Horizontal Rule 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. 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 made by a steamer that was going back and forth in a distressed way, as if unable to find the narrow passage that led to the Bay of Fundy. "The Checkertons have gone to the White Mountains," said Mrs. Nimmo, in a vexed tone, as if the thought gave her no pleasure. "I should like to join them there." "Very well, we can leave here to-morrow." Her face brightened. "But your business?" "I can send some one to look after it, or Agapit would attend to it." "And you would not need to come back?" "Not necessarily. I might do so, however." "In the event of some of the LeNoirs being found?" "In the event of my not being able to exist without—the Bay." "Give me the Charles River," said Mrs. Nimmo, hastily. "It is worth fifty Bays." "To me also," said Vesper; "but there is one family here that I should like to transplant to the banks of the Charles." Mrs. Nimmo did not speak until they had passed through long Comeauville and longer Saulnierville, and were entering peaceful Meteghan River with its quietly flowing stream and grassy meadows. Then having partly subdued the first shock of having a horror of such magnitude presented to her, she murmured, "Are you sure that you know your own mind?" "Quite sure, mother," he said, earnestly and affectionately; "but now, as always, my first duty is to you." Tears sprang to her eyes, and ran quietly down her cheeks. "When you lay ill," she said, in a repressed voice, "I sat by you. I prayed to God to spare your life. I vowed that I would do anything to please you, yet, now that you are well, I cannot bear the idea of giving you up to another woman." Vesper looked over his shoulder, then guided Toochune up by one of the gay gardens before the never-ending row of houses in order to allow a hay-wagon to pass them. When they were again in the middle of the road, he said, "I, too, had serious thoughts when I was ill, but you know how difficult it is for me to speak of the things nearest my heart." "I know that you are a good son," she said, passionately. "You would give up the woman of your choice for my sake, but I would not allow it, for it would make you hate me,—I have seen so much trouble in families where mothers have opposed their sons' marriages. It does no good, and then—I do not want you to be a lonely old man when I'm gone." "Mother," he said, protestingly. "How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly composing herself, and dabbing at her face with her handkerchief. Vesper's face grew pale, and, after a short hesitation, he said, dreamily, "I scarcely know. She has become mixed up with my life in an imperceptible way, and there is an inexpressible something about her that I have never found in any other woman." Mrs. Nimmo struggled with a dozen conflicting thoughts. Then she sighed, miserably, "Have you asked her to marry you?" "No." "But you will?" "I do not know," he said, reluctantly. "I have nothing planned. I wish to tell you, to save misunderstandings." "She has some crotchet against marriage,—she told me so this morning. Do you know what it is?" "I can guess." Mrs. Nimmo pondered a minute. "She has fallen in love with you," she said at last, "and because she thinks you will not marry her, she will have no other man." "I think you scarcely understand her. She does not understand herself." Mrs. Nimmo uttered a soft, "Nonsense!" under her breath. "Suppose we drop the matter for a time," said Vesper, in acute sensitiveness. "It is in an incipient state as yet." "I know you better than to suppose that it will remain incipient," said his mother, despairingly. "You never give anything up. But, as you say, we had better not talk any more about it. It has given me a terrible shock, and I will need time to get over it,—I thank you for telling me, however," and she silently directed her attention to the distant red cathedral spire, and the white houses of Meteghan,—the place where the picnic was being held. They caught up with the big wagon just before it reached a large brown building, surrounded by a garden and pleasure-grounds, and situated some distance from the road. This was the convent, and Vesper knew that, within its quiet walls, Rose had received the education that had added to her native grace the gentle savoir faire that reminded him of convent-bred girls that he had met abroad, and that made her seem more like the denizen of a city than the mistress of a little country inn. In front of the convent the road was almost blocked by vehicles. Rows of horses stood with their heads tied to its garden fence, and bicycles by the dozen were ranged in the shadow of its big trees. Across the road from it a green field had been surrounded by a hedge of young spruce trees, and from this enclosure sounds of music and merrymaking could be heard. A continual stream of people kept pouring in at the entrance-gate, without, however, making much diminution in the crowd outside. Agapit requested his passengers to alight, then, accompanied by one of the young men of his party, who took charge of Vesper's horse, he drove to a near stable. Five minutes later he returned, and found his companions drawn up together watching Acadien boys and girls flock into the saloon of a travelling photographer. "There is now no time for picture-taking," he vociferated; "come, let us enter. See, I have tickets," and he proudly marshalled his small army up to the gate, and entered the picnic grounds at their head. They found Vesper and his mother inside. This ecclesiastical fair going on under the convent walls, and almost in the shadow of the red cathedral, reminded them of the fairs of history. Here, as there, no policemen were needed among the throngs of buyers and sellers, who strolled around and around the grassy enclosure, and examined the wares exhibited in verdant booths. Good order was ensured by the presence of several priests, who were greeted with courtesy and reverence by all. Agapit, who was a devout Catholic, stood with his hat in his hand until his own parish priest had passed; then his eyes fell on the essentially modern and central object in the fair grounds,—a huge merry-go-round from Boston, with brightly painted blue seats, to which a load of Acadien children clung in an ecstasy of delight, as they felt themselves being madly whirled through the air. "Let us all ride!" he exclaimed. "Come, showman, give us the next turn." The wheezing, panting engine stopped, and they all mounted, even Madame Pitre, who shivered with delicious apprehension, and Mrs. Nimmo, who whispered in her son's ear, "I never did such a thing before, but in Acadie one must do as the Acadiens do." Vesper sat down beside her, and took the slightly dubious Narcisse on his knee, holding him closely when an expression of fear flitted over his delicate features, and encouraging him to sit upright when at last he became more bold. "Another turn," shouted Agapit, when the music ceased, and they were again stationary. The whistle blew, and they all set out again; but no one wished to attempt a third round, and, giddily stumbling over each other, they dismounted and with laughing remarks wandered to another part of the grounds, where dancing was going on in two spruce arbors. "It is necessary for all to join," he proclaimed, at the top of his voice, but his best persuasions failed to induce either Rose or Vesper to step into the arbors, where two young Acadiens sat perched up in two corners, and gleefully tuned their fiddles. "She will not dance, because she wishes to make herself singular," reflected Mrs. Nimmo, bitterly, and Vesper, who felt the unspoken thought as keenly as if it had been uttered, moved a step nearer Rose, who modestly stood apart from them. Agapit flung down his money,—ten cents apiece for each dance,—and, ordering his associates to choose their partners, signed to the fiddlers to begin. Mrs. Nimmo forgot Rose for a time, as she watched the dancers. The girls were shy and demure; the young men danced lustily, and with great spirit, emphasizing the first note of each bar by a stamp on the floor, and beating a kind of tattoo with one foot, when not taking part in the quadrille. "Do you have only square dances?" she asked Madame Pitre, when a second and a third quadrille were succeeded by a fourth. "Yes," said the Acadienne, gravely. "There is no sin in a quadrille. There is in a waltz." "Come seek the lunch-tables," said Agapit, presently bursting out on them, and mopping his perspiring face with his handkerchief. "Most ambrosial dainties are known to the cooks of this parish."
"The fresh salt breezes mingle with the smell
Of clover fields and ripened hay beside;
And Nature, musing, happy and serene,
Hath here for willing man her sweetest spell." J. F. H. After lunch, the Sleeping Water party separated. The Pitres found some old friends from up the Bay. Agapit wandered away with some young men, and Vesper, lazily declining to saunter with them, stood leaning against a tree behind a bench on which his mother and Rose were seated. The latter received and exchanged numerous greetings with her acquaintances who passed by, sometimes detaining them for an introduction to Mrs. Nimmo, who was making a supreme effort to be gracious and agreeable to the woman that the fates had apparently destined to be her daughter-in-law. Vesper looked on, well pleased. "Why do you not introduce me?" he said, mischievously, while his mother's attention was occupied with two Acadien girls. Rose gave him a troubled glance. She took no pleasure in his presence now,—his mother had spoiled all that, and, although naturally simple and unaffected, she was now tortured by self-consciousness. "I think that you do not care," she said, in a low voice. Vesper did not pursue the subject. "Have all Acadien women gentle manners?" he asked, with a glance at the pair of shy, retiring ones talking to his mother. A far-away look came into Rose's eyes, and she replied, with more composure: "The AbbÉ Casgrain says—he who wrote 'A Pilgrimage to the Land of Evangeline'—that over all Acadiens hangs a quietness and melancholy that come from the troubles of long ago; but Agapit does not find it so." "What does Agapit say?" "He finds," and Rose drew her slight figure up proudly, "that we are born to good manners. It was the best blood of France that settled Acadie. Did our forefathers come here poor? No, they brought much money. They built fine houses of stone, not wood; Grand PrÉ was a very fine village. They also built chÂteaux. Then, after scatteration, we became poor; but can we not keep our good manners?" Vesper was much diverted by the glance with which his mother, having bowed farewell to her new acquaintances, suddenly favored Rose. There was pride in it,—pride in the beauty and distinction of the woman beside her who was scarcely more than a girl; yet there was also in her glance a jealousy and aversion that could not yet be overcome. Time alone could effect this; and smothering a sigh, Vesper lifted his head towards Narcisse, who had crawled from his shoulder to a most uncomfortable seat on the lower limb of a pine-tree, where, however, he professed to be most comfortable, and sat with his head against the rough bark as delightedly as if it were the softest of cushions. "I am quite right," said Narcisse, in English, which language he was learning with astonishing rapidity, and Vesper again turned his attention to the picturesque, constantly changing groups of people. He liked best the brown and wrinkled old faces belonging to farmers and their wives who were enjoying a well-earned holiday. The young men in gray suits, he heard Rose telling his mother, were sailors from up the Bay, whose schooners had arrived just in time for them to throw themselves on their wheels and come to the picnic. The smooth-faced girls in blue, with pink handkerchiefs on their heads, were from a settlement back in the woods. The dark-eyed maidens in sailor hats, who looked like a troop of young Evangelines, were the six demoiselles Aucoin, the daughters of a lawyer in Meteghan, and the tall lady in blue was an Acadienne from New York, who brought her family every summer to her old home on the Bay. "And that tall priest in the distance," said Rose, "is the father in whose parish we are. Once he was a colonel in the army of France." "There is something military in his figure," murmured Mrs. Nimmo. "He was born among the Acadiens in France. They did not need him to ministrate, so when he became a priest he journeyed here," continued Rose, hurriedly, for the piercing eyes of the kindly-faced ecclesiastic had sought out Vesper and his mother, and he was approaching them with an uplifted hat. Rose got up and said, in a fluttering voice, "May I present you, Father La Croix, to Mrs. Nimmo, and also her son?" The priest bowed gracefully, and begged to assure madame and her son that their fame had already preceded them, and that he was deeply grateful to them for honoring his picnic with their presence. "I suppose there are not many English people here to-day," said Mrs. Nimmo, smiling amiably, while Vesper contented himself with a silent bow. Father La Croix gazed about the crowd, now greatly augmented. "As far as I can see, madame, you and your son are the only English that we have the pleasure of entertaining. You are now in the heart of the French district of Clare." "And yet I hear a good deal of English spoken." Father La Croix smiled. "We all understand it, and you see here a good many young people employed in the States, who are home for their holidays." "And I suppose we are the only Protestants here," continued Mrs. Nimmo. "The only ones,—you are also alone in the parish of Sleeping Water. If at any time a sense of isolation should prey upon madame and her son—" He did not finish his sentence except by another smile of infinite amusement, and a slight withdrawal of his firm lips from his set of remarkably white teeth. Rose was disturbed. Vesper noticed that the mention of the word Protestant at any time sent her into a transport of uneasiness. She was terrified lest a word might be said to wound his feelings or those of his mother. "Monsieur le curÉ is jesting, Madame de ForÊt," he said, reassuringly. "He is quite willing that we should remain heretics." Rose's face cleared, and Vesper said to the priest, "Are there any old people here to-day who would be inclined to talk about the early settlers?" "Yes, and they would be flattered,—up behind the lunch-tables is a knot of old men exchanging reminiscences of early days. May I have the pleasure of introducing you to them?" "I shall be gratified if you will do so," and both men lifted their hats to Mrs. Nimmo and Rose, and then disappeared among the crowd. Narcisse immediately demanded to be taken from the tree, and, upon reaching the ground, burst into tears. "Look, my mother,—I did not see before." Rose followed the direction of his pointing finger. He pretended to have just discovered that under the feet of this changeful assemblage were millions of crushed and suffering grass-blades. Rose exchanged a glance with Mrs. Nimmo. This was a stroke of childish diplomacy. He wished to follow Vesper. "Show him something to distract his attention," whispered the elder woman. "I will go talk to Madame Pitre." "See, Narcisse, this little revolver," said Rose, leading him up to a big wheel of fortune, before which a dozen men sat holding numbered sticks in their hands. "When the wheel stops, some men lose, others gain." "I see only the grass-blades," wailed Narcisse. "My mother, does it hurt them to be trampled on?" "No, my child; see, they fly back again. I have even heard that it made them grow." "Let us walk where there is no grass," said Narcisse, passionately, and, drawing her along with him, he went obliviously past the fruit and candy booths, and the spread tables, to a little knoll where sat three old men on rugs. Vesper lay stretched on the grass before them, and, catching sight of Narcisse, who was approaching so boldly, and his mother, who was holding back so shyly, he craved permission from the old men to seat them on one of the rugs. The permission was gladly given, and Rose shook hands with the three old men, whom she knew well. Two of them were brothers, from Meteghan, the other was a cousin, from up the Bay, whom they rarely saw. The brothers were slim, well-made, dapper old men; the cousin was a fat, jolly farmer, dressed in homespun. "I can tell you one of olden times," said this latter, in a thick, syrupy voice, "better dan dat last." "Suppose we have it then," said Vesper. "Dere was Pierre Belliveau,—Pierre aged dwenty-one and a half at de drama of 1755. His fadder was made prisoner. Pierre, he run to de fores' wid four,—firs' Cyprian Gautreau and de tree brudders, Joseph dit Coudgeau, Charlitte dit Le Fort—" "Is that where the husband of Madame de ForÊt got his name?" interrupted Vesper, indicating his landlady by a gesture. "Yes," said the old man, "it is a name of long ago,—besides Charlitte was Bonaventure, an' dese five men suffered horrible, mos' horrible, for winter came on, an' dey was all de time hungry w'en dey wasn't eatin', an' dey had to roam by night like dogs, to pick up w'at dey could. But dey live till de spring, an' dey wander like de wile beasties roun' de fores' of BeausÉjour, an' dey was well watched by de English. If dey had been shot, dis man would not be talkin' to you, for Bonaventure was my ancessor on my modder's side. On a day w'en dey come to Tintamarre—you know de great ma'sh of Tintamarre?" "No; I never heard of it." "Well, it big ma'sh in Westmoreland County. One day dey come dere, an' dey perceive not far from dem a goÊlette,—a schooner. De sea was low, an' all de men in de schooner atten' de return of de tide, for dey was high an' dry. Dose five Acadiens look at dat schooner, den dey w'isper,—den dey wander, as perchance, near dat schooner. De cap'en look at dem like a happy wile beas', 'cause he was sent from Port Royal to catch the runawoods. He call out, he invite dose Acadiens, he say, 'Come on, we make you no harm,' an' dey go, meek like sheep; soon de sea mount, de cap'en shout, 'Raise de anchor,' but Pierre said, 'We mus' go ashore.' 'Trow dose Romans in la cale,' say dat bad man. La cale c'est—" "In the hold," supplied the two other eager old men, in a breath. "Yes, in de hole,—but tink you dey went? No; Charlitte he was big, he had de force of five men, he look at Pierre. Pierre he shout, 'Fesse, Charlitte,' and Charlitte he snatch a bar from de deck, he bang it on de head of de Englishman an' massacre him. 'Debarrass us of anoder,' cried Pierre. Charlitte he raise his bar again,—an' still anoder, an' tree Englishmen lay on de deck. Only de cap'en remain, an' a sailor very big,—mos' as big as Charlitte. De cap'en was consternate, yet he made a sign of de han'. De sailor jump on Pierre an' try to pitch him in de hole. Tink you Charlitte let him go? No; he runs, he chucks dat sailor in de sea. Den de cap'en falls on his knees. 'Spare me de life an' I will spare you de lives.' 'Spare us de lives!' said Pierre, 'did you spare de lives of dose unhappy ones of Port Royal whom you sen' to exile? No; an' you would carry us to Halifax to de cruel English. Dat is how you spare. Where are our mudders an' fadders, our brudders an' sisters? You carry dem to a way-off shore w'ere dey cry mos' all de time. We shall see dem never. Recommen' your soul to God.' Den after a little he say very low, 'Charlitte fesse,' again. An' Charlitte he fesse, an' dey brush de han' over de eyes an' lower dat cap'en in de sea. "Den Pierre, who was fine sailor, run de schooner up to Petitcodiac. Later on, de son of Bonaventure come to dis Bay, an' his daughter was my mudder." When the old man finished speaking, a shudder ran over the little group, and Vesper gazed thoughtfully at the lively scene beyond them. This was a dearly bought picnic. These quiet old men, gentle Mrs. Rose, the prattling children, the vivacious young men and women, were all descendants of ancestors who had with tears and blood sought a resting-place for their children. He longed to hear more of their exploits, and he was just about to prefer a request when little Narcisse, who had been listening with parted lips, leaned forward and patted the old man's boot. "Tell Narcisse yet another story with trees in it." The fat old man nodded his head. "I know anodder of a Belliveau, dis one Charles. He was a carpenter an' he made ships from trees. At de great derangement de English hole him prisoner at Port Royal. One of de ships to take away de Acadiens had broke her mas' in a tempes'. Charles he make anodder, and w'en he finish dat mas' he ask his pay. One refuse him dat. Den de mas' will fall,' he say. 'I done someting to it.' De cap'en hurry to give him de price, an' Charlie he say, 'It all right.' W'en dey embark de prisoners dey put Charles on dat schooner. Dey soon leave de war-ship dat go wid dem, but de cap'en of de war-ship he say to de cap'en of de schooner, 'Take care, my fren', you got some good sailors 'mong dose Acadiens.' De cap'en of de schooner laugh. He was like dose trees, Narcisse, dat is rooted so strong dey tink dat no ting can never upset dem. He still let dose Acadiens come on deck,—six, seven at a times, cause de hole pretty foul, an' dey might die. One day, w'en de order was given, 'Go down, you Acadiens, an' come up seven odder,' de firs' lot dey open de hatch, den spring on de bridge. Dey garrotte de cap'en and crew, an' Charles go to turn de schooner. De cap'en call, 'Dat gran' mas' is weak,—you go for to break it.' 'Liar,' shouted Charles, 'dis is I dat make it.' Dose Acadiens mount de River St. John,—I don' know what dey did wid dose English. I hope dey kill 'em," he added, mildly. "PÈre Baudouin," said Rose, bending forward, "this is an Englishman from Boston." "I know," said the old man; "he is good English, dose were bad." Vesper smiled, and asked him whether he had ever heard of the Fiery Frenchman of Grand PrÉ. The old man considered carefully and consulted with his cousins. Neither of them had ever heard of such a person. There were so many Acadiens, they said, in an explanatory way, so many different bands, so many scattering groups journeying homeward. But they would inquire. "Here comes Father La Croix," said Rose, softly; "will you not ask him to help you?" "You are very kind to be so much interested in this search of mine," said Vesper, in a low voice. Rose's lip trembled, and avoiding his glance, she kept her eyes fixed steadily on the ex-colonel and present priest, who was expressing a courteous hope that Vesper had obtained the information he wished. "Not yet," said Vesper, "though I am greatly indebted to these gentlemen," and he turned to thank the old men. "I know of your mission," said Father La Croix, "and if you will favor me with some details, perhaps I can help you." Vesper walked to and fro on the grass with him for some minutes, and then watched him threading his way in and out among the groups of his parishioners and their guests until at last he mounted the band-stand, and extended his hand over the crowd. He did not utter a word, yet there was almost instantaneous silence. The merry-go-round stopped, the dancers paused, and a hush fell on all present. "My dear people," he said, "it rejoices me to see so many of you here to-day, and to know that you are enjoying yourselves. Let us be thankful to God for the fine weather. I am here to request you to do me a favor. You all have old people in your homes,—you hear them talking of the great expulsion. I wish you to ask these old ones whether they remember a certain Etex LeNoir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand PrÉ. He, too, was carried away, but never reached his destination, having died on the ship Confidence, but his wife and child probably arrived in Philadelphia. Find out, if you can, the fate of this widow and her child,—whether they died in a foreign land, or whether she succeeded in coming back to Acadie,—and bring the information to me." He descended the steps, and Vesper hastened to thank him warmly for his interest. "It may result in nothing," said the priest, "yet there is an immense amount of information stored up among the Acadiens on this Bay; I do not at all despair of finding this family," and he took a kindly leave of Vesper, after directing him where to find his mother. "But this is terrible," said Rose, trying to restrain the ardent Narcisse, who was dragging her towards his beloved Englishman. "My child, thy mother will be forced to whip thee." Vesper at that moment turned around, and his keen glance sought her out. "Why do you struggle with him?" he asked, coming to meet them. "But I cannot have him tease you." "He does not tease me," and in quiet sympathy Vesper endeavored to restore peace to her troubled mind. She, most beautiful flower of all this show, and most deserving of joy and comfort, had been unhappy and ill at ease ever since they entered the gates. The lingering, furtive glances of several young Acadiens were unheeded by her. Her only thought was to reach her home and be away from this bustle and excitement, and it was his mother who had wrought this change in her; and in sharp regret, Vesper surveyed the little lady, who, apparently in the most amiable of moods, was sitting chatting to an Acadien matron to whom Father La Croix had introduced her. A slight scuffle in a clump of green bushes beside them distracted his attention from her. A pleading exclamation from a manly voice was followed by an eloquent silence, a brisk sound like a slap, or a box on the ears, and a laugh from a girl, with a threatening, "Tu me paicras Ça" (Thou shalt pay me for that). Vesper laughed too. There was something so irresistibly comical in the man's second exclamation of dismayed surprise. "It is Perside," said Rose, wearily. "How can she be so gay, in so public a place?" "Serves the blacksmith right, for trying to kiss her," said Vesper. "Perside," said Rose, rebukingly, and thrusting her head through the verdant screen, "come and be presented to Mrs. Nimmo." Perside came forward. She was a laughing, piquant beauty, smaller and more self-conscious than Rose. With admirable composure she dismissed her blacksmith-fiancÉ, and followed her sister. Mrs. Nimmo had been receiving a flattering amount of attention, and was holding quite a small court of Acadien women about her. Among them was Rose's stepmother. Vesper had not met her before, and he gazed at her calm, statuesque, almost severe profile, under the dark handkerchief. Her hands, worn by honest toil, and folded in her lap, were unmistakable signs of a long and hard struggle with poverty. Yet her smile was gentleness and sweetness itself, when she returned Vesper's salutation. A poor farm, many cares, many children,—he knew her history, for Rose had told him of her mother's death during Perside's infancy, and the great kindness of the young woman who had married their father and had brought up not only his children, but also the motherless Agapit. With a filial courtesy that won the admiration of the Acadiens, among whom respect for parents is earnestly inculcated, Vesper asked his mother if she wished him to take her home. "If you are quite ready to leave," she replied, getting up and drawing her wrap about her. The Acadien women uttered their regrets that madame should leave so soon. But would she not come to visit them in their own homes? "You are very kind," she said, graciously, "but we leave soon,—possibly in two days," and her inquiring eyes rested on her son, who gravely inclined his head in assent. There was a chorus of farewells and requests that madame would, at some future time, visit the Bay, and Mrs. Nimmo, bowing her acknowledgments, and singling out Perside for a specially approving glance, took her son's arm and was about to move away when he said, "If you do not object, we will take the child with us. He is tired, and is wearing out his mother." Mrs. Nimmo could afford to be magnanimous, as they were so soon to go away, and might possibly shake off all connection with this place. Therefore she favored the pale and suffering Rose with a compassionate glance, and extended an inviting hand to the impetuous boy, who, however, disdained it and ran to Vesper. "But why are they going?" cried Agapit, hurrying up to Rose, as she stood gazing after the retreating Nimmos. "Did you tell them of the fireworks, and the concert, and the French play; also that there would be a moon to return by?" "Madame was weary." "Come thou then with me. I enjoy myself so much. My shirt is wet on my back from the dancing. It is hot like a hay field—what, thou wilt not? Rose, why art thou so dull to-day?" She tried to compose herself, to banish the heartrending look of sorrow from her face, but she was not skilled in the art of concealing her emotions, and the effort was a vain one. "Rose!" said her cousin, in sudden dismay. "Rose—Rose!" "What is the matter with thee?" she asked, alarmed in her turn by his strange agitation. "Hush,—walk aside with me. Now tell me, what is this?" "Narcisse has been a trouble," began Rose, hurriedly; then she calmed herself. "I will not deceive thee,—it is not Narcisse, though he has worried me. Agapit, I wish to go home." "I will send thee; but be quiet, speak not above thy breath. Tell me, has this Englishman—" "The Englishman has done nothing," said Rose, brokenly, "except that in two days he goes back to the world." "And dost thou care? Stop, let me see thy face. Rose, thou art like a sister to me. My poor one, my dear cousin, do not cry. Come, where is thy dignity, thy pride? Remember that Acadien women do not give their hearts; they must be begged." "I remember," she said, resolutely. "I will be strong. Fear not, Agapit, and let us return. The women will be staring." She brushed her hand over her face, then by a determined effort of will summoned back her lost composure, and with a firm, light step rejoined the group that they had just left. "Mon Dieu!" muttered Agapit, "my pleasure is gone, and I was lately so happy. I thought of this nightmare, and yet I did not imagine it would come. I might have known,—he is so calm, so cool, so handsome. That kind charms women and men too, for I also love him, yet I must give him up. Rose, my sister, thou must not go home early. I must keep thee here and suffer with thee, for, until the Englishman leaves, thou must be kept from him as a little bunch of tow from a slow fire. Does he already love thee? May the holy saints forbid—yes—no, I cannot tell. He is inscrutable. If he does, I think it not. If he does not, I think it so."
CHAPTER XV.
THE CAVE OF THE BEARS. "I had found out a sweet green spot,
Where a lily was blooming fair;
The din of the city disturbed it not;
But the spirit that shades the quiet cot
With its wings of love was there. "I found that lily's bloom
When the day was dark and chill;
It smiled like a star in a misty gloom,
And it sent abroad a sweet perfume,
Which is floating around me still." Percival. More than twenty miles beyond Sleeping Water is a curious church built of cobblestones. Many years ago, the devoted priest of this parish resolved that his flock must have a new church, and yet how were they to obtain one without money? He pondered over the problem for some time, and at last he arrived at a satisfactory solution. Would his parishioners give time and labor, if he supplied the material for construction? They would,—and he pointed to the stones on the beach. The Bay already supplied them with meat and drink, they were now to obtain a place of worship from it. They worked with a will, and in a short time their church went up like the temple of old, without the aid of alien labor. Vesper, on the day after the picnic, had announced his intention of visiting this church, and Agapit, in unconcealed disapproval and slight vexation, stood watching him clean his wheel, preparatory to setting out on the road down the Bay. He would be sure to overtake Rose, who had shortly before left the inn with Narcisse. She had had a terrible scene with the child relative to the approaching departure of the American, and Agapit himself had advised her to take him to her stepmother. He wished now that he had not done so, he wished that he could prevent Vesper from going after her,—he almost wished that this quiet, imperturbable young man had never come to the Bay. "And yet, why should I do that?" he reflected, penitently. "Does not good come when one works from honest motives, though bad only is at first apparent? Though we suffer now, we may yet be happy," and, casting a long, reluctant look at the taciturn young American, he rose from his comfortable seat and went up-stairs. He was tired, out of sorts, and irresistibly sleepy, having been up all night examining the old documents left by his uncle, the priest, in the hope of finding something relating to the Fiery Frenchman, for he was now as anxious to conclude Vesper's mission to the Bay as he had formerly been to prolong it. With a quiet step he crept past the darkened room where Mrs. Nimmo, after worrying her son by her insistence on doing her own packing, had been obliged to retire, in a high state of irritation, and with a raging headache. He hoped that the poor lady would be able to travel by the morrow; her son would be, there was no doubt of that. How well and strong he seemed now, how immeasurably he had gained in physical well-being since coming to the Bay. "For that we should be thankful," said Agapit, in sincere admiration and regard, as he stood by his window and watched Vesper spinning down the road. "He goes so cool, so careless, like those soldiers who went to battle with a rose between their lips, and I do not dare to warn, to question, lest I bring on what I would keep back. But do thou, my cousin Rose, not linger on the way. It would be better for thee to bite a piece from thy little tongue than to have words with this handsome stranger whom I fear thou lovest. Now to work again, and then, if there is time, half an hour's sleep before supper, for my eyelids flag strangely." Agapit sat down before the table bestrewn with papers, while Vesper went swiftly over the road until he reached the picnic ground of the day before, now restored to its former quietness as a grazing place for cows. Of all the cheerful show there was left only the big merry-go-round, that was being packed in an enormous wagon drawn by four pairs of oxen. "What are you going to do with it?" asked Vesper, springing off his wheel, and addressing the Acadiens at work. "We take it to a parish farther down the Bay, where there is to be yet another picnic," said one of them. "How much did they make yesterday?" pursued Vesper. "Six hundred dollars, and only four hundred the day before, and three the first, for you remember those days were partly rainy." "And some people say that you Acadiens are poor." The man grinned. "There were many people here, many things. This wooden darling," and he pointed to the dismembered merry-go-round, "earned one dollar and twenty cents every five minutes. We need much for our churches," and he jerked his thumb towards the red cathedral. "The plaster falls, it must be restored. Do you go far, sir?" Vesper mentioned his destination. All the Acadiens on the Bay knew him and took a friendly interest in his movements, and the man advised him to take in the Cave of the Bears, that was also a show-place for strangers. "It is three miles farther, where there is a bite in the shore, and the bluff is high. You will know it by two yellow houses, like twins. Descend there, and you will see a troop of ugly bears quite still about a cave. The Indians of this coast say that their great man, Glooscap, in days before the French came, once sat in the cave to rest. Some hungry bears came to eat him, but he stretched out a pine-tree that he carried and they were turned to stone." Vesper thanked him, and went on. When he reached the sudden and picturesque cove in the Bay, his attention was caught, not so much by its beauty, as by the presence of the inn pony, who neighed a joyful welcome, and impatiently jerked back and forth the road-cart to which he was attached. Vesper glanced sharply at the yellow houses. Perhaps Rose was making a call in one of them. Then he stroked the pony, who playfully nipped his coat sleeve, and, after propping his wheel against a stump, ran nimbly down a grassy road, where a goat was soberly feeding among lobster-traps and drawn-up boats. He crossed the strip of sand in the semicircular inlet, and there before him were the bears,—ugly brown rocks with coats of slippery seaweed, their grinning heads turned towards the mouth of a black cavern in the lower part of the bluff, their staring eye-sockets fixed on the dainty woman's figure inside, as if they would fain devour her. Rose sat with her face to the sea, her head against the damp rock wall,—her whole attitude one of abandonment and mournful despair. Vesper began to hurry towards her, but, catching sight of Narcisse, he stopped. The child, with a face convulsed and tear-stained, was angrily seizing stones from the beach to fling them against the most lifelike bear of all,—a grotesque, hideous creature, that appeared to be shouldering his way from the water in order to plunge into the cave. "Dost thou mock me?" exclaimed Narcisse, furiously. "I will strike thee yet again, thou hateful thing. Thou shalt not come on shore to eat my mother and the Englishman," and he dashed a yet larger stone against it. "Narcisse," said Vesper. The child turned quickly. Then his trouble was forgotten, and stumbling and slipping over the seaweed, but at last attaining his goal, he flung his small unhappy self against Vesper's breast. "I love you, I love you,—gros comme la grange À Pinot" (as much as Pinot's barn),—"yet my mother carried me away. Take me with you, Mr. Englishman. Narcisse is very sick without you." In maternal alarm Rose sprang up at her child's first shriek. Then she sank back, pale and confused, for Vesper's eye was upon her, although apparently he was engaged only in fondling the little curly head, and in allowing the child to stroke his face and dive into his pockets, to pull out his watch, and indulge in the fond and foolish familiarities permitted to a child by a loving father. "Go to her, Narcisse," said Vesper, presently, and the small boy ran into the cave. "My mother, my mother!" he cried, in an ecstasy; and he wagged his curly head as if he would shake it from his body. "The Englishman returns to you and to me,—he will stay away only a short time. Come, get up, get up. Let us go back to the inn. I am to go no more to my grandmother. Is it not so?" and he anxiously gazed at Vesper, who was slowly approaching. Vesper did not speak, neither did Rose. What was the matter with these grown people that they stared so stupidly at each other? "Have you a headache, Mr. Englishman?" he asked, with abrupt childish anxiety, as he noticed a sudden and unusual wave of color sweeping over his friend's face. "And you, my mother,—why do you hang your head? Give only the Englishman your hand and he will lift you from the rock. He is strong, very strong,—he carries me over the rough places." "Will you give me your hand, Rose?" She started back, with a heart-broken gesture. "But you are imbecile, my darling mother!" cried Narcisse, throwing himself on her in terror. "The Englishman will become angry,—he will leave us. Give him your hand, and let us go from this place," and, resolutely seizing her fluttering fingers in his own soft ones, he directed them to Vesper's strong, true clasp. "Go stone the bears again, Narcisse," said the young man, with a strange quiver in his voice. "I will talk to your mother about going back to the inn. See, she is not well;" for Rose had bowed her weary head on her arm. "Yes, talk to her," said the child, "that is good, and, above all, do not let her hand go. She runs from me sometimes, the little naughty mother," and, with affected roguishness that, however, concealed a certain anxiety, he put his head on one side, and stared affectionately at her as he left the cave. He had gone some distance, and Vesper had already whispered a few words in Rose's ear, when he returned and stared again at them. "Will you tell me only one little story, Mr. Englishman?" "About what, you small bother?" "About bears, big brown bears, not gentle trees." "There was once a sick bear," said the young man, "and he went all about the world, but could not get well until he found a quiet spot, where a gentle lady cured him." "And then—" "The lady had a cub," said Vesper, suddenly catching him in his arms and taking him out to the strip of sand, "a fascinating cub that the bear—I mean the man—adored." Narcisse laughed gleefully, snatched Vesper's cap and set off with it, fell into a pool of water and was rescued, and set to the task of taking off his shoes and stockings and drying them in the sun, while Vesper went back to Rose, who still sat like a person in acute distress of body and mind. "I was sudden,—I startled you," he murmured. She made a dissenting gesture, but did not speak. "Will you look at me, Rose?" he said, softly; "just once." "But I am afraid," fluttered from her pale lips. "When I gaze into your eyes it is hard—" He stood over her in such quiet, breathless sympathy that presently she looked up, thinking he was gone. His glance caught and held hers. She got up, allowed him to take her hands and press them to his lips, and to place on her head the hat that had fallen to the ground. "I will say nothing more now," he murmured, "you are shocked and upset. We had better go home." "Come and be presented to Mrs. Nimmo," suddenly said a saucy, laughing voice. Rose started nervously. Her sister Perside had caught sight of them,—teasing, yet considerate Perside, since she had bestowed only one glance on the lovers, and had then gone sauntering past the mouth of the cave, out to the wide array of black rocks beyond them. She carried a hooked stick over her shoulder, and a tin pail in her hand, and sometimes she looked back at a second girl, similarly equipped, who was running down the grassy road after her. Nothing could have made Rose more quickly recover herself. "It is not the time of perigee,—you will find nothing," she called after Perside; then she added to Vesper, in a low, shy voice, "She seeks lobsters. She danced so much at the picnic that she was too tired to go home, and had to stay here with cousins." "Times and seasons do not matter for some things," returned Perside, gaily, over her shoulder; "one has the fun." Narcisse stopped digging his bare toes in the sand and shrieked, delightedly, "Aunt Perside, aunt Perside, do you know the Englishman returns to my mother and me? He will never leave us, and I am not to go to my grandmother." Then, fearful that his assertions had been too strong, he averted his gaze from the two approaching people, and fixed it on the blazing sun. "Will you promise not to make a scene when I leave to-morrow?" said Vesper. Narcisse blinked at him, his eyes full of spots and wheels and revolving lights. He was silly with joy, and gurgled deep down in his little throat. "Let me kiss your hand, as you kissed my mother's. It is a pretty sight." "Will you be a good boy when I leave to-morrow," said Vesper again. "But why should I cry if you return?" cried the child, excitedly flinging a handful of sand at his boots. "Narcisse will never again be bad," and rolling over and over, and kicking his pink heels in glee, he forced Vesper and Rose to retire to a respectful distance. They stood watching him for some time, and, as they watched, Rose's tortured face grew calm, and a spark of the divine passion animating her lover's face came into her deep blue eyes. She had no right to break the tender, sensitive little heart given so strangely to this stranger. She would forget Agapit and his warnings; she would forget the proud women of her race, who would not wed a stranger, and one of another creed; she would also forget the nervous, jealous mother who would keep her son from all women. "You have asked me for myself," she said, impulsively stretching out her hands to him, "for myself and my child. We are yours." Vesper bent down, and pressed her cool fingers against his burning cheeks. She smiled at him, even laughed gleefully, and passed her hands over his head in a playful caress; then, with her former expression of exaltation and virginal modesty and shyness, she ran up the grassy road, and paused at the top to look back at him, as he toiled up with Narcisse. She was vivacious and merry now,—he had never seen her just so before. In an instant,—a breath,—with her surrender to him, she had seemed to drop her load of care, that usually made her youthful face so grave and sweet beyond her years. He would like to see her cheerful and laughing—thoughtless even; and murmuring endearing epithets under his breath, he assisted her into the cart, placed the reins in her hands, tucked Narcisse in by her side, and, surreptitiously lifting a fold of her dress to his face, murmured, "Au revoir, my sweet saint." Then, stroking his mustache to conceal from the yellow houses his proud smile of ownership, he watched the upright pose of the light head, and the contorted appearance of the dark one that was twisted over a little shoulder as long as the cart was in sight. He forgot all about the church, and, going back to the beach, he lay for a long time sunning himself on the sand, and plunged in a delicious reverie. Then, mounting his wheel, he returned to the inn. Agapit was running excitedly to and fro on the veranda. "Come, make haste," he cried, as he caught sight of him in the distance. "Extremely strange things have happened—Let me assist you with that wheel,—a malediction on it, these bicycles go always where one does not expect. There is news of the Fiery Frenchman. I found something, also Father La Croix." "This is interesting," said Vesper, good-naturedly, as he folded his arms, and lounged against one of the veranda posts. "I was delving among my uncle's papers. I had precipitately come on the name of LeNoir,—Etex, the son of Raphael, who was a wealthy bourgeois of Calais, and emigrated to Grand PrÉ. He was dead when the expulsion came, and of his two sons one, Gabriel LeNoir, escaped up the St. John River, and that Gabriel was my ancestor, and that of Rose; therefore, most astonishingly to me, we are related to this family whom you have sought," and Agapit wound up with a flourish of his hands and his heels. "I am glad of this," said Vesper, in a deeply gratified voice. "But more remains. I was shouting over my discovery, when Father La Croix came. I ran, I descended,—the good man presented his compliments to madame and you. Several of his people went to him this morning. They had questioned the old ones. He wrote what they said, and here it is. See—the son of the murdered Etex was Samson. His mother landed in Philadelphia. In griping poverty the boy grew up. He went to Boston. He joined the Acadiens who marched the five hundred miles through the woods to Acadie. He arrived at the Baie Chaleur, where he married a Comeau. He had many children, but his eldest, Jean, is he in whom you will interest yourself, as in the direct line." "And what of Jean?" asked Vesper, when Agapit stopped to catch his breath. Agapit pointed to the Bay. "He lies over Digby Neck, in the Bay of Fundy, but his only child is on this Bay." "A boy or a girl?" "A devil," cried Agapit, in a burst of grief, "a little devil."
CHAPTER XVI.
FOR THE HONOR OF THEIR RACE. "Love is the perfect sum
Of all delight!
I have no other choice
Either for pen or voice
To sing or write." "Why is the descendant of the Fiery Frenchman a devil?" asked Vesper. "Because she has no heart. They have taken from her her race, her religion. Her mother, who had some Indian blood, was also wild. She would not sweep her kitchen floor. She went to sea with her husband, and when she was drowned with him, her sister, who is also gay, took the child." "What do you mean by gay?" "I mean like hawks. They go here and there,—they love the woods. They do not keep neat houses, and yet they are full of strange ambitions. They change their names. They are not so much like the English as we are, yet they pretend to have no French blood. Sometimes I visit them, for the uncle of the child—Claude À Sucre—is worthy, but his wife I detestate. She has no bones of purpose; she is like a flabby sunfish." "Where do they live?" "Up the Bay,—near Bleury." "And do you think there is nothing I can do for this little renegade?" "Nothing?" cried Agapit. "You can do everything. It is the opportunity of your life. You so wise, so generous, so understanding the Acadiens. You have in your power to make born again the whole family through the child. They are superstitious. They will respect the claim of the dead. Come to the garden to talk, for there are strangers approaching." Vesper shivered. He was not altogether happy over the discovery of the lost link connecting him with the far-back tragedy in which his great-grandfather had been involved. However, he suppressed all signs of emotion, and, following Agapit to the lawn, he walked to and fro, listening attentively to the explanations and information showered upon him. When Rose came to the door to ring the supper-bell, both young men paused. She thought they had been speaking of her, and blushed divinely. Agapit, with an alarmed expression, turned to his companion, who smiled quietly, and was just about to address him, when a lad came running up to them. "Agapit, come quickly,—old miser Lefroy is dying, and would make his will. He calls for thee." "Return,—say that I will come," exclaimed Agapit, waving his hand; then he looked at Vesper. "One word only, why does Rose look so strangely?" "Rose has promised to be my wife." Agapit groaned, flung himself away a few steps, then came back. "Say no more to her till you see me. How could you—and yet you do her honor. I cannot blame you," and with a farewell glance, in which there was a curious blending of despair and gratified pride, he ran after the boy. Vesper went up-stairs to his mother, who announced herself no better, and begged only that she might not be disturbed. He accordingly descended to the dining-room and took his place at the table. Rose was quietly moving to and fro with a heightened color. She was glad that Agapit was away,—it was more agreeable to her to have only one lord and master present; yet, sensitively alive to the idiosyncrasies of this new one, she feared that he was disapproving of her unusual number of guests. He, however, nobly suppressed his disapproval, and even talked pleasantly of recent political happenings in his own country with some travelling agents who happened to be some of his own fellow citizens. "Ah, it is a wonderful thing, this love," she said to herself, as she went to the kitchen for a fresh supply of coffee; "it makes one more anxious to please, and to think less of oneself. Mr. Nimmo wishes to aid me,—and yet, though he is so kind, he slightly wrinkles his beautiful eyebrows when I place dishes on the table. He does not like me to serve. He would have me sit by him; some day I shall do so;" and, overcome by the confused bliss of the thought, she retired behind the pantry door, where the curious CÉlina found her with her face buried in her hands, and in quick, feminine intuition at once guessed her secret. There were many dishes to wash after supper, and Vesper, who was keeping an eye on the kitchen, inwardly applauded CÉlina, who, instead of running to the door as she usually did to exchange pleasantries with waiting friends and admirers, accomplished her tasks with surprising celerity. In the brief space of three-quarters of an hour she was ready to go out, and after donning a fresh blouse and a clean apron, and coquettishly tying a handkerchief on her head, she went to the lawn, where she would play croquet and gossip with her friends until the stars came out. Vesper left the smokers on the veranda and the chattering women in the parlor, and sauntered through the quiet dining-room and kitchen. Rose was nowhere in sight, but her pet kitten, that followed her from morning till night, was mewing at the door of a small room used as a laundry. Vesper cautiously looked in. The supple young back of his sweetheart was bent over a wash-tub. "Rose," he exclaimed, "what are you doing?" She turned a blushing face over her shoulder. "Only a little washing—a very little. The washerwoman forgot." Vesper walked around the tub. "It was such a pleasure," she stammered. "I did not know that you would wish to talk to me till perhaps later on." Her slender hands gripped a white garment affectionately, and partly lifted it from the soap-suds. Vesper, peering in the tub, discovered that it was one of the white jerseys that he wore bicycling, and, gently taking it from her, he dropped it out of sight in the foam. "But it is of wool,—it will shrink," she said, anxiously. He laughed, dried her white arms on his handkerchief, and begged her to sit down on a bench beside him. She shyly drew back and, pulling down her sleeves, seated herself on a stool opposite. "Rose," he said, seriously, "do you know how to flirt?" Her beautiful lips parted, and she laughed in a gleeful, wholehearted way that reminded him of Narcisse. "I think that it would be possible to learn," she said, demurely. Vesper did not offer to teach her. He fell into an intoxicated silence, and sat musing on this, the purest and sweetest passion of his life. What had she done—this simple Acadien woman—to fill his heart with such profound happiness? A light from the window behind her shone around her flaxen head, and reminded him of the luminous halos surrounding the heads of her favorite saints. Since the ecstatic dreams of boyhood he had experienced nothing like this,—and yet this dream was more extended, more spiritual and less earthly than those, for infinite worlds of happiness now unfolded themselves to his vision, and endless possibilities and responsibilities stretched out before him. This woman's life would be given fearlessly into his hands, and also the life of her child. He, Vesper Nimmo, almost a broken link in humanity's chain, would become once more a part in the glorious whole. Rose, enraptured with this intellectual love-making, sat watching every varying emotion playing over her lover's face. How different he was from Charlitte,—ah, poor Charlitte!—and she shuddered. He was so rough, so careless. He had been like a good-natured bear that wished a plaything. He had not loved her as gently, as tenderly as this man did. "Rose," asked Vesper, suddenly, "what is the matter with Agapit?" "I do not know," she said, and her face grew troubled. "Perhaps he is angry that I have told a story, for I said I would not marry." "Why should he not wish you to marry?" Again she said that she did not know. "Will you marry me in six weeks?" "I will marry when you wish," she replied, with dignity, "yet I beg you to think well of it. My little boy is in his bed, and when I no longer see him, I doubt. There are so few things that I know. If I go to your dear country, that you love so much, you may drop your head in shame,—notwithstanding what you have said, I give you up if you wish." "Womanlike, you must inject a drop of bitterness into the only full cup of happiness ever lifted to your lips. Let us suppose, however, that you are right. My people are certainly not as your people. Shall we part now,—shall I go away to-morrow, and never see you again?" Rose stared blindly at him. "Are you willing for me to go?" he asked, quietly. His motive in suggesting the parting was the not unworthy one of a lover who longs for an open expression of affection from one dear to him, yet he was shocked at the signs of Rose's suppressed passion and inarticulate terror. She did not start from her seat, she did not throw herself in his inviting arms, and beg him to stay with her. No; the terrified blue eyes were lowered meekly to the floor, and, in scarcely audible accents, she murmured, "What seems right to you must be done." "Rose,—I shall never leave you." "I feel that I have reached up to heaven, and plucked out a very bright star," she stammered, with white lips, "and yet here it is," and trying to conceal her agony, she opened her clenched and quivering hand, as if to restore something to him. He went down on his knees before her. "You are a princess among your people, Rose. Keep the star,—it is but a poor ornament for you," and seizing her suffering hands, he clasped them to his breast. "Listen, till I tell you my reasons for not leaving the woman who has given me my life and inspired me with hope for the future." Rose listened, and grew pale at his eloquent words, and still more eloquent pauses. After some time, a gentle, melancholy smile came creeping to her face; a smile that seemed to reflect past suffering rather than present joy. "It is like pain," she said, and she timidly laid a finger on his dark head, "this great joy. I have had so many terrors,—I have loved you so long, I find, and I thought you would die." Vesper felt that his veins had been filled with some glowing elixir of earthly and heavenly delight. How adorable she was,—how unique, with her modesty, her shyness, her restrained eagerness. Surely he had found the one peerless woman in the world. "Talk to me more about yourself and your feelings," he entreated. "I have longed to tell you," she murmured, "that you have taught me what it is,—this love; and also that one does not make it, for it is life or death, and therefore can only come from the Lord. When you speak, your words are so agreeable that they are like rain on dusty ground. I feel that you are quite admirable," and, interrupting herself, she bent over to gently kiss his cheek as he still knelt before her. "Continue, Rose," he said, shutting his eyes in an ecstasy. "I speak freely," she said, "because I feel that I can trust you without fear, and always, always love and serve you till you are quite, quite old. I also understand you. Formerly I did not. You say that I am like a princess. Ah, not so much as you. You are altogether like a prince. You had the air of being contented; I did not know your thoughts. Now I can look into your beautiful white soul. You hide nothing from me. No, do not put your face down. You are a very, very good man. I do not think that there can be any one so good." Vesper looked up, and laid a finger across the sweet, praising mouth. "Let us talk of your mother," said Rose. "Since I love you, I love her more; but she does not like me equally." "But she will, my ingenuous darling. I have talked to her twice. She is quite reconciled, but it will take time for her to act a mother's part. You will have patience?" Rose wrinkled her delicate brows. "I put myself in her place,—ah, how hard for her! Let me fancy you my son. How could I give you up? And yet it would be wrong for her to take you from one who can make you more happy; is it not so?" Vesper sprang to his feet. "Yes, Rose; it is you and I against the world,—one heart, one soul; it is wonderful, and a great mystery," and clasping his hands behind him, he walked to and fro along the narrow room. Rose, with a transfigured face, watched him, and hung on every word falling from his lips, as he spoke of his plans for the future, his disappointed hopes and broken aspirations of the past. It did not occur to either of them, so absorbed were they with each other, to glance at the small window overlooking the dooryard, where an eager face came and went at intervals. Sometimes the face was angry; sometimes sorrowful. Sometimes a clenched fist was raised between it and the glass as if at an imaginary enemy. The unfortunate watcher, in great perplexity of mind, was going through every gesture in the pantomime of distress. The lovers, unmindful of him, continued their conversation, and the suffering Agapit continued to suffer. Vesper talked and walked on, occasionally stopping to listen to a remark from Rose, or to bend over her in an adoring, respectful attitude while he bestowed a caress or received a shy and affectionate one from her. "It is sinful,—I should interrupt," groaned Agapit, "yet it would be cruel. They are in paradise. Ah, dear blessed Virgin,—mother of suffering hearts,—have pity on them, for they are both noble, both good;" and he dashed his hand across his eyes to hide the sight of the beautiful head held as tenderly between the hands of the handsome stranger as if it were indeed a fragile, full-blown rose. "They take leave," he muttered; "I will look no more,—it is a sacrilege," and he rushed into the house by another door. The croquet players called to him from the lawn. He could hear the click of the balls and the merry voices as he passed, but he paid no heed to them. Only in the dining-room did he stay his hasty steps. There, in front of the picture of Rose's husband, he paused with uplifted arm. "Scoundrel!" he muttered, furiously; then striking his fist through the glass, he shattered the portrait, from the small twinkling eyes to its good-natured, sensuous mouth.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SUBLIMEST THING IN THE WORLD. "Ah, tragedy of lusty life! How oft
Some high emprise a soul divinely grips,
But as it crests, fate's undertow despoils!" Theodore H. Rand. Mrs. Nimmo was better the next morning, and, rising betimes, gave her son an early audience in her room. "You need not tell me anything," she said, with a searching glance at him. "It is all arranged between you and the Acadien woman. I know,—you cannot stave off these things. I will be good, Vesper, only give me time,—give me time, and let us have no explanations. You can tell her that you have not spoken to me, and she will not expect me to gush." Her voice died away in a pitiful quaver, and Vesper quietly, but with intense affection, kissed the cold cheek she offered him. "Go away," she said, pushing him from her, "or I shall break down, and I want my strength for the journey." Vesper went down-stairs, his eyes running before him for the sweet presence of Rose. She was not in the dining-room, and with suppressed disappointment he looked curiously at CÉlina, who was red-eyed and doleful, and requested her to take his mother's breakfast up-stairs. Then, with a disagreeable premonition of trouble, he turned his attention to Agapit, whose face had turned a sickly yellow and who was toying abstractedly with his food. He appeared to be ill, and, refusing to talk, waited silently for Vesper to finish his breakfast. "Will you come to the smoking-room?" he then said; and being answered by a silent nod, he preceded Vesper to that room and carefully closed the door. "Now give me your hand," he said, tragically, "for I am going to make you angry, and perhaps you will never again clasp mine in friendship." "Get out," said Vesper, peevishly. "I detest melodrama,—and say quickly what you have to say. We have only an hour before the train leaves." "My speech can be made in a short time," said Agapit, solemnly. "Your farewell of Sleeping Water to-day must be eternal." "Don't be a fool, Agapit, but go look for a rope for my mother's trunk; she has lost the straps." "If I found a rope it would be to hang myself," said Agapit, desperately. "Never was I so unhappy, never, never." "What is wrong with you?" "I am desolated over your engagement to my cousin. We thank you for the honor, but we decline it." "Indeed! as the engagement does not include you, I must own that I will take my dismissal only from your cousin." "Look at me,—do I seem like one in play? God knows I do not wish to torment you. All night I walked my floor, and Rose,—unhappy Rose! I shudder when I think how she passed the black hours after my cruel revealings." "What have you said to Rose?" asked Vesper, in a fury. "You forget that she now belongs to me." "She belongs to no one but our Lord," said Agapit, in an agony. "You cannot have her, though the thought makes my heart bleed for you." Vesper's face flushed. "If you will let it stop bleeding long enough to be coherent, I shall be obliged to you." "Oh, do not be angry with me,—let me tell you now that I love you for your kindness to my people. You came among us,—you, an Englishman. You did not despise us. You offer my cousin your hand, and it breaks our hearts to refuse it, but she cannot marry you. She sends you that message,—'You must go away and forget me. Marry another woman if you so care. I must give you up.' These are her words as she stood pale and cold." Vesper seated himself on the edge of the big table in the centre of the room. Very deliberately he took out his watch and laid it beside him. So intense was the stillness of the room, so nervously sensitive and unstrung was Agapit by his night's vigil, that he started at the rattling of the chain on the polished surface. "I give you five minutes," said Vesper, "to explain your attitude towards your cousin, on the subject of her marriage. As I understand the matter, you were an orphan brought up by her father. Of late years you arrogate the place of a brother. Your decisions are supreme. You announce now that she is not to marry. You have some little knowledge of me. Do you fancy that I will be put off by any of your trumpery fancies?" "No, no," said Agapit, wildly. "I know you better,—you have a will of steel. But can you not trust me? I say an impediment exists. It is like a mountain. You cannot get over it, you cannot get around it; it would pain you to know, and I cannot tell it. Go quietly away therefore." Vesper was excessively angry. With his love for Rose had grown a certain jealousy of Agapit, whose influence over her had been unbounded. Yet he controlled himself, and said, coldly, "There are other ways of getting past a mountain." "By flying?" said Agapit, eagerly. "No,—tunnelling. Tell me now how long this obstacle has existed?" "It would be more agreeable to me not to answer questions." "I daresay, but I shall stay here until you do." "Then, it is one year," said Agapit, reluctantly. "It has, therefore, not arisen since I came?" "Oh, no, a thousand times no." "It is a question of religion?" "No, it is not," said Agapit, indignantly; "we are not in the Middle Ages." "It seems to me that we are; does Rose's priest know?" "Yes, but not through her." "Through you,—at confession?" "Yes, but he would die rather than break the seal of confession." "Of course. Does any one here but you know?" "Oh, no, no; only myself, and Rose's uncle, and one other." "It has something to do with her first marriage," said Vesper, sharply. "Did she promise her husband not to marry again?" Agapit would not answer him. "You are putting me off with some silly bugbear," said Vesper, contemptuously. "A bugbear! holy mother of angels, it is a question of the honor of our race. But for that, I would tell you." "You do not wish her to marry me because I am an American." "I would be proud to have her marry an American," said Agapit, vehemently. "I shall not waste more time on you," said Vesper, disdainfully. "Rose will explain." "You must not go to her," said Agapit, blocking his way. "She is in a strange state. I fear for her reason." "You do," muttered Vesper, "and you try to keep me from her?" Agapit stood obstinately pressing his back against the door. "You want her for yourself," said Vesper, suddenly striking him a smart blow across the face. The Acadien sprang forward, his burly frame trembled, his hot breath enveloped Vesper's face as he stood angrily regarding him. Then he turned on his heel, and pressed his handkerchief to his bleeding lips. "I will not strike you," he mumbled, "for you do not understand. I, too, have loved and been unhappy." The glance that he threw over his shoulder was so humble, so forgiving, that Vesper's heart was touched. "I ask your pardon, Agapit,—you have worried me out of my senses," and he warmly clasped the hand that the Acadien extended to him. "Come," said Agapit, with an adorable smile. "Follow me. You have a generous heart. You shall see your Rose." Agapit knocked softly at his cousin's door, then, on receiving permission, entered with a reverent step. Vesper had never been in this little white chamber before. One comprehensive glance he bestowed on it, then his eyes came back to Rose, who had, he knew without being told, spent the whole night on her knees before the niche in the wall, where stood a pale statuette of the Virgin. This was a Rose he did not know, and one whose frozen beauty struck a deadly chill to his heart. He had lost her,—he knew it before she opened her lips. She seemed not older, but younger. The look on her face he had seen on the faces of dead children; the blood had been frightened from her very lips. What was it that had given her this deadly shock? He was more than ever determined to know, and, subduing every emotion but that of stern curiosity, he stood expectant. "You insisted on an adieu," she murmured, painfully. "I am coming back in a week," said Vesper, stubbornly.The hand that held her prayer-book trembled. "You have told him that he must not return?" and she turned to Agapit, and lifted her flaxen eyebrows, that seemed almost dark against the unearthly pallor of her skin. "Yes," he said, with a gusty sigh. "I have told him, but he does not heed me." "It is for the honor of our race," she said to Vesper. "Rose," he said, keenly, "do you think I will give you up?" Her white lips quivered. "You must go; it is wrong for me even to see you." Vesper stared at Agapit, and seeing that he was determined not to leave the room, he turned his back squarely on him. "Rose," he said, in a low voice, "Rose." The saint died in her, the woman awoke. Little by little the color crept back to her face. Her ears, her lips, her cheeks, and brow were suffused with the faint, delicate hue of the flower whose name she bore. A passionate light sprang into her blue eyes. "Agapit," she murmured, "Agapit," yet her glance did not leave Vesper's face, "can we not tell him?" Illustration
"'AGAPIT,' SHE MURMURED, 'CAN WE NOT TELL HIM?'" "Shall we be unfaithful to our race?" said her cousin, inexorably. "What is our race?" she asked, wildly. "There are the Acadiens, there are also the Americans,—the one Lord makes all. Agapit, permit that we tell him." "Think of your oath, Rose." "My oath—my oath—and did I not also swear to love him? I told him only yesterday, and now I must give him up forever, and cause him pain. Agapit, you shall tell him. He must not go away angry. Ah, my cousin, my cousin," and, evading Vesper, she stretched out the prayer-book, "by our holy religion, I beg that you have pity. Tell him, tell him,—I shall never see him again. It will kill me if he goes angry from me." There were tears of agony in her eyes, and Agapit faltered as he surveyed her. "We are to be alone here all the years," she said, "you and I. It will be a sin even to think of the past. Let us have no thought to start with as sad as this, that we let one so dear go out in the world blaming us." "Well, then," said Agapit, sullenly, "I surrender. Tell you this stranger; let him have part in an unusual shame of our people." "I tell him!" and she drew back, hurt and startled. "No, Agapit, that confession comes better from thee. Adieu, adieu," and she turned, in a paroxysm of tenderness, to Vesper, and in her anguish burst into her native language. "After this minute, I must put thee far from my thoughts,—thou, so good, so kind, that I had hoped to walk with through life. But purgatory does not last forever; the blessed saints also suffered. After we die, perhaps—" and she buried her face in her hands, and wept violently. "But do not thou remember," she said at last, checking her tears. "Go out into the world and find another, better wife. I release thee, go, go—" Vesper said nothing, but he gave Agapit a terrible glance, and that young man, although biting his lip and scowling fiercely, discreetly stepped into the hall. For half a minute Rose lay unresistingly in Vesper's arms, then she gently forced him from the room, and with a low and bitter cry, "For this I must atone," she opened her prayer-book, and again dropped on her knees. Once more the two young men found themselves in the smoking-room. "Now, what is it?" asked Vesper, sternly. Agapit hung his head. In accents of deepest shame he murmured, "Charlitte yet lives." "Charlitte—what, Rose's husband?" A miserable nod from Agapit answered his question. "It is rumor," stammered Vesper; "it cannot be. You said that he was dead." "He has been seen,—the miserable man lives with another woman." Vesper had received the worst blow of his life, yet his black eyes fixed themselves steadily on Agapit's face. "What proof have you?" Agapit stumbled through some brief sentences. "An Acadien—Michel Amireau—came home to die. He was a sailor. He had seen Charlitte in New Orleans. He had changed his name, yet Michel knew him, and went to the uncle of Rose, on the Bayou Vermilion. The uncle promised to watch him. That is why he is so kind to Rose, this good uncle, and sends her so much. But Charlitte goes no more to sea, but lives with this woman. He is happy; such a devil should die." Vesper was stunned and bewildered, yet his mind had never worked more clearly. "Does any other person know?" he asked, sharply. "No one; Michel would not tell, and he is dead." Vesper leaned on a chair-back, and convulsively clasped his fingers until every drop of blood seemed to have left them. "Why did he leave Rose?" "Who can tell?" said Agapit, drearily. "Rose is beautiful; this other woman unbeautiful and older, much older. But Charlitte was always gross like a pig,—but good-natured. Rose was too fine, too spiritual. She smiled at him, she did not drink, nor dance, nor laugh loudly. These are the women he likes." "How old is he?" "Not old,—fifty, perhaps. If our Lord would only let him die! But those men live forever. He is strong, very strong." "Would Rose consent to a divorce?" "A divorce! Mon Dieu, she is a good Catholic." Vesper sank into a chair and dropped his head on his hand. Hot, rebellious thoughts leaped into his heart. Yesterday he had been so happy; to-day— "My friend," said Agapit, softly, "do not give way." His words stung Vesper as if they had been an insult. "I am not giving way," he said, fiercely. "I am trying to find a way out of this diabolical scrape." "But surely there is only one road to follow." Vesper said nothing, but his eyes were blazing, and Agapit recoiled from him with a look of terror. "You surely would not influence one who loves you to do anything wrong?" "Rose is mine," said Vesper, grimly. "But she is married to Charlitte." "To a dastardly villain,—she must separate from him." "But she cannot." "She will if I ask her," and Vesper started up, as if he were about to seek her. "Stop but an instant," and Agapit pressed both hands to his forehead with a gesture of bewilderment. "Let me say over some things first to you. Think of what you have done here,—you, so quiet, so strong,—so pretending not to be good, and yet very good. You have led Rose as a grown one leads a child. Before you came I did not revere her as I do at present. She is now so careful, she will not speak even the least of untruths; she wishes to improve herself,—to be more fitted for the company of the blessed in heaven." Vesper made some inarticulate sound in his throat, and Agapit went on hurriedly. "Women are weak, men are imperious; she may, perhaps, do anything you say, but is it not well to think over exactly what one would tell her? She is in trouble now, but soon she will recover and look about her. She will see all the world equally so. There are good priests with sore hearts, also holy women, but they serve God. All the world cannot marry. Marriage, what is it?—a little living together,—a separation. There is also a holy union of hearts. We can live for God, you, and I, and Rose, but for a time is it not best that we do not see each other?" Again Vesper did not reply except by a convulsive movement of his shoulders, and an impatient drumming on the table with his fingers. "Dear young man, whom I so much admire," said Agapit, leaning across towards him, "I have confidence in you. You, who think so much of the honor of your race,—you who shielded the name of your ancestor lest dishonor should come on it, I trust you fully. You will, some day when it seems good to you, find out this child who has cast off her race; and now go,—the door is open, seek Rose if you will. You will say nothing unworthy to her. You know love, the greatest of things, but you also know duty, the sublimest." His voice died away, and Vesper still preserved a dogged silence. At last, however, his struggle with himself was over, and in a harsh, rough voice, utterly unlike his usual one, he looked up and said, "Have we time to catch the train?" "By driving fast," said Agapit, mildly, "we may. Possibly the train is late also." "Make haste then," said Vesper, and he hurried to his mother, whose voice he heard in the hall. Agapit fairly ran to the stable, and as he ran he muttered, "We are all very young,—the old ones say that trouble cuts into the hearts of youth. Let us pray our Lord for old age."
CHAPTER XVIII.
NARCISSE GOES IN SEARCH OF THE ENGLISHMAN. "L'homme s'agite, Dieu le mÈne." Mrs. Nimmo was a very unhappy woman. She had never before had a trouble equal to this trouble, and, as she sat at the long window in the bedroom of her absent son, she drearily felt that it was eating the heart and spirit out of her. Vesper was away, and she had refused to share his unhappy wanderings, for she knew that he did not wish her to do so. Very calmly and coldly he had told her that his engagement to Rose À Charlitte was over. He assigned no cause for it, and Mrs. Nimmo, in her desperation, earnestly wished that he had never heard of the Acadiens, that Rose À Charlitte had never been born, and that the little peninsula of Nova Scotia had never been traced on the surface of the globe. It was a lovely evening of late summer. The square in which she lived was cool and quiet, for very few of its inhabitants had come back from their summer excursions. Away in the distance, beyond the leafy common, she could hear the subdued roar of the city, but on the brick pavements about her there was scarcely a footfall. The window at which she sat faced the south. In winter her son's room was flooded with sunlight, but in summer the branching elm outside put forth a kindly screen of leaves to shield it from the too oppressive heat. Her glance wandered between the delicate lace curtains, swaying to and fro, to this old elm that seemed a member of her family. How much her son loved it,—and with an indulgent thought of Vesper's passion for the natives of the outdoor world, a disagreeable recollection of the Acadien woman's child leaped into her mind. How absurdly fond of trees and flowers he had been, and what a fanciful, unnatural child he was, altogether. She had never liked him, and he had never liked her, and she wrinkled her brows at the distasteful remembrance of him. A knock at the half-open door distracted her attention, and, languidly turning her head, she said, "What is it, Henry?" "It's a young woman, Mis' Nimmo," replied that ever alert and demure colored boy, "what sometimes brings you photographs. She come in a hack with a girl." "Let her come up. She may leave the girl below." "I guess that girl ain't a girl, Mis' Nimmo,—she looks mighty like a boy. She's the symbol of the little feller in the French place I took you to." Mrs. Nimmo gave him a rebuking glance. "Let the girl remain down-stairs." "Madame," said a sudden voice, "this is now Boston,—where is the Englishman?" Mrs. Nimmo started from her chair. Here was the French child himself, standing calmly before her in the twilight, his small body habited in ridiculous and disfiguring girl's clothes, his cropped curly head and white face appearing above an absurd kind of grayish yellow cloak. "Narcisse!" she ejaculated. "Madame," said the faint yet determined little voice, "is the Englishman in his house?" Mrs. Nimmo's glance fell upon Henry, who was standing open-mouthed and grotesque, and with a gesture she sent him from the room. Narcisse, exhausted yet eager, had started on a tour of investigation about the room, holding up with one hand the girl's trappings, which considerably hampered his movements, and clutching something to his breast with the other. He had found the house of the Englishman and his mother, and by sure tokens he recognized his recent presence in this very room. Here were his books, his gloves, his cap, and, best of all, another picture of him; and, with a cry of delight, he dropped on a footstool before a full-length portrait of the man he adored. Here he would rest: his search was ended; and meekly surveying Mrs. Nimmo, he murmured, "Could Narcisse have a glass of milk?" Mrs. Nimmo's emotions at present all seemed to belong to the order of the intense. She had never before been so troubled; she had never before been so bewildered. What did the presence of this child under her roof mean? Was his mother anywhere near? Surely not,—Rose would never clothe her comely child in those shabby garments of the other sex. She turned her puzzled face to the doorway, and found an answer to her questions in the presence of an anxious-faced young woman there, who said, apologetically, "He got away from me; he's been like a wild thing to get here. Do you know him?" "Know him? Yes, I have seen him before." The anxious-faced young woman breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought, maybe, I'd been taken in. I was just closing up the studio, an hour ago, when two men came up the stairs with this little fellow wrapped in an old coat. They said they were from a schooner called the Nancy Jane, down at one of the wharves, and they picked up this boy in a drifting boat on the Bay Saint-Mary two days ago. They said he was frightened half out of his senses, and was holding on to that photo in his hand,—show the lady, dear." Narcisse, whose tired head was nodding sleepily on his breast, paid no attention to her request, so she gently withdrew one of his hands from under his cloak and exhibited in it a torn and stained photograph of Vesper. Mrs. Nimmo caught her breath, and attempted to take it from him, but he quickly roused himself, and, placing it beneath him, rolled over on the floor, and, with a farewell glance at the portrait above, fell sound asleep. "He's beat out," said the anxious-faced young woman. "I'm glad I've got him to friends. The sailors were awful glad to get rid of him. They kind of thought he was a French child from Nova Scotia, but they hadn't time to run back with him, for they had to hurry here with their cargo, and then he held on to the photo and said he wanted to be taken to that young man. The sailors saw our address on it, but they sort of misdoubted we wouldn't keep him. However, I thought I'd take him off their hands, for he was frightened to death they would carry him back to their vessel, though I guess they was kind enough to him. I gave them back their coat, and borrowed some things from the woman who takes care of our studio. I forgot to say the boy had only a night-dress on when they found him." Mrs. Nimmo mechanically felt in her pocket for her purse. "They didn't say anything about a woman being with him?" "No, ma'am; he wouldn't talk to them much, but they said it was likely a child's trick of getting in a boat and setting himself loose." "Would you—would you care to keep him until he is sent for?" faltered Mrs. Nimmo. "I—oh, no, I couldn't. I've only a room in a lodging-house. I'd be afraid of something happening to him, for I'm out all day. I offered him something to eat, but he wouldn't take it—oh, thank you, ma'am, I didn't spend all that. I guess I'll have to go. Does he come from down East?" "Yes, he is French. My son visited his house this summer, and used to pet him a good deal." The young woman cast a glance of veiled admiration at the portrait. "And the little one ran away to find him. Quite a story. He's cute, too," and, airily patting Narcisse's curly head, she took her leave of Mrs. Nimmo, and made her way down-stairs. A good many strange happenings came into her daily life in this large city, and this was not one of the strangest. Mrs. Nimmo sat still and stared at Narcisse. Rose had probably not been in the boat with him,—had probably not been drowned. He had apparently run away from home, and the first thing to do was to communicate with his mother, who would be frantic with anxiety about him. She therefore wrote out a telegram to Rose, "Your boy is with me, and safe and well," and ringing for Henry, she bade him send it as quickly as possible. Then she sank again into profound meditation. The child had come to see Vesper. Had she better not let him know about it? If she applied the principles of sound reasoning to the case, she certainly should do so. It might also be politic. Perhaps it would bring him home to her, and, sighing heavily, she wrote another telegram. In the meantime Narcisse did not awake. He lay still, enjoying the heavy slumber of exhaustion and content. He was in the house of his beloved Englishman; all would now be well. He did not know that, after a time, his trustful confidence awoke the mother spirit in the woman watching him. The child for a time was wholly in her care. No other person in this vast city was interested in him. No one cared for him. A strange, long-unknown feeling fluttered about her breast, and memories of her past youth awoke. She had also once been a child. She had been lonely and terrified, and suffered childish agonies not to be revealed until years of maturity. They were mostly agonies about trifles,—still, she had suffered. She pictured to herself the despair and anger of the boy upon finding that Vesper did not return to Sleeping Water as he had promised to do. With his little white face in a snarl, he would enter the boat and set himself adrift, to face sufferings of fright and loneliness of which in his petted childhood he could have had no conception. And yet what courage. She could see that he was exhausted, yet there had been no whining, no complaining; he had attained his object and he was satisfied. He was really like her own boy, and, with a proud, motherly smile, she gazed alternately from the curly head on the carpet to the curly one in the portrait. The external resemblance, too, was indeed remarkable, and now the thought did not displease her, although it had invariably done so in Sleeping Water, when she had heard it frequently and naÏvely commented on by the Acadiens. Well, the child had thrown himself on her protection,—he should not repent it; and, summoning a housemaid, she sent her in search of some of Vesper's long-unused clothing, and then together they slipped the disfiguring girl's dress from Narcisse's shapely body, and put on him a long white nightrobe. He drowsily opened his eyes as they were lifting him into Vesper's bed, saw that the photograph was still in his possession, and that a familiar face was bending over him, then, sweetly murmuring "Bon soir" (good night), he again slipped into the land of dreams. Several times during the night Mrs. Nimmo stole into her son's room, and drew the white sheet from the black head half buried in the pillow. Once she kissed him, and this time she went back to her bed with a lighter heart, and was soon asleep herself. She was having a prolonged nap the next morning when something caused her suddenly to open her eyes. Just for an instant she fancied herself a happy young wife again, her husband by her side, their adored child paying them an early morning call. Then the dream was over. This was the little foreign boy who was sitting curled up on the foot of her bed, nibbling hungrily at a handful of biscuits. "I came, madame, because those others I do not know," and he pointed towards the floor, to indicate her servants. "Has your son, the Englishman, yet arrived?" "No," she said, gently. "Your skin is white," said Narcisse, approvingly; "that is good; I do not like that man." "But you have seen colored people on the Bay,—you must not dislike Henry. My husband brought him here as a boy to wait on my son. I can never give him up." "He is amiable," said Narcisse, diplomatically. "He gave me these," and he extended his biscuits. They were carrying on their conversation in French, for only with Vesper did Narcisse care to speak English. Perfectly aware, in his acute childish intelligence, that he was, for a time, entirely dependent on "madame," whom, up to this, he had been jealous of, and had positively disliked, he was keeping on her a watchful and roguish eye. Mrs. Nimmo, meanwhile, was interested and amused, but would make no overtures to him. "Is your bed as soft as mine, madame?" he said, politely. "I do not know; I never slept in that one." Narcisse drew a corner of her silk coverlet over his feet. "Narcisse was very sick yesterday." "I do not wonder," said his hostess. "Your son said that he would return, but he did not." "My son has other things to think of, little boy." Mrs. Nimmo's manner was one that would have checked confidences in an ordinary child. It made Narcisse more eager to justify himself. "Why does my mother cry every night?" he asked, suddenly. "How can I tell?" answered Mrs. Nimmo, peevishly. "I hear a noise in the night, like trees in a storm," said Narcisse, tragically, and, drawing himself up, he fetched a tremendous sigh from the pit of his little stomach; "then I put up my hand so,"—and leaning over, he placed three fingers on Mrs. Nimmo's eyelids,—"and my mother's face is quite wet, like leaves in the rain." Mrs. Nimmo did not reply, and he went on with alarming abruptness. "She cries for the Englishman. I also cried, and one night I got out of bed. It was very fine; there was the night sun in the sky,—you know, madame, there is a night sun and a day sun—" "Yes, I know." "I went creeping, creeping to the wharf like a fly on a tree. I was not afraid, for I carried your son in my hand, and he says only babies cry when they are alone." "And then,—" said Mrs. Nimmo. "Oh, the beautiful stone!" cried Narcisse, his volatile fancy attracted by a sparkling ring on Mrs. Nimmo's finger. She sighed, and allowed him to handle it for a moment. "I have just put it on again, little boy. I have been in mourning for the last two years. Tell me about your going to the boat." "There is nothing to tell," said Narcisse; "it was a very little boat." "Whose boat was it?" "The blacksmith's." "How did you get it off from the wharf?" "Like this," and bending over, he began to fumble with the strings of her nightcap, tying and untying until he tickled her throat and made her laugh irresistibly and push him away. "There was no knife," he said, "or I would have cut it." "But you did wrong to take the blacksmith's boat." Narcisse's face flushed, yet he was too happy to become annoyed with her. "When the Englishman is there, I am good, and my mother does not cry. Let him go back with me." "And what shall I do?" Narcisse was plainly embarrassed. At last he said, earnestly, "Remain, madame, with the black man, who will take care of you. When does the Englishman arrive?" "I do not know; run away now, I want to dress." "You have here a fine bathroom," said Narcisse, sauntering across the room to an open door. "When am I to have my bath?" "Does your mother give you one every day?" "Yes, madame, at night, before I go to bed. Do you not know the screen in our room, and the little tub, and the dish with the soap that smells so nice? I must scour myself hard in order to be clean." "I am glad to hear that. I will send a tub to your room." "But I like this, madame." "Come, come," she said, peremptorily, "run away. No one bathes in my tub but myself." Narcisse had a passion for dabbling in water, and he found this dainty bathroom irresistible. "I hate you, madame," he said, flushing angrily, and stamping his foot at her. "I hate you." Mrs. Nimmo looked admiringly past the child at his reflection in her cheval glass. What a beauty he was, as he stood furiously regarding her, his sweet, proud face convulsed, his little body trembling inside his white gown! In his recklessness he had forgotten to be polite to her, and she liked him the better for it. "You are a naughty boy," she said, indulgently. "I cannot have you in my room if you talk like that." Without a word Narcisse went to her dressing-table, picked up his precious photograph that he had left propped against a silver-backed brush, and turned to leave her, when she said, curiously, "Why did you tear that picture if you think so much of it?" Narcisse immediately fell into a state of pitiable confusion, and, hanging his head, remained speechless. "If you will say you are sorry for being rude, I will give you another one," she said, and in a luxury of delight at playing with this little soul, she raised herself on her arm and held out a hand to him. Narcisse drew back his lips at her as if he had been a small dog. "Madame," he faltered, tapping his teeth, "these did it, but I stopped them." "What do you mean?" said Mrs. Nimmo, and a horrible suspicion entered her mind. "Narcisse was hungry—in the boat—" stammered the boy. "He nibbled but a little of the picture. He could not bite the Englishman long." Mrs. Nimmo shuddered. She had never been hungry in her life. "Come here, you poor child. You shall have a bath in my room as soon as I finish. Give me a kiss." Narcisse's sensitive spirit immediately became bathed with light. "Shall I kiss you as your son the Englishman kissed my mother?" "Yes," said Mrs. Nimmo, bravely, and she held out her arms. "But you must not do so," said Narcisse, drawing back. "You must now cry, and hide your face like this,"—and his slender, supple fingers guided her head into a distressed position,—"and when I approach, you must wave your hands." "Did your mother do that?" asked Mrs. Nimmo, eagerly. "Yes,—and your son lifted her hand like this," and Narcisse bent a graceful knee before her. "Did she not throw her arms around his neck and cling to him?" inquired the lady, in an excess of jealous curiosity. "No, she ran from us up the bank." "Your mother is a wicked woman to cause my son pain," said Mrs. Nimmo, in indignant and rapid French. "My mother is not wicked," said Narcisse, vehemently. "I wish to see her. I do not like you." They were on the verge of another disagreement, and Mrs. Nimmo, with a soothing caress, hurried him from the room. What a curious boy he was! And as she dressed herself she sometimes smiled and sometimes frowned at her reflection in the glass, but the light in her eyes was always a happy one, and there was an unusual color in her cheeks.
CHAPTER XIX.
AN INTERRUPTED MASS. "Here is our dearest theme where skies are blue and brightest,
To sing a single song in places that love it best;
Freighting the happy breeze when snowy clouds are lightest;
Making a song to cease not when the singer is dumb in rest." "Here is our dearest theme where skies are blue and brightest,
To sing a single song in places that love it best;
Freighting the happy breeze when snowy clouds are lightest;
Making a song to cease not when the singer is dumb in rest." J. F. H. Away up the Bay, past Sleeping Water and Church Point, past historic Piau's Isle and Belliveau's Cove and the lovely Sissiboo River, past Weymouth and the Barrens, and other villages stretched out along this highroad, between Yarmouth and Digby, is Bleury,—beautiful Bleury, which is the final outpost in the long-extended line of Acadien villages. Beyond this, the Bay—what there is of it, for it soon ends this side of Digby—is English. But beautiful Bleury, which rejoices in a high bluff, a richly wooded shore, swelling hills, and an altogether firmer, bolder outlook than flat Sleeping Water, is not wholly French. Some of its inhabitants are English. Here the English tide meets the French tide, and, swelling up the Bay and back in the woods, they overrun the land, and form curious contrasts and results, unknown and unfelt in the purely Acadien districts nearer the sea. In Bleury there is one schoolhouse common to both races, and on a certain afternoon, three weeks after little Narcisse's adventurous voyage in search of the Englishman, the children were tumultuously pouring out from it. Instinctively they formed themselves into four distinct groups. The groups at last resolved themselves into four processions, two going up the road, two down. The French children took one side of the road, the English the other, and each procession kept severely to its own place. Heading the rows of English children who went up the Bay was a red-haired girl of some twelve summers, whose fiery head gleamed like a torch, held at the head of the procession. As far as the coloring of her skin was concerned, and the exquisite shading of her velvety brown eyes, and the shape of her slightly upturned nose, she might have been English. But her eager gestures, her vivacity, her swiftness and lightness of manner, marked her as a stranger and an alien among the English children by whom she was surrounded. This was Bidiane LeNoir, Agapit's little renegade, and just now she was highly indignant over a matter of offended pride. A French girl had taken a place above her in a class, and also, secure in the fortress of the schoolroom, had made a detestable face at her. "I hate them,—those Frenchies," she cried, casting a glance of defiance at the Acadien children meekly filing along beyond her. "I sha'n't walk beside 'em. Go on, you ——," and she added an offensive epithet. The dark-faced, shy Acadiens trotted soberly on, swinging their books and lunch-baskets in their hands. They would not go out of their way to seek a quarrel. "Run," said Bidiane, imperiously. The little Acadiens would not run, they preferred to walk, and Bidiane furiously called to her adherents, "Let's sing mass." This was the deepest insult that could be offered to the children across the road. Sometimes in their childish quarrels aprons and jackets were torn, and faces were slapped, but no bodily injury ever equalled in indignity that put upon the Catholic children when their religion was ridiculed. However, they did not retaliate, but their faces became gloomy, and they immediately quickened their steps. "Holler louder," Bidiane exhorted her followers, and she broke into a howling "Pax vobiscum," while a boy at her elbow groaned, "Et cum spiritu tuo," and the remainder of the children screamed in an irreverent chorus, that ran all up and down the scale, "Gloria tibi Domine." The Acadien children fled now, some of them with fingers in their ears, others casting bewildered looks of horror, as if expecting to see the earth open and swallow up their sacrilegious tormentors, who stood shrieking with delight at the success of their efforts to rid themselves of their undesired companions. "Shut up," said Bidiane, suddenly, and at once the laughter was stilled. There was a stranger in their midst. He had come gliding among them on one of the bright shining wheels that went up and down the Bay in such large numbers. Before Bidiane had spoken he had dismounted, and his quick eye was surveying them with a glance like lightning. The children stared silently at him. Ridicule cuts sharply into the heart of a child, and a sound whipping inflicted on every girl and boy present would not have impressed on them the burden of their iniquity as did the fine sarcasm and disdainful amusement with which this handsome stranger regarded them. One by one they dropped away, and Bidiane only remained rooted to the spot by some magic incomprehensible to her. "Your name is Bidiane LeNoir," he said, quietly. "It ain't," she said, doggedly; "it's Biddy Ann Black." "Really,—and there are no LeNoirs about here, nor Corbineaus?" "Down the Bay are LeNoirs and Corbineaus," said the little girl, defiantly; then she burst out with a question, "You ain't the Englishman from Boston?" "I am." "Gosh!" she said, in profound astonishment; then she lowered her eyes, and traced a serpent in the dust with her great toe. All up and down the Bay had flashed the news of this wonderful stranger who had come to Sleeping Water in quest of an heir or heiress to some vast fortune. The heir had been found in the person of herself,—small, red-haired Biddy Ann Black, and it had been firmly believed among her fellow playmates that at any moment the prince might appear in a golden chariot and whisk her away with him to realms of bliss, where she would live in a gorgeous palace and eat cakes and sweetmeats all day long, sailing at intervals in a boat of her own over a bay of transcendent loveliness, in which she would catch codfish as big as whales. This story had been believed until very recently, when it had somewhat died away by reason of the non-appearance of the prince. Now he had arrived, and Bidiane's untrained mind and her little wild beast heart were in a tumult. She felt that he did not approve of her, and she loved and hated him in a breath. He was smooth, and dignified, and sleek, like a priest. He was dark, too, like the French people, and she scowled fiercely. He would see that her cotton gown was soiled; why had she not worn a clean one to-day, and also put on her shoes? Would he really want her to go away with him? She would not do so; and a lump arose in her throat, and with a passionate emotion that she did not understand she gazed across the Bay towards the purple hills of Digby Neck. Vesper, perfectly aware of what was passing in her mind, waited for her to recover herself. "I would like to see your uncle and aunt," he said, at last. "Will you take me to them?" She responded by a gesture in the affirmative, and, still with eyes bent obstinately on the ground, led the way towards a low brown house situated in a hollow between two hills, and surrounded by a grove of tall French poplars, whose ancestors had been nourished by the sweet waters of the Seine. Vesper's time was limited, and he was anxious to gain the confidence of the little maid, if possible, but she would not talk to him. "Do you like cocoanuts?" he said, presently, on seeing in the distance a negro approaching, with a load of this foreign fruit, that he had probably obtained from some schooner. "You bet," said Bidiane, briefly. Vesper stopped the negro, and bought as many nuts at five cents apiece as he and Bidiane could carry. Then, trying to make her smile by balancing one on the saddle of his wheel, he walked slowly beside her. Bidiane solemnly watched him. She would not talk, she would not smile, but she cheerfully dropped her load when one of his cocoanuts rolled in the ditch, and, at the expense of a scratched face from an inquisitive rose-bush that bent over to see what she was doing, she restored it to him. "Your cheek is bleeding," said Vesper. "No odds," she remarked, with Indian-like fortitude, and she preceded him into a grassy dooryard, that was pervaded by a powerful smell of frying doughnuts. Mirabelle Marie, her fat, good-natured young aunt, stood in the kitchen doorway with a fork in her hand, and seeing that the stranger was English, she beamed a joyous, hearty welcome on him. "Good day, sir; you'll stop to supper? That's right. Shove your wheel ag'in that fence, and come right in. Biddy, git the creamer from the well and give the genl'man a glass of milk. You won't?—All right, sir, walk into the settin'-room. What! you'd rather set under the trees? All right. My man's up in the barn, fussin' with a sick cow that's lost her cud. He's puttin' a rind of bacon on her horns. What d'ye say, Biddy?"—this latter in an undertone to the little girl, who was pulling at her dress. "This is the Englishman from Boston—sakerjÉ!" and, dropping her fork, she wiped her hands on her dress and darted out to offer Vesper still more effusive expressions of hospitality. He smiled amiably on her, and presently she returned to the kitchen, silly and distracted in appearance, and telling Bidiane that she felt like a hen with her head cut off. The stranger who was to do so much for them had come. She could have prostrated herself in the dust before him. "Scoot, Biddy, scoot," she exclaimed; "borry meat of some kind. Go to the Maxwells or to the Whites. Tell 'em he's come, and we've got nothin' but fish and salt pork, and they know the English hate that like pizen. And git a junk of butter with only a mite of salt in it. Mine's salted heavy for the market. And skip to the store and ask 'em to score us for a pound of cheese and some fancy crackers." Bidiane ran away, and, as she ran, her ill humor left her, and she felt herself to be a very important personage. Vivaciously and swiftly she exclaimed, "He's come!" to several children whom she met, and with a keen and exquisite sense of pleasure looked back to see them standing open-mouthed in the road, impressed in a most gratifying way by the news communicated. In the meantime Mirabelle Marie began to make frantic and ludicrous preparations to set a superfine meal before the stranger, who was now entitled to a double share of honor. In her extreme haste everything went wrong. She upset her pot of lard; the cat and dog got at her plate of doughnuts, and stole half of them; the hot biscuits that she hastily mixed burnt to a cinder, and the jar of preserved berries that she opened proved to have been employing their leisure time in the cellar by fermenting most viciously. However, she did not lose her temper, and, as she was not a woman to be cast down by trifles, she seated herself in a rocking-chair, fanned herself vigorously with her apron, and laughed spasmodically. Bidiane found her there on her return. The little girl possessed a keener sense of propriety than her careless relative; she was also more moody and variable, and immediately falling into a rage, she conveyed some plain truths to Mirabelle Marie, in inelegant language. The woman continued to laugh, and to stare through the window at Vesper, who sat motionless under the trees. One arm was thrown over the back of his seat, and his handsome head was turned away from the house. "Poor calf," said Mirabelle Marie, "he looks down the Bay; he is a very divil for good looks. Rose À Charlitte is one big fool." "We shall have only slops for supper," said Bidiane, in a fury, and swearing under her breath at her. Mirabelle Marie at this bestirred herself, and tried to evolve a meal from the ruin of her hopes, and the fresh supply of food that her niece had obtained. The little girl meantime found a clean cloth, and spread it on the table. She carefully arranged on it their heavy white dishes and substantial knives and spoons. Then she blew a horn, which made Claude À Sucre, her strapping great uncle, suddenly loom against the horizon, in the direction of the barn. He came to the house, and was about to ask a question, but closed his mouth when he saw the stranger in the yard. "Go change," said Bidiane, pouncing upon him. Claude knew what she meant, and glanced resignedly from his homespun suit to her resolved face. There was no appeal, so he went to his bedroom to don his Sunday garments. He had not without merit gained his nickname of Sugar Claude; for he was, if possible, more easy-going than his wife. Bidiane next attacked her aunt, whose face was the color of fire, from bending over the stove. "Go put on clean duds; these are dirty." "Go yourself, you little cat," said Mirabelle Marie, shaking her mountain of flesh with a good-natured laugh. "I'm going—I ain't as dirty as you, anyway—and take off those sneaks." Mirabelle Marie stuck out one of the flat feet encased in rubber-soled shoes. "My land! if I do, I'll go barefoot." Bidiane subsided and went to the door to look for her two boy cousins. Where were they? She shaded her eyes with her two brown hands, and her gaze swept the land and the water. Where were those boys? Were they back in the pasture, or down by the river, or playing in the barn, or out in the boat? A small schooner beating up the Bay caught her eye. That was Johnny Maxwell's schooner. She knew it by the three-cornered patch on the mainsail. And in Captain Johnny's pockets, when he came from Boston, were always candy, nuts, and raisins,—and the young Maxwells were of a generous disposition, and the whole neighborhood knew it. Her cousins would be on the wharf below the house, awaiting his arrival. Well, they should come to supper first; and, like a bird of prey, she swooped down the road upon her victims, and, catching them firmly by the shoulders, marched them up to the house.
CHAPTER XX.
WITH THE WATERCROWS. "Her mouth was ever agape,
Her ears were ever ajar;
If you wanted to find a sweeter fool,
You shouldn't have come this far." —Old Song. When the meal was at last prepared, and the whole family were assembled in the sitting-room, where the table had been drawn from the kitchen, they took a united view of Vesper's back; then Claude À Sucre was sent to escort him to the house. With a rapturous face Mirabelle Marie surveyed the steaming dish of soupe À la patate (potato soup), the mound of buttered toast, the wedge of tough fried steak, the strips of raw dried codfish, the pink cake, and fancy biscuits. Surely the stranger would be impressed by the magnificence of this display, and she glanced wonderingly at Bidiane, whose eyes were lowered to the floor. The little girl had enjoyed advantages superior to her own, in that she mingled freely in English society, where she herself—Mirabelle Marie—was strangely shunned. Could it be that she was ashamed of this board? Certainly she could never have seen anything much grander; and, swelling with gratified pride and ambition, the mistress of the household seated herself behind her portly teapot, from which vantage-ground she beamed, huge and silly, like a full-grown moon upon the occupants of the table. Her guest was not hungry, apparently, for he scarcely touched the dishes that she pressed upon him. However, he responded so gracefully and with such well-bred composure to her exhortations that he should eat his fill, for there was more in the cellar, that she was far from resenting his lack of appetite. He was certainly a "boss young man;" and as she sat, delicious visions swam through her brain of new implements for the farm, a new barn, perhaps, new furniture for the house, with possibly an organ, a spick and span wagon, and a horse, or even a pair, and the eventual establishment of her two sons in Boston,—the El Dorado of her imagination,—where they would become prosperous merchants, and make heaps of gold for their mother to spend. In her excitement she began to put her food in her mouth with both hands, until reminded that she was flying in the face of English etiquette by a vigorous kick administered under the table by Bidiane. Vesper, with an effort, called back his painful wandering thoughts, which had indeed gone down the Bay, and concentrated them upon this picturesquely untidy family. This was an entirely different establishment from that of the Sleeping Water Inn. Fortunately there was no grossness, no clownishness of behavior, which would have irreparably offended his fastidious taste. They were simply uncultured, scrambling, and even interesting with the background of this old homestead, which was one of the most ancient that he had seen on the Bay, and which had probably been built by some of the early settlers. While he was quietly making his observations, the family finished their meal, and seeing that they were waiting for him to give the signal for leaving the table, he politely rose and stepped behind his chair. Mirabelle Marie scurried to her feet and pushed the table against the wall. Then the whole family sat down in a semicircle facing a large open fireplace heaped high with the accumulated rubbish of the summer, and breathlessly waited for the stranger to tell them of his place of birth, the amount of his fortune, his future expectations and hopes, his intentions with regard to Bidiane, and of various and sundry other matters that might come in during the course of their conversation. Vesper, with his usual objection to having any course of action mapped out for him, sat gazing imperturbably at them. He was really sorry for Mirabelle Marie, who was plainly bursting with eagerness. Her husband was more reserved, yet he, too, was suffering from suppressed curiosity, and timidly and wistfully handled his pipe, that he longed to and yet did not dare to smoke. His two small boys sat dangling their legs from seats that were uncomfortably high for them. They were typical Acadien children,—shy, elusive, and retreating within themselves in the presence of strangers; and if, by chance, Vesper caught a stealthy glance from one of them, the little fellow immediately averted his glossy head, as if afraid that the calm eyes of the stranger might lay bare the inmost secrets of his youthful soul. Bidiane was the most interesting of the group. She was evidently a born manager and the ruling spirit in the household, for he could see that they all stood in awe of her. She must possess some force of will to enable her to subdue her natural eagerness and vivacity, so as to appear sober and reserved. His presence was evidently a constraint to the little red-haired witch, and he could scarcely have understood her character, if Agapit had not supplied him with a key to it. Young as she was, she acutely appreciated the racial differences about her. There were two worlds in her mind,—French and English. The careless predilections of her aunt had become fierce prejudices with her, and, at present, although she was proud to have an Englishman under their roof, she was at the same time tortured by the contrast that she knew he must find between the humble home of her relatives and the more prosperous surroundings of the English people with whom he was accustomed to mingle. "She is a clever little imp," Agapit had said, "and wise beyond her years." Vesper, when his unobtrusive examination of her small resolved face was over, glanced about the low, square room in which they sat. The sun was just leaving it. The family would soon be thinking of going to bed. All around the room were other rooms evidently used as sleeping apartments, for through a half-open door he saw an unmade bed, and he knew, from the construction of the house, that there was no upper story. After a time the silence became oppressive, and Mirabelle Marie, seeing that the stranger would not entertain her, set herself to the task of entertaining him, and with an ingratiating and insinuating smile informed him that the biggest liar on the Bay lived in Bleury. "His name's Bill," she said, "Blowin' Bill Duckfoot, an' the boys git 'round him an' say, 'Give us a yarn.' He says, 'Well, give me a chaw of 'baccy,' then he starts off. 'Onct when I went to sea'—he's never bin off the Bay, you know—'it blowed as hard as it could for ten days. Then it blowed ten times harder. We had to lash the cook to the mast.' 'What did you do when you wanted grub?' says the boys. 'Oh, we unlashed him for awhile,' says Bill. 'One day the schooner cracked from stern to stem. Cap'en and men begun to holler and says we was goin' to the bottom.' 'Cheer up,' says Bill, 'I'll fix a way.' So he got 'em to lash the anchor chains 'roun' the schooner, an' that hold 'em together till they got to Boston, and there was nothin' too good for Bill. It was cousin Duckfoot, an' brother Duckfoot, and good frien' Duckfoot, and lots of treatin'." Vesper in suppressed astonishment surveyed Mirabelle Marie, who, at the conclusion of her story, burst into a fit of such hearty laughter that she seemed to be threatened there and then with a fit of apoplexy. Her face grew purple, tears ran down her cheeks, and through eyes that had become mere slits in her face she looked at Claude, who too was convulsed with amusement, at her two small boys, who giggled behind their hands, and at Bidiane, who only smiled sarcastically. Vesper at once summoned an expression of interest to his face, and Mirabelle Marie, encouraged by it, caught her breath with an explosive sound, wiped the tears from her eyes, and at once continued. "Here's another daisy one. 'Onct,' says Bill, 'all han's was lost 'cept me an' a nigger. I went to the stern as cap'en, and he to the bow as deck-han'. A big wave struck the schooner, and when we righted, wasn't the nigger at stern as cap'en, an' I was at bow as deck-han'!'" While Vesper was waiting for the conclusion of the story, a burst of joyous cachinnation assured him that it had already come. Mirabelle Marie was again rocking herself to and fro in immoderate delight, her head at each dip forward nearly touching her knees, while her husband was slapping his side vigorously. Vesper laughed himself. Truly there were many different orders of mind in the universe. He saw nothing amusing in the reported exploits of the liar Duckfoot. They also would not have brought a smile to the face of his beautiful Rose, yet the Corbineaus, or Watercrows, as they translated their name in order to make themselves appear English, found these stories irresistibly comical. It was a blessing for them that they did so, otherwise the whole realm of humor might be lost to them; and he was going off in a dreamy speculation with regard to their other mental proclivities, when he was roused by another story from his hostess. "Duckfoot is a mason by trade, an' onct he built a chimbley for a woman. 'Make a good draught,' says she. 'You bet,' says he, an' he built his chimbley an' runs away; as he runs he looks back, an' there was the woman's duds that was hangin' by the fire goin' up the chimbley. He had built such a draught that nothin' could stay in the kitchen, so she had to go down on her knees an' beg him to change it." "To beg him to change it," vociferated Claude, and he soundly smacked his unresisting knee. "Oh, Lord, 'ow funny!" and he roared with laughter so stimulating that he forgot his fear of Vesper and Bidiane, and, boldly lighting his pipe, put it between his lips. Mirabelle Marie, whose flow of eloquence it was difficult to check, related several other tales of Duckfoot Bill. Many times, before the railway in this township of Clare had been built, he had told them of his uncle, who had, he said, a magnificent residence in Louisiana, with a park full of valuable animals called skunks. These animals he had never fully described, and they were consequently enveloped in a cloud of admiration and mystery, until a horde of them came with the railroad to the Bay, when the credulous Acadiens learned for themselves what they really were. During the recital of this tale, Bidiane's face went from disapproval to disgust, and at last, diving under the table, she seized a basket and went to work vigorously, as if the occupation of her fingers would ease the perturbation of her mind. Vesper watched her closely. She was picking out the threads of old cotton and woollen garments that had been cut into small pieces. These threads would be washed, laid out on the grass to dry, and then be carded, and spun, and woven over again, according to a thrifty custom of the Acadiens, and made into bedcovers, stockings, and cloth. The child must possess some industry, for this work—"pickings," as it was called—was usually done by the women. In brooding silence the little girl listened to Mirabelle Marie's final tale of Duckfoot Bill, whose wife called out to him, one day, from the yard, that there was a flock of wild geese passing over the house. Without troubling to go out, he merely discharged his gun up the chimney beside which he sat, and the ramrod, carelessly being left in, killed a certain number of geese. "How many do you guess that ramrod run through?" Vesper good-naturedly guessed two. "No,—seven," she shrieked; "they was strung in a row like dried apples," and she burst into fresh peals of laughter, until suddenly plunged into the calmness of despair by a few words from Bidiane, who leaned over and whispered angrily to her. Mirabelle Marie trembled, and gazed at the stranger. Was it true,—did he wish to commend her to a less pleasant place than Bleury for teasing him with these entrancing stories? She could gather nothing from his face; so she entered tremulously into a new subject of conversation, and, pointing to Claude's long legs, assured him that his heavy woollen stockings had been made entirely by Bidiane. "She's smart,—as smart as a steel trap," said the aunt. "She can catch the sheeps, hold 'em down, shear the wool, an' spin it." Bidiane immediately pushed her basket under the table with so fiery and resentful a glance that the unfortunate Mirabelle Marie relapsed into silence. "Have you ever gone to sea?" asked Vesper, of the silently smoking Claude. "Yessir, we mos' all goes to sea when we's young." "Onct he was wrecked," interrupted his wife. "Yessir, I was. Off Arichat we got on a ledge. We thump up an' down. We was all on deck but the cook. The cap'en sends me to the galley for 'im. 'E come up, we go ashore, an' the schooner go to pieces." "Tell him about the mouse," said Bidiane, abruptly. "The mouse?—oh, yess, when I go for the cook I find 'im in the corner, a big stick in his 'and. I dunno 'ow 'e stan'. 'Is stove was upside down, an' there was an awful wariwarie" (racket). "'E seem not to think of danger. ''Ist,' says 'e. 'Don' mek a noise,—I wan' to kill that mouse.'" Vesper laughed at this, and Mirabelle Marie's face cleared. "Tell the Englishman who was the cap'en of yous," she said, impulsively, and she resolutely turned her back on Bidiane's terrific frown. "Well, 'e was smart," said Claude, apologetically. "'E always get on though 'e not know much. One day when 'e fus' wen' to sea 'is wife says, 'All the cap'ens' wives talk about their charts, an' you ain't gut none. I buy one.' So she wen' to Yarmouth, an' buy 'im a chart. She also buy some of that shiny cloth for kitchen table w'at 'as blue scrawly lines like writin' on it. The cap'en leave the nex' mornin' before she was up, an' 'e takes with 'im the oilcloth instid of the chart, an' 'e 'angs it in 'is cabin; 'e didn't know no differ. 'E never could write,—that man. He mek always a pictur of 'is men when 'e wan' to write the fish they ketch. But 'e was smart, very smart. 'E mek also money. Onct 'e was passenger on a schooner that smacks ag'in a steamer in a fog. All 'an's scuttle, 'cause that mek a big scare. They forgit 'im. 'E wake; 'e find 'imself lonely. Was 'e frightful? Oh, no; 'e can't work sails, but 'e steer that schooner to Boston, an' claim salvage." "Tell also the name of the cap'en," said Mirabelle Marie. Claude moved uneasily in his chair, and would not speak. "What was it?" asked Vesper. "It was Crispin," said Mirabelle Marie, solemnly. "Crispin, the brother of Charlitte." Vesper calmly took a cigarette from his pocket, and lighted it. "It is a nice place down the Bay," said Mirabelle Marie, uneasily. "Very nice," responded her guest. "Rose À Charlitte has a good name," she continued, "a very good name." Vesper fingered his cigarette, and gazed blankly at her. "They speak good French there," she said. Her husband and Bidiane stared at her. They had never heard such a sentiment from her lips before. However, they were accustomed to her ways, and they soon got over their surprise. "Do you not speak French?" asked Vesper. Mrs. Watercrow shrugged her shoulders. "It is no good. We are all English about here. How can one be French? Way back, when we went to mass, the priest was always botherin'—'Talk French to your young ones. Don't let them forgit the way the old people talked.' One day I come home and says to my biggest boy, 'Va ramasser des Écopeaux'" (Go pick up some chips). "He snarl at me, 'Do you mean potatoes?' He didn't like it." "Did he not understand you?" asked Vesper. "Naw, naw," said Claude, bitterly. "We 'ave French nebbors, but our young ones don' play with. They don' know French. My wife she speak it w'en we don' want 'em to know w'at we say." "You always like French," said his wife, contemptuously. "I guess you gut somethin' French inside you." Claude, for some reason or other, probably because, usually without an advocate, he now knew that he had one in Vesper, was roused to unusual animation. He snatched his pipe from his mouth and said, warmly, "It's me 'art that's French, an' sometimes it's sore. I speak not much, but I think often we are fools. Do the Eenglish like us? No, only a few come with us; they grin 'cause we put off our French speakin' like an ole coat. A man say to me one day, 'You 'ave nothin'. You do not go to mass, you preten' to be Protestan', w'en you not brought up to it. You big fool, you don' know w'at it is. If you was dyin' to-morrer you'd sen' for the priest.'" Mirabelle Marie opened her eyes wide at her husband's eloquence. He was not yet through. "An' our children, they are silly with it. They donno' w'at they are. All day Sunday they play; sometimes they say cuss words. I say, 'Do it not,' 'an' they ast me w'y. I cannot tell. They are not French, they are not Eenglish. They 'ave no religion. I donno' w'ere they go w'en they die." Mirabelle Marie boldly determined to make confidences to the Englishman in her turn. "The English have loads of money. I wish I could go to Boston. I could make it there,—yes, lots of it." Claude was not to be put down. "I like our own langwidge, oh, yes," he said, sadly. "W'en I was a leetle boy I wen' to school. All was Eenglish. They put in my 'and an Eenglish book. I'd lef my mother, I was stoopid. I thought all the children's teeth was broke, 'cause they spoke so strange. Never will I forgit my firs' day in school. W'y do they teach Eenglish to the French? The words was like fish 'ooks in my flesh." "Would you be willing to send that little girl down the Bay to a French convent?" said Vesper, waving his cigarette towards Bidiane. "We can't pay that," said Mirabelle Marie, eagerly. "But I would." While she was nodding her head complacently over this, the first of the favors to be showered on them, Claude said, slowly, "Down the Bay is like a bad, bad place to my children; they do not wish to go, not even to ride. They go towards Digby. Biddy Ann would not go to the convent,—would she, Biddy?" The little girl threw up her head angrily. "I hate Frenchtown, and that black spider, Agapit LeNoir." Claude's face darkened, and his wife chuckled. Surely now there would be nothing left for the Englishman to do but to transplant them all to Boston. "Would you not go?" asked Vesper, addressing Bidiane. "Not a damn step," said the girl, in a fury, and, violently pushing back her chair, she rushed from the room. If this young man wished to make a French girl of her, he might go on his way. She would have nothing to do with him. And with a rebellious and angry heart at this traitor to his race, as she regarded him, she climbed up a ladder in the kitchen that led to a sure hiding-place under the roof. Her aunt clutched her head in despair. Bidiane would ruin everything. "She's all eaten up to go to Boston," she gasped. "I am not a rich man," said Vesper, coldly. "I don't feel able at present to propose anything further for her than to give her a year or two in a convent." Mirabelle Marie gaped speechlessly at him. In one crashing ruin her new barn, and farming implements, the wagon and horses, and trunks full of fine clothes fell into the abyss of lost hopes. The prince had not the long purse that she supposed he would have. And yet such was her good-nature that, when she recovered from the shock, she regarded him just as kindly and as admiringly as before, and if he had been in the twinkling of an eye reduced to want she would have been the first to relieve him, and give what aid she could. Nothing could destroy her deep-rooted and extravagant admiration for the English race. Her fascinated glance followed him as he got up and sauntered to the open door. "You'll stop all night?" she said, hospitably, shuffling after him. "We have one good bed, with many feathers." He did not hear her, for in a state of extreme boredom, and slight absent-mindedness, he had stepped out under the poplars. "Better leave 'im alone, I guess," said Claude; then he slipped off his coat. "I'll go milk." "An' I'll make up the bed," said his wife; and taking the hairpins out of the switch that Bidiane had made her attach to her own thick lump of hair, she laid it on the shelf by the clock, and allowed her own brown wave to stream freely down her back. Then she unfastened her corsets, which she did not dare to take off, as no woman in Bleury who did not wear that article of dress tightly enfolding her chest and waist was considered to have reached the acme of respectability. However, she could for a time allow them to gape slightly apart, and having by this proceeding added much to her comfort, she entered one of the small rooms near by. Vesper meanwhile walked slowly towards the gate, while Bidiane watched him through a loophole in the roof. His body only was in Bleury; his heart was in Sleeping Water. Step by step he was following Rose about her daily duties. He knew just at what time of day her slender feet carried her to the stable, to the duck-yard, to the hen-house. He knew the exact hour that she entered her kitchen in the morning, and went from it to the pantry. He could see her beautiful face at the cool pantry window, as she stood mixing various dishes, and occasionally glancing at the passers-by on the road. Sometimes she sang gently to herself, "Rose of the cross, thou mystic flower," or "Dear angel ever at my side," or some of the Latin hymns to the Virgin. At this present moment her tasks would all be done. If there were guests who desired her presence, she might be seated with them in the little parlor. If there were none, she was probably alone in her room. Of what was she thinking? The blood surged to his face, there was a beating in his ears, and he raised his suffering glance to the sky. "O God! now I know why I suffered when my father died. It was to prepare me for this." Then his mind went back to Rose. Had she succeeded in driving his image from her pure mind and imagination? Alas! he feared not,—he would like to know. He had heard nothing of her since leaving Sleeping Water. Agapit had written once, but he had not mentioned her. This inaction was horrible,—this place wearied him insufferably. He glanced towards his wheel, and a sentence from one of Agapit's books came into his mind. It contained the advice of an old monk to a penitent, "My son, when in grievous temptation from trouble of the mind, engage violently in some exercise of the body." He was a swift rider, and there was no need for him to linger longer here. These people were painfully subservient. If at any time anything came into his mind to be done for the little girl, they would readily agree to it; that is, if the small tigress concurred; at present there was nothing to be done for her. He laid his hand on his bicycle and went towards the house again. There was no one to be seen, so he hurried up to the rickety barn where Claude sat on a milking-stool, trying to keep his long legs out of the way of a frisky cow. The Frenchman was overcome with stolid dismay when Vesper briefly bade him good-by, and going to the barn door, he stared regretfully after him. Mirabelle Marie, in blissful unconsciousness of the sudden departure, went on with her bed-making, but Bidiane, through the crack in the roof, saw him go, and in childish contradiction of spirit shed tears of anger and disappointment at the sight.
CHAPTER XXI.
A SUPREME ADIEU. "How reads the riddle of our life,
That mortals seek immortal joy,
That pleasures here so quickly cloy,
And hearts are e'en with yearnings rife?
That love's bright morn no midday knows,
And darkness comes ere even's close,
And fondest hopes bear seeds of strife.
"Let fools deride; Faith's God-girt breast
Their puny shafts can turn aside,
And mock with these their sin-born pride.
Our souls were made for God the Best;
'Tis He alone can satisfy
Their every want, can still each cry;
In Him alone shall they find rest." Cornelius O'Brien, Archbishop of Halifax. The night was one of velvety softness, and the stars, as if suspecting his mission, blinked delicately and discreetly down upon him, while Vesper, who knew every step of the way, went speeding down the Bay with a wildly beating heart. Several Acadiens recognized him as he swept past them on the road, but he did not stop to parley with them, for he wished to reach Yarmouth as soon as possible. His brain was tortured, and it seemed to him that, at every revolution of his wheels, a swift, subtle temptation assaulted him more insidiously and more fiercely. He would pass right by the Sleeping Water Inn. Why should he not pause there for a few minutes and make some arrangement with Rose about Narcisse, who was still in Boston? He certainly had a duty to perform towards the child. Would it not be foolish for him to pass by the mother's door without speaking to her of him? What harm could there be in a conversation of five minutes' duration? His head throbbed, his muscles contracted. Only this afternoon he had been firm, as firm as a rock. He had sternly resolved not to see her again, not to write to her, not to meet her, not to send her a message, unless he should hear that she had been released from the bond of her marriage. What had come over him now? He was as weak as a child. He had better stop and think the matter over; and he sprang from his wheel and threw himself down on a grassy bank, covered with broad leaves that concealed the dead and withered flowers of the summer. Somewhere in the darkness behind him was lonely Piau's Isle, where several of the Acadien forefathers of the Bay lay buried. What courage and powers of endurance they had possessed! They had bravely borne their burdens, lived their day, and were now at rest. Some day,—in a few years, perhaps,—he, too, would be a handful of dust, and he, too, would leave a record behind him; what would his record be? He bit his lip and set his teeth savagely. He was a fool and a coward. He would not go to Sleeping Water, but would immediately turn his back on temptation, and go to Weymouth. He could stay at a hotel there all night, and take the train in the morning. The soft air caressed his weary head; for a long time he lay staring up at the stars through the interlaced branches of an apple-tree over him, then he slowly rose. His face was towards the head of the Bay; he no longer looked towards Sleeping Water, but for a minute he stood irresolutely, and in that brief space of time his good resolution was irrevocably lost. Some girls were going to a merrymaking, and, as they went, they laughed gaily and continuously. One of them had clear, silvery tones like those of Rose. The color again surged to his face, the blood flew madly through his veins. He must see her, if only for an instant; and, hesitating no longer, he turned and went careering swiftly through the darkness. A short time later he had reached the inn. There was a light in Rose's window. She must have gone to bed. CÉlina only was in the kitchen, and, with a hasty glance at her, he walked to the stable. A terrible quacking in the duck-yard advised him who was there, and he was further assured by hearing an irritable voice exclaim, "If fowls were hatched dumb, there would not be this distracting tumult!" Agapit was after a duck. It fell to his lot to do the killing for the household, and it was so great a trial to his kind heart that, if the other members of the family had due warning, they usually, at such times, shut themselves up to be out of reach of his lamentable outcries when he was confronted by a protesting chicken, an innocent lamb, a tumultuous pig, or a trusting calf. Just now he emerged from the yard, holding a sleepy drake by the wing. "MisÉricorde!" he exclaimed, when he almost ran into Vesper, "who is it? You—you?" and he peered at him through the darkness. "Yes, it is I." "Confiding fool," said Agapit, impatiently tossing the drake back among his startled comrades, "I will save thy neck once more." Vesper marked the emphasis. "I am on my way to Yarmouth," he said, calmly, "and I have stopped to see your cousin about Narcisse." "Ah!—he is well, I trust." "He is better than when he was here." "His mother has gone to bed." "I will wait, then, until the morning." "Ah!" said Agapit again; then he laughed recklessly and seized Vesper's hand. "I cannot pretend. You see that I am rejoiced to have you again with us." "I, too, am glad to be here." "But you will not stay?" "Oh, no, Agapit—you know me better than that." Vesper's tone was confident, yet Agapit looked anxiously at him through the gathering gloom. "It would be better for Rose not to see you." "Agapit—we are not babies." "No, you are worse,—it is well said that only our Lord loves lovers. No other would have patience." Vesper held his straight figure a little straighter, and his manner warned the young Acadien to be careful of what he said, but he dashed on, "Words are brave; actions are braver." "How is Madame de ForÊt?" asked Vesper, shortly. "What do you expect—joyous, riotous health? Reflect only that she has been completely overthrown about her child. I hope that madame, your mother, is well." "She has not been in such good health for years. She is greatly entertained by Narcisse," and Vesper smiled at some reminiscence. "It is one of the most charming of nights," said Agapit, insinuatingly. "Toochune would be glad to have a harness on his back. We could fly over the road to Yarmouth. It would be more agreeable than travelling by day." "Thank you, Agapit—I do not wish to go to-night." "Oh, you self-willed one—you Lucifer!" said Agapit, wildly. "You dare-all, you conquer-all! Take care that you are not trapped." "Come, show me a room," said Vesper, who was secretly gratified with the irrepressible delight of the Acadien in again seeing him,—a delight that could not be conquered by his anxiety. "This evening the house is again full," said Agapit. "Rose is quite wearied; come softly up-stairs. I can give you but the small apartment next her own, but you must not rise early in the morning, and seek an interview with her." Two angry red spots immediately appeared in Vesper's cheeks, and he stared haughtily at him. Agapit snapped his fingers. "I trust you not that much, though if you had not come back, my confidence would have reached to eternity. You are unfortunately too nobly human,—why were you not divine? But I must not reproach. Have I not too been a lover? You are capable of all, even of talking through the wall with your beloved. You should have stayed away, you should have stayed away!" and, grumbling and shaking his head, he ushered his guest up-stairs, and into a tiny and exquisitely clean room, that contained only a bed, a table, a wash-stand, and one chair. Agapit motioned Vesper to the chair, and sprawled himself half over the foot of the bed, half out the open window, while he talked to his companion, whose manner had a new and caressing charm that attracted him even more irresistibly than his former cool and somewhat careless one had done. "Ah, why is life so?" he at last exclaimed, springing up, with a sigh. "Under all is such sadness. Your presence gives such joy. Why should it be denied us?" Vesper stared at his shoes to hide the nervous tears that sprang to his eyes. Agapit immediately averted his sorrowful glance. "You are not angry with me for my free speech?" "Good heavens, no!" said Vesper, irritably turning his back on him, "but I would thank you to leave me." "Good night," said the Acadien, softly. "May the blessed Virgin give you peace. Remember that I love you, for I prophesy that we on the morrow shall quarrel," and with this cheerful assurance he gently closed the door, and went to the next room. Rose threw open the door to him, and Agapit, though he was prepared for any change in her, yet for an instant could not conceal his astonishment. Where was her pallor,—her weariness? Gone, like the mists of the morning before the glory of the sun. Her face was delicately colored, her blue eyes were flooded with the most exquisite and tender light that he had ever seen in them. She had heard her lover's step, and Agapit dejectedly reflected that he should have even more trouble with her than with Vesper. "Surely, I am to see him to-night?" she murmured. "Surely not," growled Agapit. "For what do you wish to see him?" "Agapit,—should not a mother hear of her little one?" "Is it for that only you wish to see him?" "For that,—also for other things. Is he changed, Agapit? Has his face grown more pale?" Agapit broke into vigorous French. "He is more foolish than ever, that I assure thee. Such a simpleton, and thou lovest him!" "If he is a fool, then there are no wise men in the world; but thou art only teasing. Ah, Agapit, dear Agapit," and she clasped her hands, and extended them towards him. "Tell me only what he says of Narcisse." "He is well; he will tell thee in the morning of a plan he has. Go now to bed,—and Rose, to-morrow be sensible, be wise. Thou wert so noteworthy these three weeks ago, what has come to thee now?" "Agapit, thou dost remember thy mother a very little, is it not so?" "Yes, yes." "Thou couldst part from her; but suppose she came back from the dead. Suppose thou couldst hear her voice in the hall, what wouldst thou do?" "I would run to greet her," he said, rashly. "I would be mad with pleasure." "That man was as one dead," she said, with an eloquent gesture towards the next room. "I did not think of seeing him again. How can I cease from joy?" "Give me thy promise," he said, abruptly, "not to see him without me. Otherwise, thou mayst be prowling in the morning, when I oversleep myself, and thou wilt talk about me to this charming stranger." "Agapit," she said, in amazement, "wouldst thou insult me?" "No, little rabbit,—I would only prevent thee from insulting me." "It is like jailorizing. I shall not be a naughty child in a cell." "But thou wilt," he said, with determination. "Give me thy promise." Rose became indignant, and Agapit, who was watching her keenly, stepped inside her room, lest he should be overheard. "Rose," he said, swiftly, and with a deep, indrawn breath, "have I not been a brother to thee?" "Yes, yes,—until now." "Now, most of all,—some day thou wilt feel it. Would I do anything to injure thee? I tell thee thou art like a weak child now. Have I not been in love? Do not I know that for a time one's blood burns, and one is mad?" "But what do you fear?" she asked, proudly, drawing back from him. "I fear nothing, little goose," he exclaimed, catching her by the wrist, "for I take precautions. I have talked to this young man,—do not I also esteem him? I tell thee, as I told him,—he is capable of all, and when thou seest him, a word, a look, and he will insist upon thy leaving thy husband to go with him." "Agapit, I am furious with thee. Would I do a wrong thing?" "Not of thyself; but think, Rose, thou art weak and nervous. Thy strength has been tried; when thou seest thy lover thou wilt be like a silly sheep. Trust me,—when thy father, on his dying bed, pointed to thee, I knew his meaning. Did not I say 'Yes, yes, I will take care of her, for she is beautiful, and men are wicked.'" "But thou didst let me marry Charlitte," she said, with a stifled cry. Agapit was crushed by her accusation. He made a despairing gesture. "I have expected this, but, Rose, I was younger. I did not know the hearts of women. We thought it well,—your stepmother and I. He begged for thee, and we did not dream—young girls sometimes do well to settle. He seemed a wise man—" "Forgive me," cried Rose, wildly, and suddenly pushing him towards the door, "and go away. I will not talk to Mr. Nimmo without thee." "Some day thou wilt thank me," said Agapit. "It is common to reproach those who favor us. Left alone, thou wouldst rise early in the morning,—thy handsome Vesper would whisper in thy ear, and I, rising, might find thee convinced that there is nothing for thee but to submit to the sacrilege of a divorce." Rose was not touched by his wistful tones. Her pretty fingers even assisted him gently from the room, and, philosophically shrugging his shoulders, he went to bed. Rose, left alone, pressed her empty arms and palpitating heart against the bare walls of the next room. "You are good and noble,—you would do nothing wrong. That wicked Agapit, he thinks evil of thee—" and, with other fond and foolish words, she stood mutely caressing the wall until fatigue overpowered her, when she undressed and crept into her lonely bed. Agapit, who possessed a warm heart, an ardent imagination, and a lively regard for the other sex, was at present without a love-affair of his own, and his mind was therefore free to dwell on the troubles of Rose and Vesper. All night long he dreamed of lovers. They haunted him, tortured him with their griefs, misunderstandings, and afflictions, and, rather glad than sorry to awake from his disturbed sleep, he lifted his shaggy head from the pillow early in the morning and, vehemently shaking it, muttered, "The devil himself is in those who make love." Then, with his protective instinct keenly alive, he sprang up and went to the window, where he saw something that made him again mutter a reference to the evil one. His window was directly over that of his cousin, and although it was but daybreak, she was up and dressed, and leaning from it to look at Vesper, who stood on the grass below. They were not carrying on a conversation; she was true to the letter of her promise, but this mute, unspoken dialogue was infinitely more dangerous. Agapit groaned, and surveyed Vesper's glowing face. Who would dream that he, so dignified, would condescend to this? Was it arranged through the wall, or did he walk under her window and think of her until his influence drew her from her bed? "I also have done such things," he muttered; "possibly I may again, therefore I must be merciful." Vesper at this instant caught sight of his dishevelled head. Rose also looked up, and Agapit retreated in dismay at the sound of their stifled but irresistible laughter. "Ah, you do not cry all the time," he ejaculated, in confusion; then he made haste to attire himself and to call for Rose, who demurely went down-stairs with him and greeted Vesper with quiet and loving reserve. The two young men went with her to the kitchen, where she touched a match to the fire. While it was burning she sat down and talked to them, or, rather, they talked to her. The question was what to do with Narcisse. "Madame de ForÊt," said Vesper, softly, "I will tell you what I have already told your cousin. I returned home unexpectedly a fortnight ago, having in the interval missed a telegram from my mother, telling me that your boy was in Boston. When I reached my own door, I saw to my surprise the child of—of—" "Of the woman you love," thought Agapit, grimly. "Your child," continued Vesper, in some confusion, "who was kneeling on the pavement before our house. He had dug a hole in the narrow circle of earth left around the tree, and he was thrusting porridge and cream down it, while the sparrows on the branches above watched him with interest. Here in Sleeping Water we had about stopped that feeding of the trees; but my mother, I found, indulged him in everything. He was glad to see me, and I—I had dreaded the solitude of my home, and I quickly discovered that it had been banished by his presence. He has effected a transformation in my mother, and she wishes me to beg you that we may keep him for a time." Agapit had never before heard Vesper speak at such length. He himself was silent, and waited for some expression of opinion from Rose. She turned to him. "You remember what our doctor says when he looks over my little one,—that he is weak, and the air of the Bay is too strong for him?" "The doctors in Boston also say it," responded Vesper. "Mrs. Nimmo has taken him to them." Rose flashed a glance of inexpressible gratitude at Vesper. "You wish him to remain in Boston?" said Agapit. "Yes, yes,—if they will be so kind, and if it is right that we allow that they keep him for a time." Agapit reflected a minute. Could Rose endure the double blow of a separation from her child and from her lover? Yes, he knew her well enough to understand that, although her mother heart and her woman's heart would be torn, she would, after the first sharp pang was over, cheerfully endure any torture in order to contribute to the welfare of the two beings that she loved best on earth. Narcisse would be benefited physically by the separation, Vesper would be benefited mentally. He knew, in addition, that a haunting dread of Charlitte possessed her. Although he was a fickle, unfaithful man, the paternal instinct might some day awake in him, and he would return and demand his child. Agapit would not himself be surprised to see him reappear at any time in Sleeping Water, therefore he said, shortly, "It is a good plan." "We can at least try it," said Vesper. "I will report how it works." "And while he is with you, you will have some instruction in his own religion given him?" said Rose, timidly. "You need not mention that," said Vesper; "it goes without saying." Rose took a crucifix from her breast and handed it to him. "You will give him that from his mother," she said, with trembling lips. Vesper held it in his hand for a minute, then he silently put it in his pocket. There was a long pause, broken at last by Agapit, who said, "Will you get the breakfast, Rose? Mr. Nimmo assured me that he wished to start at once. Is it not so?" "Yes," said Vesper, shortly. Rose got up and went to the pantry. "Will you put the things on this table?" said Vesper. "And will not you and Agapit have breakfast with me?" Rose nodded her head, and, with a breaking heart, she went to and fro, her feet touching the hardwood floor and the rugs as noiselessly as if there had been a death in the house. The two young men sat and stared at the stove or out the windows. Agapit was anathematizing Vesper for returning to settle a matter that could have been arranged by writing, and Vesper was alternately in a dumb fury with Agapit for not leaving him alone with Rose, or in a state of extravagant laudation because he did not do so. What a watch-dog he was,—what a sure guardian to leave over his beautiful sweetheart! Dispirited and without appetite, the three at last assembled around the table. Rose choked over every morsel that she ate, until, unable longer to endure the trial, she left the table, and contented herself with waiting upon them. Vesper was famished, having eaten so little the evening before, yet he turned away from the toast and coffee and chops that Rose set before him. "I will go now; Agapit, come to the gate with me. I want to speak to you." Rose started violently. It seemed to her that her whole agitated, overwrought soul had gone out to her lover in a shriek of despair, yet she had not uttered a sound. Vesper could not endure the agony of her eyes. "Rose," he said, stretching out his hands to her, "will you do as I wish?" "No," said Agapit, stepping between them. "Rose," said Vesper, caressingly, "shall I go to see Charlitte?" "Yes, yes," she moaned, desperately, and sinking to a chair, she dropped her swimming head on the table. "No," said Agapit, again, "you shall not break God's laws. Rose is married to Charlitte." Vesper tried to pass him, to assist Rose, who was half fainting, but Agapit's burly form was immovable, and the furious young American lifted his arm to strike him. "NÂni," said Agapit, tossing his arm in the air, "two blows from no man for me," and he promptly knocked Vesper down. Rose, shocked and terrified, instantly recovered. She ran to her fallen hero, bent over him with fond and distracted words, and when he struggled to his feet, and with a red and furious face would have flown at Agapit, she restrained him, by clinging to his arm. "Dear fools," said Agapit, "I would have saved you this humbling, but you would not listen. It is now time to part. The doctor comes up the road." Vesper made a superhuman effort at self-control, and passed his hand over his eyes, to clear away the mists of passion. Then he looked through the kitchen window. The doctor was indeed driving up to the inn. "Good-by, Rose," he exclaimed, "and do you, Agapit," and he surveyed the Acadien in bitter resentment, "treat Charlitte as you have treated me, if he comes for her." Even in her despair Rose reflected that they were parting in anger. "Vesper, Vesper,—most darling of men," she cried, wildly, detaining him, "shake hands, at least." "I will not," he muttered, then he gently put her from him, and flung himself from the room. "One does not forget those things," said Agapit, gloomily, and he followed her out-of-doors. Vesper, staggering so that he could hardly mount his wheel, was just about to leave the yard. Rose clung to the doorpost, and watched him; then she ran to the gate. Down, down the Bay he went; farther, farther, always from her. First the two shining wheels disappeared, then his straight blue back, then the curly head with the little cap. She had lost him,—perhaps forever; and this time she fainted in earnest, and Agapit carried her to the kitchen, where the English doctor, who had been the one to attend Vesper, stood, with a shrewd and pitying look on his weather-beaten face.
|
