the march from Annapolis?"
"Thank you, yes," said Vesper, much moved by the sight of tears
trickling down her faded face.
"What reason did the old people give for this expulsion from their
homes?"
"Always the same, always, always," said Madame Kessy, with energy. "They
would not take the oath, because the English would not put in it that
they need not fight against the French."
"But now you are happy under English rule?"
"Yes, now,--but the past? What can make up for the weeping of the old
people?"
Nothing could, and Vesper hastened to introduce a new subject of
conversation. "I have heard much about the good Abbé that you speak of.
Did you ever see him?"
"See him,--ah, sir, he was an angel of God, on this Bay, and he a
gentleman out of France. We were all his children, even the poor
Indians, whom he gathered around him and taught our holy religion, till
their fine voices would ring over the Bay, in hymns to the ever blessed
Virgin. He denied himself, he paid our doctors' bills, even to twenty
pounds at a time,--ah, there was mourning when he died. When my bans
were published in church the good Abbé rode no more on horseback along
the Bay. He lay a corpse, and I could scarcely hold up my head to be
married."
"In speaking of those old days," said Vesper, "can you call to mind ever
hearing of a LeNoir of Grand Pré called the Fiery Frenchman?"
"Of Etex LeNoir," cried the old woman, in trumpet tones, "of the martyr
who shamed an Englishman, and was murdered by him?"
"Yes, that is the man."
"I have heard of him often, often. The old ones spoke of it to me. His
heart was broken,--the captain, who was more cruel than Winslow, called
him a papist dog, and struck him down, and the sailors threw him into
the sea. He laid a curse on the wicked captain, but I cannot remember
his name."
"Did you ever hear anything of the wife and child of Etex LeNoir?"
"No," she said, absently, "there was only the husband Etex that I had
heard of. Would not his wife come back to the Bay? I do not know," and
she relapsed into the dullness from which her temporary excitement had
roused her.
"He was called the Fiery Frenchman," she muttered, presently, but so low
that Vesper had to lean forward to hear her. "The old ones said that
there was a mark like flame on his forehead, and he was like fire
himself."
"Agapit, is it not time that we embark?" said Rose, gliding from an
inner room. "It will soon be dark."
Agapit sprang up. Vesper shook hands with Madame Kessy and her daughter,
and politely assured them, in answer to their urgent request, that he
would be sure to call again, then took his seat in the dog-cart, where
in company with his new friends he was soon bowling quickly over a bit
of smooth and newly repaired road.
Away ahead, under the trees, they soon heard snatches of a lively song,
and presently two young men staggered into view supporting each other,
and having much difficulty in keeping to their side of the road.
Agapit, with angry mutterings, drove furiously by the young men, with
his head well in the air, although they saluted him as their dear cousin
from the Bay.
Rose did not speak, but she hung her head, and Vesper knew that she was
blushing to the tips of the white ears inside her black handkerchief.
No one ventured a remark until they reached a place where four roads
met, when Agapit ejaculated, desperately, "The devil is also here!"
Vesper turned around. The sun had gone down, the twilight was nearly
over, but he possessed keen sight and could plainly discover against the
dull blue evening sky the figures of a number of men and boys, some of
whom were balancing themselves on the top of a zigzag fence, while
others stood with hands in their pockets,--all vociferously laughing and
jeering at a man who staggered to and fro in their midst with clenched
fists, and light shirt-sleeves spotted with red.
"This is abominable," said Agapit, in a rage, and he was about to lay
his whip on Toochune's back when Vesper suggested mildly that he was in
danger of running down some of his countrymen.
Agapit pulled up the horse with a jerk, and Rose immediately sprang to
the road and ran up to the young man, who had plainly been fighting and
was about to fight again.
Vesper slipped from his seat and stood by the wheel.
"Do not follow her," exclaimed Agapit; "they will not hurt her. They
would beat you."
"I know it."
"She is my cousin, thou impatient one," pursued Agapit, irritably. "I
would not allow her to be insulted."
"I know that, too," said Vesper, calmly, and he watched the young men
springing off the fences and hurrying up to Rose, who had taken the
pugilist by the hand.
"Isidore," she said, sorrowfully, and as unaffectedly as if they had
been alone, "hast thou been fighting again?"
"It is her second cousin," growled Agapit; "that is why she interferes."
"_Écoute-moi, écoute-moi_, Rose" (listen to me), stammered the young man
in the blood-stained shirt. "They all set upon me. I was about to be
massacred. I struck out but a little, and I got some taps here and
there. I was drunk at first, but I am not very drunk now."
"Poor Isidore, I will take thee home; come with me."
The crowd of men and boys set up a roar. They were quarrelsome and
mischievous, and had not yet got their fill of rowdyism.
"_Va-t'ang, va-t'ang_" (go away), "Rose à Charlitte. We want no women
here. Go home about thy business. If Big Fists wishes to fight, we will
fight."
Among all the noisy, discordant voices this was the only insulting one,
and Rose turned and fixed her mild gaze on the offender, who was one of
the oldest men present, and the chief mischief-maker of the
neighborhood. "But it is not well for all to fight one man," she said,
gently.
"We fight one by one. Isidore is big,--he has never enough. Go away, or
there will yet be a bigger row," and he added a sentence of gross abuse.
Vesper made a step forward, but Isidore, the young bully, who was of
immense height and breadth, and a son of the old Acadienne that they had
just quitted, was before him.
"You wish to fight, my friends," he said, jocularly; "here, take this,"
and, lifting his big foot, he quickly upset the offender, and kicked him
towards some men in the crowd who were also relatives of Rose.
One of them sprang forward, and, with his dark face alight with glee at
the chance to avenge the affront offered to his kinswoman, at once
proceeded to beat the offender calmly and systematically, and to roll
him under the fence.
Rose, in great distress, attempted to go to his rescue, but the young
giant threw his arm around her. "This is only fun, my cousin. Thou must
not spoil everything. Come, I will return with thee."
"_Nâni_" (no), cried Agapit, furiously, "thou wilt not. Fit company art
thou for strangers!"
Isidore stared confusedly at him, while Vesper settled the question by
inviting him in the back seat and installing Rose beside him. Then he
held out his arms to Narcisse, who had been watching the disturbance
with drowsy interest, fearful only that the Englishman from Boston might
leave him to take a hand in it.
As soon as Vesper mounted the seat beside him, Agapit jerked the reins,
and set off at a rapid pace; so rapid that Vesper at first caught only
snatches of the dialogue carried on behind him, that was tearful on the
part of Rose, and meek on that of Isidore.
Soon Agapit sobered down, and Rose's words could be distinguished. "My
cousin, how canst thou? Think only of thy mother and thy wife; and the
good priest,--suppose he had come!"
"Then thou wouldst have seen running like that of foxes," replied
Isidore, in good-natured, semi-interested tones.
"Thou wast not born a drunkard. When sober thou art good, but there
could not be a worse man when drunk. Such a pile of cursing words to go
up to the sky,--and such a volley of fisting. Ah, how thou wast wounding
Christ!"
Isidore held on tightly, for Agapit was still driving fast, and uttered
an inaudible reply.
"Tell me where thou didst get that liquor," said Rose.
"It was a stolen cask, my cousin."
"Isidore!"
"But I did not steal it. It came from thy charming Bay. Thou didst not
know that, shortly ago, a captain sailed to Sleeping Water with five
casks of rum. He hired a man from the Concession to help him hide them,
but the man stole one cask. Imagine the rage of the captain, but he
could not prosecute, for it was smuggled. Since then we have fun
occasionally."
"Who is that bad man? If I knew where was his cask, I would take a
little nail and make a hole in it."
"Rose, couldst thou expect me to tell thee?"
"Yes," she said, warmly. Then, remembering that she had been talking
English to his French, she suddenly relapsed into low, swift sentences
in her own tongue, which Vesper could not understand. He caught their
import, however. She was still inveighing against the sin of drunkenness
and was begging him to reform, and her voice did not flag until they
reached his home, where his wife--a young woman with magnificent eyes
and a straight, queenly figure--stood by the gate.
"_Bon soir_ (good evening), Claudine," called out Agapit. "We have
brought home Isidore, who, hearing that a distinguished stranger was
about to pass through the Concession, thoughtfully put himself on
exhibition at the four roads. You had better keep him at home until _La
Guerrière_ goes back to Saint Pierre."
"It was _La Guerrière_ that brought the liquor," said Rose, suddenly, to
Isidore.
He did not contradict her, and she said, firmly, "Never shall that
captain darken my doors again."
The young Acadien beauty gave Vesper a fleeting glance, then she said,
bitterly, "It should rather be Saint Judas, for from there the evil one
sends stuff to torture us women--Here enter," and half scornfully, half
affectionately, she extended a hand to her huge husband, who was making
a wavering effort to reach the gateway.
He clung to her as if she had been an anchor, and when she asked him
what had happened to his shirt he stuttered, regretfully, "Torn,
Claudine,--torn again."
"How many times should one mend a shirt?" she asked, turning her big
blazing eyes on Rose.
"Charlitte never became drunk," said Rose, in a plaintive voice, "but I
have mended the shirts of my brothers at least a hundred times."
"Then I have but one more time," said the youthful Madame Kessy. "After
that I shall throw it in the fire. Go into the house, my husband. I was
a fool to have married thee," she added, under her breath.
Isidore stood tottering on his feet, and regarded her with tipsy
gravity. "And thou shalt come with me, my pretty one, and make me a hot
supper and sing me a song."
"I will not do that. Thou canst eat cold bread, and I will sing thee a
song with my tongue that will not please thee."
"The priest married us," said Isidore, doggedly, and in momentary
sobriety he stalked to the place where she stood, picked her up, and,
putting her under his arm, carried her into the house, she meanwhile
protesting and laughing hysterically while she shrieked out something to
Rose about the loan of a sleeve pattern.
"Yes, yes, I understand," called Rose, "the big sleeve, with many folds;
I will send it. Make thy husband his supper and come soon to see me."
"Rose," said Agapit, severely, as they drove away, "is it a good thing
to make light of that curse of curses?"
"To make light of it! _Mon Dieu_, you do not understand. It is men who
make women laugh even when their hearts are breaking."
Agapit did not reply, and, as they were about to enter a thick wood, he
passed the reins to Vesper and got out to light the lamps.
While he was fidgeting with them, Rose moved around so that she could
look into the front seat.
"Your child is all right," said Vesper, gazing down at the head laid
confidingly against his arm. "He is sound asleep,--not a bit alarmed by
that fuss."
"It does not frighten him when human beings cry out. He only sorrows for
things that have no voices, and he is always right when with you. It is
not that; I wish to ask you--to ask you to forgive me."
"For what?"
"But you know--I told you what was not true."
"Do not speak of it. It was a mere bagatelle."
"It is not a bagatelle to make untruths," she said, wearily, "but I
often do it,--most readily when I am frightened. But you did not
frighten me."
Vesper did not reply except by a reassuring glance, which in her
preoccupation she lost, and, catching her breath, she went on, "I think
so often of a sentence from an Englishman that the sisters of a convent
used to say to us,--it is about the little lies as well as the big ones
that come from the pit."
"Do you mean Ruskin?" said Vesper, curiously, "when he speaks of 'one
falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as
unintended,--cast them all aside; they may be light and accidental, but
they are ugly soot from the smoke of the pit for all that?'"
"Yes, yes, it is that,--will you write it for me?--and remember," she
continued, hurriedly, as she saw Agapit preparing to reënter the cart,
"that I did not say what I did to make a fine tale, but for my people
whom I love. You were a stranger, and I supposed you would linger but a
day and then proceed, and it is hard for me to say that the Acadiens are
no better than the English,--that they will get drunk and fight. I did
not imagine that you would see them, yet I should not have told the
story," and with her flaxen head drooping on her breast she turned away
from him.
"When is lying justifiable?" asked Vesper of Agapit.
The young Acadien plunged into a long argument that lasted until they
reached the top of the hill overlooking Sleeping Water. Then he paused,
and as he once more saw above him the wide expanse of sky to which he
was accustomed, and knew that before him lay the Bay, wide, open, and
free, he drew a long breath.
"Ah, but I am glad to arrive home. When I go to the woods it is as if a
large window through which I had been taking in the whole world had
been closed."
No one replied to him, and he soon swung them around the corner and up
to the inn door. Rose led her sleepy boy into the kitchen, where bright
lights were burning, and where the maid Célina seemed to be entertaining
callers. Vesper took the lantern and followed Agapit to the stable.
"Is it a habit of yours to give your hotel guests drives?" he asked,
hanging the lantern on a hook and assisting Agapit in unbuckling straps.
"Yes, whenever it pleases us. Many, also, hire our horse and pony. You
see that we have no common horse in Toochune."
"Yes, I know he is a thoroughbred."
"Rose, of course, could not buy such an animal. He was a gift from her
uncle in Louisiana. He also sent her this dog-cart and her organ. He is
rich, very rich. He went South as a boy, and was adopted by an old
farmer; Rose is the daughter of his favorite sister, and I tell her that
she will inherit from him, for his wife is dead and he is alone, but she
says not to count on what one does not know."
Vesper had already been favored with these items of information by his
mother, so he said nothing, and assisted Agapit in his task of making
long-legged Toochune comfortable for the night. Having finished, and
being rewarded by a grateful glance from the animal's lustrous eyes,
they both went to the pump outside and washed their hands.
"It is too fine for the house," said Agapit. "Are you too fatigued to
walk? If agreeable I will take you to Sleeping Water River, where you
have not yet been, and tell you how it accumulated its name. There is no
one inside," he continued, as Vesper cast a glance at the kitchen
windows, "but the miller and his wife, in whom I no longer take
pleasure, and the mail-driver who tells so long stories."
"So long that you have no chance."
"Exactly," said Agapit, fumbling in his pocket. "See what I bought
to-day of a travelling merchant. Four cigars for ten cents. Two for you,
and two for me. Shall we smoke them?"
Vesper took the cigars, slipped them in his pocket, and brought out one
of his own, then with Agapit took the road leading back from the village
to the river.
CHAPTER XII.
AN UNHAPPY RIVER.
"Pools and shadows merge
Beneath the branches, where the rushes lean
And stumble prone; and sad along the verge
The marsh-hen totters. Strange the branches play
Above the snake-roots in the dark and wet,
Adown the hueless trunks, this summer day.
Strange things the willows whisper."
J. F. H.
"There is a story among the old people," said Agapit, "that a band of
Acadiens, who evaded the English at the time of the expulsion, sailed
into this Bay in a schooner. They anchored opposite Sleeping Water, and
some of the men came ashore in a boat. Not knowing that an English ship
lay up yonder, hidden by a point of land, they pressed back into the
woods towards Sleeping Water Lake. Some of the English, also, were on
their way to this lake, for it is historic. The Acadiens found traces of
them and turned towards the shore, but the English pursued over the
marshes by the river, which at last the Acadiens must cross. They threw
aside their guns and jumped in, and, as one head rose after another,
the English, standing on the bank, shot until all but one were killed.
This one was a Le Blanc, a descendant of René Le Blanc, that one reads
of in 'Evangeline.' Rising up on the bank, he found himself alone.
Figure the anguish of his heart,--his brothers and friends were dead. He
would never see them again, and he turned and stretched out a hand in a
supreme adieu. The English, who would not trouble to swim, fired at him,
and called, 'Go to sleep with your comrades in the river.'
"'They sleep,' he cried, 'but they will rise again in their children,'
and, quite untouched by their fire, he ran to his boat, and, reaching
the ship, set sail to New Brunswick; and in later years his children and
the children of the murdered ones came back to the Bay, and began to
call the river Sleeping Water, and, in time, the lake, which was Queen
Anne's Lake, was also changed to Sleeping Water Lake."
"And the soldiers?"
"Ah! you look for vengeance, but does vengeance always come? Remember
the Persian distich:
"'They came, conquered, and burned,
Pillaged, murdered, and went.'"
"I do not understand this question thoroughly," said Vesper, with
irritation, "yet from your conversation it seems not so barbarous a
thing that the Acadiens should have been transported as that those who
remained should have been so persecuted."
"Now is your time to read 'Richard.' I have long been waiting for your
health to be restored, for it is exciting."
"That is the Acadien historian you have spoken of?"
"Yes; and when you read him you will understand my joy at the venerable
letter you showed me. You will see why we blame the guilty Lawrence and
his colleagues, and not England herself, for the wickedness wrought her
French children."
Vesper smoked out his cigar in silence. They had left the village street
some distance behind them, and were now walking along a flat, narrow
road, having a thick, hedge-like border of tangled bushes and wild
flowers that were agitated by a gentle breeze, and waved out a sweet,
faint perfume on the night air. On either side of them were low, grassy
marshes, screened by clumps of green.
"We are arrived at last," said Agapit, pausing on a rustic bridge that
spanned the road; "and down there," he went on, in a choking voice, "is
where the bones of my countrymen lie."
Vesper leaned over the railing. What a sluggish, silent, stealthy river!
He could perceive no flow in its reluctant waters. A few willows,
natives, not French ones, swayed above it, and close to its edge grew
the tall grasses, rustling and whispering together as if imparting
guilty secrets concerning the waters below.
"Which way does it go?" murmured Vesper; but Agapit did not hear him,
for he was eagerly muttering: "A hateful river,--I never see a bird
drink from it, there are no fishes in it, the lilies will not grow here,
and the children fall in and are drowned; and, though it has often been
sounded, they can find no bottom to it."
Vesper stared below in silence, only making an involuntary movement when
his companion's cap fell off and struck the face of the dull black
mirror presented to them.
"Let it go," exclaimed Agapit, with a shudder. "Poor as I am, I would
not wear it now. It is tainted," and flinging back the dark locks from
his forehead, he turned his face towards the shore.
"No, I will talk no more about the Acadiens," he said, when Vesper tried
to get him to enter upon his favorite theme, "for, though you are
polite, I fear I shall weary you; we will speak of other things."
The night was a perfect one, and for an hour the two young men walked up
and down the quiet road before the inn, talking at first of the fishing
that was over, and the hunting that would in a few weeks begin.
Vesper would have enjoyed seeking big game in the backwoods, if his
health had permitted, and he listened with suppressed eagerness to
Agapit's account of a moose hunt. The world of sport disposed of, their
conversation drifted to literature, to science and art in general,--to
women and love affairs, and Agapit rambled on excitedly and delightedly,
while Vesper, contenting himself with the briefest of rejoinders,
extracted an acute and amused interest from the entirely novel and
out-of-the-way opinions presented to him.
"Ah! but I enjoy this," said Agapit, at last; "it is the fault of my
countrymen that they do not read enough and study,--their sole fault. I
meet with so few who will discuss, yet I must not detain you. Come in,
come in, and I will give you my 'Richard.' Begin not to read him
to-night, for you could not sleep. I believe," and he raised his brown,
flushed face to the stars above, "that he has done justice to the
Acadien people; but remember, we do not complain now. We are faithful to
our sovereign and to our country,--as faithful as you are to your Union.
The smart of the past is over. We ask only that the world may believe
that the Acadiens were loyal and consistent, and that we do not wish for
reparation from England except, perhaps--" and he hesitated and looked
down at the shabby sleeve of his coat, while tears filled his eyes.
"_Mon Dieu!_ I will not speak of the pitiful economies that I am obliged
to practise to educate myself. And there are other young men more poor.
If the colonial government would give us some help, I would go to
college; for now I hesitate lest I should save my money for my family.
If the good lands that were taken from us were now ours, we should be
rich--"
Vesper liked the young Acadien best in his quiet moods. "Don't worry,"
he said, consolingly; "something will turn up. Get me that book, will
you?"
Vesper paused for an instant when he entered his room. On a table by his
bed was placed a tray, covered by a napkin. Lifting the napkin, he
discovered a wing of cold chicken with jelly, thin slices of bread and
butter, and a covered pitcher of chocolate.
He poured himself out a cup of the chocolate, and murmuring, "Here's to
the Lady of the Sleeping Water Inn," seized one of the two volumes that
Agapit had given him, and, throwing himself into an easy chair, began to
read.
One by one the hours slipped away, but he did not move in his chair,
except to put out a hand at regular intervals and turn a leaf. Shortly
before daybreak a chill wind blew up the Bay, and came floating in the
window. He threw down the book, rose slowly to his feet, and looked
about him in a dreamy way. He had been transported to a previous century
and to another atmosphere than this peaceful one.
He shivered sensitively, and, going to the window, closed it, and stood
gazing at the faint flush in the sky. "O God! it is true," he muttered,
drearily, "we are sent into this world to enact hell. Goethe understood
that. And what a hell of long years was enacted on these shores!"
"The devils," he went on, in youthful, generous indignation; "they had
no pity, not even after years of suffering on the part of their
victims."
His eyes smarted, his head ached. He put his hand to his eyes, and, when
it came away wet, he curled his lip. He had not shed tears since he was
a boy.
Then he threw himself on his bed, and thoughts of his father mingled
with those of the Acadiens. An invincible melancholy took possession of
him, and burying his face in his arms, he lay for a long time with his
whole frame quivering in emotion.
CHAPTER XIII.
AN ILLUMINATION.
"Sait-on où l'on va?"
"What a sleeper, what a lover of his bed!" exclaimed Agapit, the next
morning, as he rapped vigorously on Vesper's door. "Is he never going to
rise?"
"What do you want?" said a voice from within.
"I, Agapit, latest and warmest of your friends, apologize for disturbing
you, but am forced to ask a question."
"Come in; the door is not locked."
Agapit thrust his head in. "Did you sit late reading my books?"
Vesper lifted his closely cropped curly head from the pillow. "Yes."
"And did not your heart stir with pity for the unfortunate Acadiens?"
"I found the history interesting."
"I wept over it at my first reading,--I gnashed my teeth; but
come,--will you not go to the picnic with us? All the Bay is going, as
the two former days of it were dull."
"I had forgotten it. Does my mother wish to go?"
"Madame, your mother, is already prepared. See from your window, she
talks to the mail-driver, who never tires of her adorable French. Do you
know, this morning he came herding down the road three shy children, who
were triplets. She was charmed, having never seen more than twins."
Vesper raised himself on his elbow and glanced through the window at
Monsieur de la Rive, who, with his bright wings folded close to his
sides, was cheeping voluble remarks to Mrs. Nimmo.
"All right, I will go," he said.
Agapit hurried down-stairs, and Vesper began to dress himself in a
leisurely way, stopping frequently to go to the window and gaze dreamily
out at the Bay.
Soon Rose came to the kitchen door to feed her hens. She looked so
lovely, as she stood with her resplendent head in a blaze of sunlight,
that Vesper's fingers paused in the act of fastening his necktie, and he
stood still to watch her.
Presently the mail-driver went streaking down the road in fiery flight,
and Mrs. Nimmo, seeing Rose alone, came tripping towards her. To her
son, who understood her perfectly, there were visible in Mrs. Nimmo's
manner some sure and certain signs of an inward disturbance. Rose,
however, perceived nothing, and continued feeding her hens with her
usual grace and composure.
"Are you not going to the picnic?" asked Mrs. Nimmo, and her eye ran
over the simple cotton gown that Rose always wore in the morning.
"Yes, madame, but first I do my work."
"You will be glad to see your friends there,--and your family?"
"Ah, yes, madame,--it is such a pleasure."
"I should like to see your sister, Perside."
"I will present her, madame; she will be honored."
"And it is she that the blacksmith is going to marry? Do you know," and
Mrs. Nimmo laughed tremulously, "I have been thinking all the time that
it was you."
"Now I get at the cause of your discontent," soliloquized Vesper, above,
"my poor little mother."
Rose surveyed her companion in astonishment: "I thought all the Bay
knew."
"But I am not the Bay," said Mrs. Nimmo, with attempted playfulness; "I
am Boston."
A shadow crossed Rose's face. "Yes, madame, I know. I might have told
you, but I did not think; and you are delicate,--you would not ask."
"No, I am not delicate," said Mrs. Nimmo, honestly. "I am inclined to be
curious, or interested in other people, we will say,--I think you are
very kind to be making matrimonial plans for other young women, and not
to think of yourself."
"Madame?"
"You do not know that long word. It means pertaining to marriage."
"Ah! marriage, I understand that. But, lately, I resolve not to marry,"
and Rose turned her deep blue eyes, in which there was not a trace of
craft or deceit, on her nervously apprehensive interlocutor, while
Vesper murmured in the window above, "She is absolutely guileless, my
mother; cast out of your mind that vague and formless suspicion."
Mrs. Nimmo, however, preferred to keep the suspicion, and not only to
keep it, but to foster the stealthy creeping thing until it had taken on
the rudiments of organized reflection.
"Some young people do not care for marriage," she said, after a long
pause. "My son never has."
"May the Lord forgive you for that," ejaculated her son, piously. Then
he listened for Rose's response, which was given with deep respect and
humility. "He is devoted to you, madame. It is pleasant to see a son
thus."
"He is a dear boy, and it would kill me if he were to leave me. I am
glad that you appreciate him, and that he has found this place so
interesting. We shall hate to leave here."
"Must you go soon, madame?"
"Pretty soon, I think; as soon as my son finishes this quest of his. You
know it is very quiet here. You like it because it is your home, but we,
of course, are accustomed to a different life."
"I know that, madame," said Rose, sadly, "and it will seem yet more
quiet when we do not see you. I dread the long days."
"I daresay we may come back sometime. My son likes to revisit favorite
spots, and the strong air of the Bay certainly agrees wonderfully with
him. He is sleeping like a baby this morning. I must go now and see if
he is up. Thank you for speaking so frankly to me about yourself. Do you
know, I believe you agree with me,"--and Mrs. Nimmo leaned
confidentially towards her,--"that it is a perfectly wicked thing for a
widow to marry again," and she tripped away, folding about her the white
shawl she always wore.
Rose gazed after her retreating form with a face that was, for a time,
wholly mystified.
By degrees, her expression became clearer. "Good heavens! she
understands," muttered Vesper; "now let us see if there will be any
resentment."
There was none. A vivid, agonized blush overspread Rose's cheeks. She
let the last remnant of food slip to the expectant hens from her two
hands, that suddenly went out in a gesture of acute distress; but the
glance that she bestowed on Mrs. Nimmo, who was just vanishing around
the corner of the house, was one of saintly magnanimity, with not a
trace of pride or rebellion in it.
Vesper shrugged his shoulders and left the window. "Strange that the
best of women will worry each other," and philosophically proceeding
with his toilet, he shortly after went down-stairs.
After a breakfast that was not scanty, as his breakfasts had been before
his illness, but one that was comprehensive and eaten with good
appetite, he made his way to the parlor, where his mother was sitting
among a number of vivacious Acadiens.
Rose, slim and elegant in a new black gown, and having on her head a
small straw hat, with a dotted veil drawn neatly over her pink cheeks
and mass of light hair, was receiving other young men and women who were
arriving, while Agapit, burly, and almost handsome in his Sunday suit of
black serge, was bustling about, and, immediately pouncing upon Vesper,
introduced him to each member of the party.
The young American did not care to talk. He returned to the doorway,
and, loitering there, amused himself by comparing the Acadiens who had
remained at home with those who had gone out into the world.
The latter were dressed more gaily; they had more assurance, and, in
nearly every case, less charm of manner than the former. There was
Rose's aunt,--white-haired Madame Pitre. She was like a sweet and demure
little owl in her hood-like handkerchief and plain gown. Amandine, her
daughter who had never left the Bay, was a second little owl; but the
sisters Diane and Lucie, factory girls from Worcester, were overdressed
birds of paradise, in their rustling silk blouses, big plumed hats, and
self-conscious manners.
"Here, at last, is the wagon," cried Agapit, running to the door, as a
huge, six-seated vehicle, drawn by four horses, appeared. He made haste
to assist his friends and relatives into it, then, darting to Vesper,
who stood on the veranda, exclaimed, "The most honorable seat beside me
is for madame, your mother."
"Do you care to go?" asked Vesper, addressing her.
"I should like to go to the picnic, but could you not drive me?"
"But certainly he can," exclaimed Agapit. "Toochune is in the stable.
Possibly this big wagon would be noisy for madame. I will go and
harness."
"You will do nothing of the kind," said Vesper, laying a detaining hand
on his shoulder. "You go on. We will follow."
Agapit nodded gaily, and sprang to the box, while Rose bent her flushed
face over Narcisse, who set up a sudden wail of despair. "He is coming,
my child. Thou knowest he does not break his promises."
Narcisse raised his fist as if to strike her; he was in a fury at being
restrained, and, although ordinarily a shy child, he was at present
utterly regardless of the strangers about him.
"Stop, stop, Agapit!" cried Diane; "he will cast himself over the
wheel!"
Agapit pulled up the horses, and Vesper, hearing the disturbance, and
knowing the cause, came sauntering after the wagon, with a broad smile
on his face.
He became grave, however, when he saw Rose's pained expression. "I think
it better not to yield," she said, in a low voice. "Calm thyself,
Narcisse, thou shalt not get out."
"I will," gasped the child. "You are a bad mother. The Englishman may
run away if I leave him. You know he is going."
"Let me have him for a minute," said Vesper. "I will talk to him," and,
reaching out his arms, he took the child from the blacksmith, who swung
him over the side of the wagon.
"Come get a drink of water," said the young American, good-humoredly.
"Your little face is as red as a turkey-cock's."
Narcisse pressed his hot forehead to Vesper's cheek, and meekly allowed
himself to be carried into the house.
"Now don't be a baby," said Vesper, putting him on the kitchen sink, and
holding a glass of water to his lips; "I am coming after you in half an
hour."
"Will you not run away?"
"No," said Vesper, "I will not."
Narcisse gave him a searching look. "I believe you; but my mother once
said to me that I should have a ball, and she did not give it."
"What is it that the Englishman has done to the child?" whispered Madame
Pitre to her neighbor, when Vesper brought back the quiet and composed
Narcisse and handed him to his mother. "It is like magic."
"It is rather that the child needs a father," replied the young
Acadienne addressed. "Rose should marry."
"I wish the Englishman was poor," muttered Madame Pitre, "and also
Acadien; but he does not think of Rose, and Acadiens do not marry out of
their race."
Vesper watched them out of sight, and then he found that Agapit had
spoken truly when he said that all the Bay was going to the picnic.
Célina's mother, a brown-faced, vigorous old woman who was to take
charge of the inn for the day, was the only person to be seen, and he
therefore went himself to the stable and harnessed Toochune to the
dog-cart.
Célina's mother admiringly watched the dog-cart joining the procession
of bicycles, buggies, two-wheeled carts, and big family wagons going
down the Bay, and fancied that its occupants must be extremely happy.
Mrs. Nimmo, however, was not happy, and nothing distracted her attention
from her own teasing thoughts. She listened abstractedly to the merry
chatter of French in the air, and gazed disconsolately at the gloriously
sunny Bay, where a few distant schooner sails stood up sharp against the
sky like the white wings of birds.
At last she sighed heavily, and said, in a plaintive voice, "Vesper, are
you not getting tired of Sleeping Water?"
He flicked his whip at a fly that was torturing Toochune, then said,
calmly, "No, I am not."
"I never saw you so interested in a place," she observed, with a fretful
side glance. "The travelling agents and loquacious peasants never seem
to bore you."
"But I do not talk to the agents, and I do not find the others
loquacious; neither would I call them peasants."
"It doesn't matter what you call them. They are all beneath you."
Vesper looked meditatively across the Bay at a zigzag, woolly trail of
smoke
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