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                         A Sister to Evangeline

                         A Sister to Evangeline

_Being the Story of Yvonne de Lamourie, and how she went into exile with
                      the villagers of Grand Pré_

                                   By
                         Charles G. D. Roberts

  Author of _The Forge in the Forest_, _A History of Canada_, _Earth’s
                  Enigmas_, _New York Nocturnes_, &c.

                       Lamson, Wolffe and Company
                        Boston, New York, London
                              MDCCCXCVIII

                            Copyright, 1898
                     By Lamson, Wolffe and Company

                         _All rights reserved_

                                PRESS OF
                         Rockwell and Churchill
                                 BOSTON

                                  _To_
                               MY MOTHER
                       EMMA WETMORE BLISS ROBERTS

                                Contents

  Chapter                                                           Page

       I. Paul Grande’s Home-coming to Grand Pré                       1

      II. Grûl’s Warning                                              11

     III. Charms and Counter-charms                                   15

      IV. “Habet!”                                                    23

       V. The Black Abbé Defers                                       31

      VI. A New England Englishman                                    36

     VII. Guard!                                                      43

    VIII. The Moon in the Apple-bough                                 50

      IX. In Sleep a King; but Waking, no such Matter                 58

       X. A Grand Pré Morning                                         66

      XI. Father Fafard                                               77

     XII. Le Fûret at the Ferry                                       87

    XIII. Unwilling to be Wise                                        94

     XIV. Love Me, Love My Dog                                       100

      XV. Ashes as it were Bread                                     105

     XVI. The Way of a Maid                                          112

    XVII. Memory is a Child                                          117

   XVIII. For a Little Summer’s Sleep                                125

     XIX. The Borderland of Life                                     135

      XX. But Mad Nor-nor-west                                       142

     XXI. Beauséjour, and After                                      149

    XXII. Grûl’s Case                                                156

   XXIII. At Gaspereau Lower Ford                                    161

    XXIV. “If you love me, leave me”                                 168

     XXV. Over Gaspereau Ridge                                       177

    XXVI. The Chapel Prison                                          182

   XXVII. Dead Days and Withered Dreams                              191

  XXVIII. The Ships of her Exile                                     200

    XXIX. The Hour of her Desolation                                 208

     XXX. A Woman’s Privilege                                        218

    XXXI. Young Will and Old Wisdom                                  229

   XXXII. Aboard the “Good Hope”                                     238

  XXXIII. The Divine Right of Queens                                 246

   XXXIV. The Soul’s Supremer Sense                                  254

    XXXV. The Court in the Cabin                                     260

   XXXVI. Sword and Silk                                             268

  XXXVII. Fire in Ice                                                279

 XXXVIII. Of Long Felicity Brief Word                                285

                         A Sister to Evangeline

                               Chapter I

                 Paul Grande’s Home-coming to Grand Pré

“R_evenant à la Belle Acadie_”—the words sang themselves over and over
in my brain, but I could get no further than that one line, try as I
might. I felt that it was the beginning of a song which, if only I could
imprison it in my rhyme, would stick in the hearts of our men of Acadie,
and live upon their lips, and be sung at every camp and hearth fire, as
“_À la Claire Fontaine_” is sung by the _voyageurs_ of the St. Lawrence.
At last I perceived, however, that the poem was living itself out at
that moment in my heart, and did not then need the half-futile
expression that words at best can give. But I did put it into words at a
later day, when at last I found myself able to set it apart and view it
with clear eyes; and you shall judge, maybe, when I come to put my
verses into print, whether I succeeded in making the words rhyme fairly
and the volatile syllables march at measured pace. The art of verse has
never been much practised among us Acadians, and it is a matter of some
pride to me that I, a busy soldier, now here at Grand Pré and anon at
Mackinaw or Natchez, taking in my hand my life more often than a pen,
should have mastered even the rudiments of an art so lofty and exacting.

So, for awhile, “Home again to Acadie the Fair” was all that I could
say.

It was surely enough. I had come over from Piziquid afoot, by the upper
trail, and now, having crossed the Gaspereau where it narrows just above
tide-water, I had come out upon the spacious brow of the hill that
overlooks Grand Pré village.

Not all my wanderings had shown me another scene so wonderful as that
wide prospect. The vale of the Five Rivers lay spread out before me,
with Grand Pré, the quiet metropolis of the Acadian people, nestling in
her apple-bloom at my feet. There was the one long street, thick-set
with its wide-eaved gables, and there its narrow subsidiary lane
descending from the slopes upon my left. Near the angle rose the spire
of the village church, glittering like gold in the clear flood of the
sunset. And everywhere the dear apple-blossoms. For it was spring in
Acadie when I came home.

Beyond the village and its one black wharf my eyes ranged the green,
wind-ruffled marshes, safe behind the sodded circumvallations of their
dykes. Past the dykes, on either side of “the island’s” wooded rampart,
stretched the glowing miles of the flats; for the tides of Minas were at
ebb. How red in the sunset, molten copper threaded with fire, those
naked reaches gleamed that night! Their color was like a blare of
trumpets challenging the peace of the Five Rivers.

Past the flats, smooth and dazzling to the eye at such a distance, lay
the waters of Minas. Well I knew how their unsleeping eddies boiled and
seethed about the grim base of Blomidon. Such tricks does memory serve
one that even across that wide tranquillity I seemed to hear the
depredating clamour of those tides upon the shingle.

Though it was now two years since I had seen the gables and apple-trees
of Grand Pré, I was in no haste to descend into the village. There came
a sudden sinking at my heart, as my heart inquired, with unseasonable
pertinence, by what right I continued to call Grand Pré “home”? The
thought was new to me; and that I might fairly consider it I seated
myself upon the broad stump of a birch-tree, felled the preceding
winter.

By far the smaller portion of my life had been spent in the Acadian
village—only my early boyhood, before the years of schooling at Quebec;
and afterwards the fleeting sweetness of some too brief visits, that lay
in my memory like pools of enchanted leisure in a desert of emulous
contentions. My father, tenderest and bravest of all men that I have
known, rested in an unmarked grave beside the northern wash of the
Peribonca. My uncle, Jean de Mer, Sieur de Briart, was on the Ohio,
fighting the endless battle of France in the western wildernesses. His
one son, my one cousin, the taciturn but true-hearted Marc, was with his
father, spending himself in the same quarrel. I thought with a longing
tenderness of these two—the father full of high faith in the triumph of
New France, the son fighting obstinately in what he held a lost cause,
caring mainly that his father still had faith in it. I wished mightily
that their brave hands could clasp mine in welcome back to Grand Pré. I
thought of their two fair New England wives, left behind at Quebec to
shame by their gay innocence the corruption of Bigot’s court. Kindred I
had none in Grand Pré, unless one green grave in the churchyard could be
called my kin—the grave wherein my mother’s girlish form and laughing
eyes had been laid to sleep while I was yet a child.

Yes, I had no kinsfolk to greet me back to Grand Pré; no roof of mine
that I should call it home. But friends, loyal friends, would welcome
me, I knew. There was Father Fafard, the firm and gentle old priest, to
whom, of course, I should go just as if I were of his flesh and blood.
Then there were the De Lamouries—

Yes, to be sure, the De Lamouries. And here I took myself by the chin
and laughed. I know that, for all my verses, I am in the main a soldier,
yet I am so far a poet as to suffer myself to befool myself at times,
and get a passing satisfaction out of it. But I always face the fact
before I express it in act. I acknowledged to myself that I had been
thinking of the De Lamouries’ pleasant farmhouse, and of somewhat that
it contained, when I sang “Home again to Acadie the Fair.”

I remembered with a pleasant warmth the tall, bent figure, fierce eyes,
and courtly air of Giles de Lamourie, the broken gentleman, who through
much misfortune and some fault had fallen from a high place at
Versailles and been fain to hide himself on an Acadian farm. I thought
also of Madame, his wife, a wizened little woman with nothing left, said
the villagers, to remind one of the loveliness which had once dazzled
Louis himself. To me she seemed an amazingly interesting woman, whose
former beauty could still be guessed from its ruins.

Both of these good people I remembered with a depth of concern far
beyond the deserts of such casual friendlinesses as they had shown me.
As I looked down toward their spacious apple-orchard, on the furthest
outskirts of the village, it was borne in upon me that they had one
claim to distinction beyond all others.

They had achieved Yvonne.

Many a time had I wondered how my cousin Marc could have had eyes for
his ruddy-haired Puritan lily when there was Yvonne de Lamourie in the
world. On my last two visits to Grand Pré I had seen her; not many
times, indeed, nor much alone; and never word of love had passed between
us. In truth, I had not known that I loved her in those days. I had
taken a wondering delight in her beauty and her wit, but of the pretty
trifles of compliment and the careless gallantries that so often
simulate love I had offered her none at all. This surprised me the more
afterward, as women had ever found me somewhat lavish in such light
coin. I think I was withheld by the great love unrealized in my heart,
which found expression then only in such white reverence as the devotee
proffers to his saint. I think, too, I was restrained by the
consciousness of a certain girl at Trois Pistoles on the St. Lawrence,
who, if I might believe my vanity, loved me, and to whom, if I might
believe my conscience, I had given some sort of claim upon my honor. I
cared naught for the girl. I had never intended anything but a light and
passing affair; but somehow it had not seemed to me light when Yvonne de
Lamourie’s eyes were upon me. A little afterward, revisiting Trois
Pistoles on my way to the western lakes, I had found the maiden married
to a prosperous trader of Quebec. In the leaping joy that seized my
heart at the news I perceived how my fetters had galled; and I knew
then, though at first but dimly, that if anywhere in the world there
awaited me such a love as I had dreamed of sleeping, but ever doubted
waking,—the love that should be not a pastime, but a prayer, not an
episode, but an eternity,—it awaited me in Grand Pré village.

In my heart these two years I had carried two clear visions of my
mistress. Strange to tell, they were not bedimmed by the much handling
which they had endured. They but seemed to grow the brighter and fresher
from being continually pressed to the kisses of my soul.

In one of these I saw her as she stood a certain morning in the orchard,
prying with insistent little finger-tips into the heart of a young
apple-flower, while I watched and said nothing. I know not to this day
whether she were thinking of the apple-flower or wondering at the
dumbness of her cavalier; but she feigned, at least, to concern herself
with only the blossom’s heart. Her wide white lids downcast over her
great eyes, her long lashes almost sweeping the rondure of her cheek,
she looked a Madonna. The broad, low forehead; the finely chiselled
nose, not too small for strength of purpose; the full, firm chin—all
added to this sweet dignity, which was of a kind to compel a lover’s
worship. There was enough breadth to the gracious curve below the ear to
make me feel that this girl would be a strong man’s mate. But the mouth,
a bow of tenderness, with a wilful dimple at either delectable corner
always lurking, spoke her all woman, too laughing and loving to spend
her days in sainthood. Her hair—very thick and of a purply-bronze, near
to black—lay in a careless fulness over her little ears. On her head,
though in all else she affected the dress of the Grand Pré maids, she
wore not the Acadian linen cap, but a fine shawl of black Spanish lace,
which became her mightily. Her bodice was of linen homespun, coarse, but
bleached to a creamy whiteness; and her skirt, of the same simple stuff,
was short after the Acadian fashion, so that I could see her slim
ankles, and feet of that exceeding smallness and daintiness which may
somehow tread right heavily upon a man’s heart.

The other vision cherished in my memory was different from this, and
even more enchanting. It was a vision of one look cast upon me as I left
the door of her father’s house. In the radiance of her great eyes,
turned full upon me, all else became indistinct, her other features
blurred, as it were, with the sudden light of that look, which meant—I
knew not what. Indeed, it was ever difficult to observe minutely the
other beauties of her face as long as the eyes were turned upon one, so
clear an illumination from her spirit shone within their lucid deeps.
Hence it was, I suppose, that few could agree as to the colour of those
eyes—the many calling them black, others declaring with confidence that
they were brown, while some even, who must have angered her, averred
them to be of a very cold dark grey. I, for my part, knew that they were
of a greenish hazel of indescribable depth, with sometimes amber lights
in them, and sometimes purple shadows very mysterious and unfathomable.

As I sat now looking down into the village I wondered if Yvonne would
have a welcome for me. As I remembered, she had ever shown goodwill
toward me, so far as consisted with maidenly reserve. She had seemed
ever ready for tales of my adventure, and even for my verses. As I
thought of it there dawned now upon my heart a glimmering hope that
there had been in that last unforgotten look of hers more warmth of
meaning than maid Yvonne had been willing to confess.

This thought went to my heart and I sprang up in a kind of sudden
intoxication, to go straightway down into the village. As I did so I
caught the flutter of a white frock among the trees of the De Lamourie
orchard. Thereupon my breath came with a quickness that was troublesome,
and to quiet it I paused, looking out across the marshes and the tide
toward Blomidon. Then for the first time I observed a great bank of
cloud that had arisen behind the Cape. It was black and menacing, ragged
and fiery along its advancing crest. Its shadow lay already upon the
marshes and the tide. It crept smoothly upon the village. And at this
moment, from the skirts of a maple grove on the summit of the hill
behind me, came a great and bell-like voice, crying:

“Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the hour of her desolation cometh!”

                               Chapter II

                             Grûl’s Warning

“These ten years,” I exclaimed to myself angrily (for I love not to have
a dream rudely broken), “has Grûl been prophesying woe; and I see not
that aught comes of it save greater strength to his lungs.”

I turned my back upon the valley and watched the singular figure that
drew near. It was a shrewd and mysterious madman whom all Acadie had
known for the past ten years as “Grûl.” Whether that was his real name
or a pseudonym of his own adoption no one knew. Whence he had come no
one knew. Wherefore he stayed in Acadie, and so faithfully prophesied
evil to our fair land, no one knew. The reason of his madness—and the
method which sometimes seemed to lurk beneath it—no one could
confidently guess. At least, such ignorance in regard to this fantastic
fool seemed general throughout the country. But there lay here and there
a suspicion that the Black Abbé, the indomitable La Garne, Bigot’s tool
and the people’s dread, knew more of Grûl’s madness than other folk
might dream. It was whispered that La Garne, who seemingly feared no man
else, feared Grûl. It was certain that whenever any scheme of the Black
Abbé’s came to naught Grûl’s hand would appear somewhere in the wreck of
it.

Now, as he came down from the maple grove, he looked and was dressed
just as I had seen him years before. The vicissitudes of time and of the
weather seemed to have as little effect upon the staring black and
yellow of his woollen cloak as upon his iron frame, his piercing
light-blue eyes, the snowy tangle of his hair and beard. Only his
pointed cap betrayed that its wearer dwelt not altogether beyond the
pale of mutability. Its adornments seemed to recognize the seasons. I
had seen it stuck with cornflowers in the summer, with golden-rod and
asters in the autumn, with feathers and strange wisps of straw in
winter; and now it bore a spray of apple-blossom, with some dandelions,
those northern sun-worshippers, whose closing petals now declared that
even in death they took note of the passing of their lord.

In his hand Grûl carried the same quaint wand of white wood, with its
grotesque carven head dyed scarlet, which had caught my eye with an
uneasy fascination the first time I met its possessor. That little
stick, which Grûl wielded with authority as if it were a sceptre, still
caused me some superstitious qualms. I remembered how at my first sight
of it I had looked to see a living spark leap from that scarlet head.

“It has been a long time coming,” said I, as Grûl paused before me,
searching my face curiously with his gleaming eyes. “And meanwhile I
have come. I think, monsieur, I should esteem a welcome somewhat more
cordial than your words of dolorous omen.”

Whether he were displeased or not at my forwardness in addressing him I
cannot tell. He was without doubt accustomed to choose his own time for
speech. His eyes danced with a shifting, sharp light, and after
thrusting his little wand at me till, in spite of myself, I felt the
easy smile upon my lips grow something mechanical, he said with
withering slowness:

“To the boy and the fool how small a handful of years may seem a
lifetime! You think it is long coming? It is even now come. The shadow
of the smoke of her burning even now lies upon Acadie. The ships of her
exile are near.”

He stopped; and I had no word of mocking wherewith to answer him. Then
his eyes and his voice softened a little, and he continued:

“And _you_ have come back—poor boy, poor fool!—with joy in your heart;
and your joy even now is crumbling to ashes in your mouth.”

He turned away, leaving me still speechless; but in an instant he was
back and his wand thrust at me with a suddenness that made me recoil in
childish apprehension. In a voice indescribably dry and biting he cried
swiftly:

“But look you, boy. Whether she be yours or another’s, there is an evil
hand uplifted against her this night. See you to it!”

“What do you mean?” I cried, my heart sinking with a sudden fear. “Nay,
you _shall_ tell me!” I went on fiercely, making as if to restrain him
by force as he turned away. But he bent upon me one look of such scorn
that I felt at once convicted of folly; and striding off, with something
of a dignity in his carriage which all his grotesquerie of garb could
not conceal, he left me to chew upon his words. As for the warning, that
was surely plain enough. I was to go to Yvonne, and be by her in case of
any need. The business thus laid upon me was altogether to my liking.
But that pitying word—of joy that should turn to ashes in my mouth! It
filled me with black foreboding. As I stepped down briskly toward Grand
Pré my joy was already dead, withered at a madman’s whisper. And that
great-growing cloud from over Blomidon had swallowed up all the village
in a chill shadow.

                              Chapter III

                       Charms and Counter-charms

Never may I forget that walking down from the Gaspereau Ridge to Grand
Pré village. The very air seemed charged with mystery. Every sight and
every sound bore the significance of an omen, to which I lacked
interpreter. The roofs of the village itself, and the marshes, the sea,
and the far-off bulk of Blomidon, appeared like the tissue of a dream,
ready to vanish upon a turn of thought, and leave behind I knew not what
of terrible reality.

I am not by nature superstitious at all beyond the point of convenience.
Such superstitions as please me I have ever been wont to cherish for the
interest to be had out of them. I have often been strengthened in a
doubtful intention by omens that looked my way, and auspicious signs
have many a time cheered me astonishingly when affairs have seemed to be
going ill. But the most menacing of omens have ever had small weight
when opposing themselves to my set purpose. When a superstition is on my
side I show it much civility: when it is against me it seems of small
account.

But that night I was more superstitious than usual. Of the new moon, a
pallid bow just sinking, I caught first sight over my left shoulder, and
I felt vaguely troubled thereat. One crow, croaking from a willow stump
upon my right hand, got up heavily and flew across my path. I misliked
the omen, and felt straightway well assured of some approaching rebuff.
When, a few moments later, _two_ crows upon my left hand flew over to my
right I was not greatly comforted, for they were far ahead and I was
forced to conclude that the felicity which they prophesied was remote.

Thus it came that presently I was in a waking and walking dream, not
knowing well the substance from the shadow. Yet my senses did so
continue to serve me that I went not down into the village, where I knew
I should find many a handclasp, but followed discreetly along the back
of the orchards, that I might reach the De Lamourie place as swiftly as
possible.

By this hour a sweet-smelling mist, such as, I think, falls nowhere else
as it does in the Acadian fields, lay heavy on the grasses. I bethought
me that it was the dew of the new moon, and therefore endowed with many
virtues; and I persuaded myself to believe that my feet, which were by
now well drenched with it, must needs be set upon a fortunate errand.

As I came to this comforting conclusion I reached a little thicket at an
orchard corner, where grew a deep tangle of early flowering herbs.
There, gathering the wet and perfumed blooms, stooped an old woman with
a red shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders. She straightened
herself briskly as I came beside her, and I saw the haggard, high-boned,
hawk-nosed face of old Mother Pêche, whose tales of wizardry I had often
listened to in the years long gone by. She turned upon me her strange
eyes, black points of piercing intelligence encircled by a startling
glitter of wide white, and at once she stretched out to me a crooked
hand of greeting.

“It is good for these old eyes, Master Paul, to see thee back in the
village!” she exclaimed.

Now, any one will tell you that it is not well to be crossed in one’s
path by an old woman, when on an errand of moment. I hurried past,
therefore; and it shames me to say it. But then, remembering that one
had better defy any omen than leave a kindness undone, I stopped, turned
back, and hastily grasped the old dame’s wizened hand, slipping into it
a silver piece as I did so.

It was a broad piece, and full as much as I could wisely spare; but an
old woman or a small boy is ever welcome to share my last penny. Her
strange eyes gleamed for a moment, but as she looked up to bless me her
face changed. After gazing earnestly into my eyes she muttered something
which I could not catch, and to my huge amazement flung the silver
behind her with a violence which left no doubt of her intentions. She
flung it toward a little swampy pool; but as luck would have it the coin
struck a willow sapling by the pool’s edge, bounded back, and fell with
a clink upon a flat stone, where I marked it as it lay whitely
glittering.

I was too amazed to protest for a moment, but the old woman hastened to
appease me.

“There was sorrow on it, dearie,—thy sorrow,” she exclaimed coaxingly;
“and I wouldn’t have it. The devil take all thy bad luck, and Mary give
thee new fortune!”

To me it seemed that throwing away the silver piece was taking
superstition quite too seriously. I laughed and said:

“But, mother, if there be bad luck ahead of me, so much the more do I
want your blessing, and truly I cannot spare you another silver crown.
Faith, this one’s not gone yet, after all!” And picking it up I handed
it back to her. “Let the devil fly away with my ill luck, if he may, but
don’t let him fly away with your little savings,” I added.

The old dame shook her head doubtfully, and then with a sigh of
resignation, as who should say, “The gifts of destiny are not to be
thrust aside,” slipped the silver into some deep-hidden pocket. But her
loving concern for my prosperity was not to be balked. After a little
fumbling she brought out a small pebble, which she gave me with an air
that showed it to be, in her eyes, some very great thing.

I took it with an answering concern, looked at it very closely, and
turned it over in my hand, waiting for some clue to its significance
before I should begin to thank her for the gift, if gift it were. The
stone was assuredly beautiful, about the size of a hazel-nut, and of a
clouded, watery green in color, but the curious quality of it was that
as you held it up a moving loop of light seemed to gather at its heart,
taking somewhat the semblance of a palely luminous eye. My interest
deepened at once, and I bethought me of a stone of rarity and price
which was sometimes to be found under Blomidon. It went by the name of
“Le Veilleur,” or “The Watcher,” among our Acadian peasants; but the
Indians called it “The Eye of Manitou,” and many mystic virtues were
ascribed to it.

“Why, mother,” I said presently, “this is a thing of great price! I
cannot take it. ‘Tis a ‘Watcher,’ is it not?” And I gazed intently into
its elusive loop of light.

“I have another,” she answered eagerly, thrusting her hands under her
red cloak as if to prevent me giving back the stone. “That is for thee,
and thou’lt need it, _chéri_ Master Paul.”

“Well,” said I, staring at the beautiful jewel with a growing affection,
“I will take it with much thanks, mother, but I must pay you what it is
worth; and that I will find out in Quebec, from one who knows the worth
of jewels.”

“Thou shalt _not_ pay me, Master Paul,” said the old dame, with a
distinct note of resentment in her voice. “It is my gift to thee,
because I have loved thee since thou wert a little lad; and because
thou’lt need the stone. Promise me thou’lt wear it always about thee;”
and plucking it from my hand with a swift insinuation of her long
fingers she slipped it into a tiny pouch of dressed deerskin and
proceeded to affix a leathern thong whereby I might, as I inferred, hang
the talisman about my neck.

“While this you wear,” she went on in a low, singing voice, “what most
you fear will never come to pass.”

“But I am not greatly given to fear, mother,” said I, with a little
vainglorious laugh.

“Then thou hast not known love,” she retorted sharply.

At these words the fear of which she had spoken came about me—vague,
formless, terrible, and I trembled.

“Give it to me!” I cried in haste. “Give it to me! I will repay you,
mother, with”—and here I laughed again—“with love, which you say I have
never known.”

“_That_ kind of love, Master Paul, thou hast known since thou wert a
very little lad. Thou’st given it freely, out of a kind heart. But,
dearie, thou hast but played at the great love—or more would’st thou
know of fear.” And the old woman looked at me with shrewd question in
her startling eyes.

But I did know fear—and I knew that I knew love. My face turned
anxiously toward De Lamourie’s, and I grudged every instant of further
delay.

“Good-by, mother, and the saints keep you!” I cried hastily, swinging
off through the wet grass. But the old dame called after me gently:

“Stop a minute, Master Paul. She will be at her supper by now; an’ in a
little she’ll be walking in the garden path.”

I stopped, filled with wonder, and my veins leaping in wild confusion at
the sound of that little word “she.” It was as if the old woman had
shouted “Yvonne” at the top of her voice.

“What is it?” I stammered.

“I want to look at thy hand, dearie,” she said, grasping it and turning
it so as to catch the last of the fading light.

“Your heart’s desire is nigh your death of hope,” said she presently,
speaking like an oracle. Then she dropped my hand with a little dry
chuckle, and turned away to her gathering of herbs as if I were of no
further account.

“What do you mean?” I asked eagerly.

But she would not answer me. I scorned to appear too deeply concerned in
such old woman’s foolery; so I asked no more, but went my way, carrying
the word in my heart with a strange comfort—which, had I but known it,
was right soon to turn into despair.

                               Chapter IV

                                “Habet!”

I came upon the De Lamourie farmhouse by the rear of the orchard; and
down through the low, blossoming arches, now humming with night moths
and honey beetles, I hastened toward the front door. Before I reached it
there arose an angry barking from the yard, and a huge black dog,
objecting to the manner of my approach, came charging upon me with
appearance of malign intent.

I was vexed at the notion of a possible encounter, for I would not use
my sword or my pistols on the guardian of my friend’s domain; yet I had
small desire that the brute should tear my clothes. I cursed my folly in
not carrying a stick wherewith to beat off such commonplace assailants.
But there was nothing for it save indifference, so I paid no attention
to the dog until he was almost upon me. Then I turned my head and said
sharply, “Down, sir, down!”

To all domestic animals the voice of authority is the voice of right. I
had forgotten that for the moment. The dog stopped, and stood growling
doubtfully. He could not muster up resolution to attack one who spoke
with such an assurance of privilege. Yet what could justify my highly
irregular approach? He would await developments. In a casual, friendly
manner, as I walked on, I stretched out the back of my hand to him, as
if to signify that he might lick it if he would; but this he was by no
means ready for, so he kept his distance obstinately.

In another moment there appeared at the head of the path a white, slight
figure, with something black about the head and shoulders. It was
Yvonne, come out to see the cause of the loud disturbance.

“It is I, mademoiselle,” I exclaimed in an eager voice, hastening to
meet her,—“Paul Grande, back from the West.”

A slight gasping cry escaped her, and she paused irresolutely. It was
but for the least part of an instant; yet my memory took note of it
afterward, though it passed me unobserved at the time. Then she came to
meet me with outstretched hands of welcome. Both little hands I crushed
together passionately in my grasp, and would have dropped on my knees to
kiss them but for two hindrances: Firstly, her father appeared at the
moment close behind her—and things which are but natural in privacy are
like to seem theatrical when critically observed. Further, finding
perhaps a too frank eloquence in my demeanour, Yvonne had swiftly but
firmly extricated her hands from their captivity. She had said nothing
but “I am glad to see you again, after so long a time, monsieur;” and
this so quietly that I knew not whether it was indifference spoke, or
emotion.

But the welcome of Giles de Lamourie was right ardent for one of his
courteous reserve. There was an affection in his voice that warmed my
spirit strangely, the more that I had never suspected it; and he kissed
me on both cheeks as if I had been his own son—“as,” said the up-leaping
heart within me, “I do most resolutely set myself to be!”

“And to what good chance do we owe it, Paul, that we see you here at
Grand Pré, at a time when the swords of New France are everywhere busy?”
he asked.

“To a brief season of idleness in two years of ceaseless action,” I
replied, “and to a desire that would not be denied.” I sought furtively
to catch Yvonne’s eyes; but she was picking an apple-flower to pieces.
This little dainty depredation of her fingers pierced me with
remembrance.

“You have earned your idleness, Paul,” said De Lamourie, “if the stories
we hear of your exploits be the half of them true. But we had thought
down here that Quebec”—“or Trois Pistoles,” murmured Yvonne over the
remnants of the apple-flower—“would have offered metal more attractive
for the enrichment of your holiday.”

I flushed hotly. But in the deepening dusk my confusion passed unseen.
What gossip had come this way? What magnifying and distortion of a very
little affair, so soon gone by and so lightly forgotten?

“The swords of New France are just now sheathed for a little,” said I,
with some reserve in my voice. “They are biding the call to new and
hotter work, or I should not be free for even this breathing-spell. As
for Quebec,”—for I would not seem to have heard mademoiselle’s
interruption,—“for years there has been but one place where I desired to
be, and that is here; so I have come, but it is not for long. Great
schemes are afoot.”

“For long or for little, my boy,” said he, dropping his tone of banter,
“your home here must be under our roof.”

Having intended staying, as of old, with Father Fafard, I knew not for a
moment what to say. I would—and yet a voice within said I would not. I
noted that Yvonne spoke no word in support of her father’s invitation.
While I hesitated we had entered the house, and I found myself bending
over the wizened little hand of Madame de Lamourie. My decision was
postponed. Had I guessed how my silence would by and by be
misinterpreted I would assuredly have decided on the spot, whichever
way.

“It is not only for the breath of gayety from Chateau St. Louis which
you bring with you, my dear Paul, that you are welcome,” said Madame,
with that fine air of affectionate coquetry, reminiscent of Versailles,
which so delightfully became her.

I kissed her hand again. We had always been the best of friends.

“But let me present to you,” she went on, “our good friend, who must
also be yours: Mr. George Anderson;” and observing for the first time a
tall, broad-shouldered, ruddy man, who stood a little to one side of the
fireplace, I bowed to him very courteously. Our eyes met. I felt for him
a prompt friendliness, and as if moved by one impulse we clasped hands.

“With all my heart,” said I, being then in cordial mood, and eager to
love one loved of these my friends.

“And mine,” he said, in a quiet, grave voice, “if it please you,
monsieur.”

“Yet,” I laughed, “if you are English, Monsieur Anderson, we must
officially be enemies. I trust our difference may be in all love.”

“Yes,” said Madame, with a dry little biting accent which she much
affected, “yes, indeed, in all love, my dear Paul. Monsieur Anderson
_is_ English—and he is the betrothed husband of our Yvonne,” she added,
watching me keenly.

It seemed to me as if there had been a sudden roaring noise and then
these last dreadful words coming coldly upon a great silence. At that
moment everything stamped itself ineffaceably on my brain. I see myself
grasp the back of a chair, that I may stand with the more irreproachable
steadiness. I see Madame’s curious scrutiny. I see Yvonne’s eyes, which
had swiftly sought my face as the words were spoken, change and warm to
mine for the least fraction of a second. I see all this now, and her
slim form unspeakably graceful against the dark wainscoting of the
chimney side. Then it all seemed to swim, and I knew that it was with
great effort of will I steadied myself; and at last I perceived that
Yvonne was holding both Anderson and her father in rapt attention by a
sort of radiance of light speech and dainty gesture. I dimly came to
understand that Yvonne had seen in my face something which she had not
looked to see there, and, moved to compassion, had come to my aid and
covered up my hurt. In a moment more I was master of myself, but I knew
that Madame’s eyes had never left me. She liked me more than a little;
but a certain mirthful malice, which she had retained from the old gay
days in France, made her cruel whensoever one afforded her the spectacle
of a tragedy.

All this takes long in the telling; but it was perhaps not above a
minute ere I was able to perceive that Mademoiselle’s diversion had been
upon the theme of one’s duty to one’s enemies. What she had said I knew
not, nor know I to this day; but I will wager it was both witty and
wise. I only know that at this point a direct appeal was made to me.

“You, monsieur,” said Anderson, in his measured tones, “will surely
grant that it is always virtuous, and often possible, to love one’s
enemies.”

“But never prudent!” interjected De Lamourie, whose bitter experiences
in Paris colored his conclusions.

“Your testimony, monsieur, as that of one who has sent so many of them
to Paradise, is much to be desired upon this subject,” exclaimed Yvonne,
in a tone of challenge, at the same time flashing over me a look which
worked upon me like a wizard’s spell, making me straightway strong and
ready.

“Well may we love them!” I cried, with an air of sober mockery. “Our
enemies are our opportunities; and without our opportunities, where are
we?”

“All our life is our opportunity, and if we be brave and faithful to
church and king we are made great by it,” exclaimed a harsh, intense
voice behind us.

I noted a look of something like consternation on De Lamourie’s face,
and a mocking defiance in the eyes of Yvonne. We turned about hastily to
greet the new-comer. I knew at once, by hearsay, that dark-robed
figure—the high, narrow, tonsured head—the long nose with its
aggressively bulbous tip—the thin lips with their crafty smile—the
dogged and indomitable jaw. It was La Garne, the Black Abbé, master of
the Micmac tribes, and terror of the English in Acadie. He was a devoted
servant to the flag I served, the lilied banner of France; but I dreaded
and detested him, for I held that he brought dishonour on the French
cause, as well as on his priestly office, by his devious methods, his
treacheries, and his cruelties. War, I cannot but think, becomes a gross
and hideous thing whensoever it is suffered to slip out of the control
of gentlemen, who alone know how to maintain its courtesies.

                               Chapter V

                         The Black Abbé Defers

“You are welcome, father,” began Monsieur de Lamourie, advancing to meet
the visitor, “to my humble”—But the harsh voice cut him short.

“Lie not to me, Giles de Lamourie,” said the grim priest, extending a
long left hand as if in anathema. “Well do I know my face is not welcome
in this house!”

De Lamourie drew himself up haughtily, and Madame interrupted.

“Good father,” said she most sweetly, but with an edge to her voice, “do
you not take something the advantage of your gown? Might I not be so
bold as to entreat a more courteous deliverance of your commands?”

“What have I to do with forms and courtesies, woman?” he answered—and
ignored Yvonne’s laughing acquiescence of “What, indeed, monsieur?” “I
come to admonish you back to your duty; and to warn you, if you heed
not. I learn that you are about to go to Halifax, Giles de Lamourie, and
there forswear France, bowing your neck to the English robber. Is this
true?”

“I am about to swear allegiance to England, Father La Garne,” said De
Lamourie coldly.

The priest’s pale eyes narrowed.

“There is yet time to change your mind,” said he, in a voice grown
suddenly smooth. “Give me your word that you will remain faithful to
France and the bolt which even now hangs over your recreant head shall
never fall!”

I looked about me in deep astonishment. Yvonne’s face was splendid in
its impatient scorn. Madame looked solicitous, but composed. Anderson
smiled coolly. But De Lamourie was hot with indignation.

“It was not to be dictated to by every tonsured meddler that I came to
Acadie,” he cried, rashly laying himself open.

“I have heard as much,” said the priest dryly. “But enough of this
talk,” he went on, his voice again vibrating. “You, George Anderson,
seducer of these people from their king, look to yourself! Your
threshold is red. As for this house”—and he looked around with slow and
solemn menace—“as for this house, it shall not see to-morrow’s sun!”

Hitherto I had been silent, as became a mere new-come guest; but this
was too much for me.

“Ay, but it shall!” said I bluntly, stepping forward.

La Garne looked at me with unaffected surprise and contempt.

“And pray, sir, who may you be to speak so confidently?” he asked.

“I am an officer of the king, Sir Abbé,” I answered, “and a messenger of
the governor of New France, and a man of my word. Your quarrel here I do
not very well understand, but I beg _you_ to understand that this house
is the house of my friends. I know you, Sir Abbé,—I have heard rumour of
your work at Beaubassin, Baie Verte, and Gros Ile. I tell you, I will
not suffer you to lift your hand against this house!”

“Truly, monsieur, you speak large,” sneered the priest. “But you may,
perchance, have authority. I seem to have seen your face before. Your
name?”

“Paul Grande,” said I, bowing.

La Garne’s face changed. He looked at me curiously, and then, with a
sort of bitter tolerance, shrugged his shoulders.

“You have been to Monsieur le Commandant Vergor, at Beauséjour?” he
asked.

I bowed.

“And to Vaurin, at Piziquid?” he went on thoughtfully.

I fancied that a shade of suspicion passed over the faces of my hosts;
and Yvonne’s face paled slightly; but I replied:

“I have just come from Piziquid.”

“Your authority is sufficient, then, monsieur,” said he. “The messenger
of the governor to Vaurin doubtless knows his business, and it is
unnecessary for me to interfere.”

I bowed my thanks, holding courtesy to be in place, since I had gained
my point.

“And I pardon your abruptness, Monsieur Grande,” continued the Black
Abbé. “We are both working for the king. We have no right to quarrel
when we have such great work to do. I am sure I may accept your apology
for your abruptness?” And he looked at me with an air of suggestion.

I was puzzled at his changed demeanour, but I would not show myself at a
loss. Still less would I apologize, or suffer any pretence of
friendliness between himself and me.

“I am sure you may,” said I pleasantly. And I think the reply a prudent
one.

Yvonne smiled—I just caught the smile; but the abbé turned on his heel.

“I withdraw my admonition,” he said to De Lamourie smoothly, “and leave
your case in the hands of this gentleman, your good friend. I wish you a
swift conversion—or a long repentance.” And with a glance at me which I
liked not, but could by no means interpret, he was gone.

The room grew straightway the brighter for his going.

                               Chapter VI

                        A New England Englishman

I have said that the room grew brighter for the going of the Black Abbé.
To me, at least, it seemed so. Yet, after his departure, there fell a
palpable air of constraint. Monsieur de Lamourie regarded me with
something almost like suspicion. Madame eyed me with a curious scrutiny,
tolerant, yet as it were watchful. As for Yvonne, her face was coldly
averted. All this troubled me. Only the New Englander came to my rescue.

With a smile of frank satisfaction he remarked:

“You dealt very effectively and expeditiously with that black-frocked
firebrand, monsieur. You must have great influence at headquarters to be
able to treat La Garne with so little ceremony.”

Now, puzzled though I was, I was marvellously elated by my easy victory
over the notorious Black Abbé. There was doubtless a vainglorious ring
in the would-be modest voice with which I answered.

“Yes,” said I, “I did not expect quite so swift a triumph. I thought I
might even be driven to threats ill fitting the dignity of his office.
But doubtless he saw that I was rather in earnest.”

“He certainly seemed to regard you as one having authority,” said De
Lamourie gravely.

“Or even,” murmured Madame, with that dryness in her voice, “as in some
way his confederate.”

“Or Vaurin’s,” came a cold suggestion from Mademoiselle. Her eyes were
gazing steadily into the fire; but I caught the scornful curl of her
lip.

At this I felt myself flush hotly, I knew not just why. It seemed as if
I lay under some obscure but disgraceful imputation. With sudden warmth
I cried:

“I have no authority, save as an officer of the king, with a clean
record and a sword not unproven. I have no confederate, nor am I like to
be engaged in such work as shall make one needful. And as for this
Vaurin,” I demanded, turning to Yvonne, “who is he? He seems a personage
indeed; yet never had I heard of him till the commandant of Beauséjour
gave me a letter for his hand.”

“I cannot doubt you, monsieur,” interposed Anderson heartily. “This
Vaurin is a very sorry scoundrel, a spy and an assassin, who does the
dirty work of those who employ him. I think it was ill done of Vergor to
give to any gentleman a commission to that foul cur.”

I sprang to my feet and walked thrice up and down the room, while all
sat silent. I think my anger was plain enough to every one, for the old
friendliness—as I afterwards remembered—came back to the faces of
Monsieur and Madame de Lamourie, and Yvonne’s eyes shone upon me for an
instant with a wistfulness which I could not understand. Yet this, as I
said, is but what came back to me afterwards. I felt Yvonne’s eyes but
as in a dream at that moment.

“Vergor shall answer to me,” I cried bitterly. “It is ill work serving
under the public thieves whom the intendant puts in power to-day. One
never knows what baseness may not be demanded of him. Vergor shall clear
himself, or meet me!”

“What hope is there for your cause,” asked Anderson, “when they who
guide New France are so corrupt?”

“They are not all corrupt!” I declared with vehemence. “The governor is
honest. The general is honour itself. But, alas, the most grievous
enemies of New France are those within her gate! Bigot is the prince of
robbers. His hands and those of his gang are at her throat. It is he we
fear, and not you English, brave and innumerable though you are.”

And with this my indignation at Vergor, who, it was plain, had put upon
me an errand unbecoming to a gentleman and an officer of the king,
spread out to include the whole corrupt crew of which the intendant
Bigot was the too efficient captain. Seating myself again by the hearth,
I gave bitter account of the wrong and infamy at Quebec, and showed how,
to the anguish of her faithful sons, New France was being stripped and
laid bare to the enemy. My heart being as dead with my own sudden
sorrow, the story which I told of my country’s plight was steeped in
dark forebodings.

When I had finished, the conversation became general, and I presently
withdrew into my heaviness. I remember that Madame rallied me, at last,
on my silence; but Yvonne came quickly and sweetly to my help, recalling
my long day’s journey and insisting upon my drinking a cup of spiced
brandy—“very sound and good,” she declared, “and but late from
Louisburg, no thanks to King George!”

As I sat sipping of the fragrant brew—though it had been wormwood it had
seemed to me delicate from her hand—I tried to gather together the
shattered fragments of my dream.

There she sat—of all women the one woman, as I had in the long, solitary
night-watches come to know, whom my soul needed and my body needed. My
inmost thought, speaking with itself in nakedest sincerity, declared
that it was she only whom God had made for me—or for whom God had made
me. The whole truth, as I felt it, required both statements to perfect
its expression. There she sat, so near that her voice was making a
wonder of music in my ears, so near that her eyes from time to time
flashed a palpable radiance upon my face; yet further away than when I
lightened with dreams of her the long marches beside the Miami or lay
awake to think of her, in the remote huts of the Natchez. So far away
had a word, a brief word, put her; yet here she sat where I could grasp
her just by stretching out my hand.

As I thought of it her eyes met mine. I swear that I made no motion. My
grasp never relaxed from the arm of the black old chair where it had
fixed itself. Yet the thought must have cried out to her, for a look of
alarm, yet not wholly of denial, flickered for one heart-beat in her
gaze. She rose, with a little aimless movement, looked at me, swayed her
body toward me almost imperceptibly, then sat down again in her old
place with her face averted. At once she began talking with a whimsical
gayety that engrossed all ears and left me again in my gloom.

I scrutinized this man, the New Englander, who sat drinking her with his
eyes. For the joy that was in his face as he watched her I cursed
him—yet ere the curse had gone forth I blessed him bitterly. How could I
curse him when I saw that his soul was on its knees to her, as mine was.
I felt myself moved toward him in a strange affection. Yet—and yet!

He was a tall man, well over six feet in height, of a goodly breadth of
shoulder,—taller than myself by three inches at least, and heavier in
build. He had beauty, too, which I could not boast of; though before
love taught me humility I had been vain enough to deem my face not all
ill-favored. His abundant light hair, slightly waving; his ruddy,
somewhat square face, with its good chin and kind mouth; his frank and
cheerful blue eyes, fearless but not aggressive; his air of directness
and good intention—all compelled my tribute of admiration, and made me
think little of my own sombre and sallow countenance, with its straight
black hair, straight black brows, straight black moustache; its mouth
large and hard set; its eyes wherein mirth and moroseness were at
frequent strife for mastery. Being, as I have reluctantly confessed, a
vain man without good cause for vanity, I knew the face well—and it was
with small satisfaction I remembered it now, while looking upon the
manly fairness of George Anderson.

Yet, such is the inconsistency of men, I was conscious of a faint,
inexplicable pity for him. I felt myself stronger than he, and wiser in
the knowledge of life. But he had the promise of that which to me was
more than life. He had, as I kept telling myself, Yvonne’s love; yet—had
he? So obstinate is hope, I would not yield all credence to this
telling. At least I had one advantage, if no other. I was wiser than he
in this, that I knew my love for Yvonne, and he did not know it. Yet
this was but a poor vantage, and even upon the moment I had resolved to
throw it away. I resolved that he should be as wise as I on this point,
if telling could make him so.

                              Chapter VII

                                 Guard!

I had just arrived at this significant determination when I was roused
from my reverie by Anderson making his farewells. He was holding out his
hand to me.

“Your face is stern, monsieur,” he said. “Were you fighting your old
battles o’er again?”

“No—new ones!” I laughed, springing up and seizing his hand.

“May you win them, as of old!” he exclaimed, with great heartiness.

“You are generous, monsieur,” I said gently, looking him in the eyes.

But this remark he took as quite the ordinary reply, and with a bright
glance for us all he moved toward the door. Yvonne followed him, as it
seemed was expected of her.

“_Must_ you go so early?” she asked, with a kindness in her voice which
pierced me.

“Yes,” he said, looking down at her upturned face. “The tide is just
right now, and this fair wind must not be lost. It will be a fine run
under this moon; and Pierre has the new boat over to-night.”

“It _is_ a good night,” she assented, peering through the open door with
a gesture of gay inquiry; “and how sweet the apple-blossoms smell! Have
you as good air as this, Monsieur Grande, on those western rivers of
yours, or at Trois Pistoles?”

As she did not turn her head or seem to require an answer, I made none.
And, indeed, I was spared the necessity, for Anderson intervened with
matter of his own.

“Come down to the gate with me, won’t you?” I heard him beg in a low
voice.

But for some reason Mademoiselle was not disposed to be kind that night.
She drew back, and looked down pointedly at her dainty embroidered
moccasins.

“Oh,” she cried lightly and aloud, with a tantalizing ring in her voice,
“just think how wet the path is!”

Anderson turned away with a disappointed air, whereupon she reached out
her hand imperiously for him to kiss. Then she waved him a gay _bon
voyage_, and came back into the room with a quick lightness of step
which seemed like laughter in itself. Her eyes were a dancing marvel,
with some strange excitement.

“Monsieur,” she began, coming straight toward me. But I just then awoke
to my purpose.

“A thousand pardons, mademoiselle and madame!” I cried, springing to my
feet and hastening to the door. “I will be back in two moments; but I
have a word for Monsieur Anderson before he goes.”

That I should interrupt her in this way, and rush off when she was about
to speak to me, fetched a sudden little cloud of astonishment over
Yvonne’s face. But I would not be delayed. I made haste down the path
and caught Anderson before he reached the gate. He paused with an air of
genial surprise.

“Your pardon, monsieur,” said I; “but with your permission I will
accompany you a few steps, as I have something to say to you.”

“I am glad to have your company, monsieur,” said he, with a manner that
spoke sincerity.

“Are you?” said I abruptly. “Well, somehow I take your words as
something more than the thin clink of compliment. I like you—I liked you
the moment my eyes fell upon you.”

His face flashed into a rare illumination, and without a word he held
out his hand.

I could not but smile responsively, though I thrust my hand behind my
back and shook my head.

“Wait!” said I. “I want to say to you that—I love—I love Mademoiselle de
Lamourie!”

His face clouded a little, and he withdrew his hand, but not angrily.

“We are very much of one mind in that, I assure you,” he said.

“The very ground she walks upon is sacred to me,” I continued.

He smiled ever so little at the passion of my speech, but answered
thoughtfully:

“It is but natural, I suppose. I do not think we will quarrel upon that
score, monsieur.”

“For two years,” said I, in a low voice, speaking coldly and evenly, “I
have been moved night and day by this love only. It has supported me in
hunger and in weariness; it has led me in the wilderness; it has
strengthened me in the fight; it has been more to me than all ambition.
Even my love of my country has been second to it. I came here to-day for
one reason only. And I find—you!”

“None can know so well as I what you have lost, monsieur,” said he very
gravely, “as none can know so well as I what I have gained.”

His kindness, no less than his confidence, hurt me.

“Are you so sure?” I asked.

“The discussion is unusual, monsieur,” said he, with a sudden
resentment. “I will only remind you that Mademoiselle de Lamourie has
accepted my suit.”

No man’s sternness has ever troubled me, and I smiled slightly in
acknowledgment of his very reasonable remark.

“The situation is unusual, so you must pardon me,” said I, “if I
arrogate to myself a somewhat unusual freedom. I tell you now frankly
that by all open and honorable means I will strive to win the love of
Mademoiselle de Lamourie. I have hope that she has not yet clearly found
the wisdom of her heart. I believe that I, not you, am the man whom she
will love. Laugh at my vanity as much as you will. I am not yet ready to
say my hope is dead, my life turned to nothingness.”

“You are weak,” said he, with some severity, “to hold your life thus, as
it were, in jeopardy of a woman’s whim.”

I could hardly restrain my voice from betraying a certain triumph which
I felt at this sign of imperfection in his love.

“If you hold it a weakness,” said I, “there is a point at last in which
we differ. If it _be_ a weakness, then it is one which, up to two years
ago, I had scarce dared hope to attain. Few, indeed, are the women, and
as few men, strong enough for the full knowledge of love.”

“Yet the greatest love is not the whole of life,” he averred
disputatiously.

“You speak but coldly,” said I, “for the lover of Mademoiselle de
Lamourie.”

He started. I had stung him. “I am of the Society of Friends—a Quaker!”
said he harshly. “I do not fight. I lift not my hand against my
fellow-man. Yet did I believe that you would succeed in winning her
love, I think I would kill you where you stand!”

I liked the sharp lines of his face as he said it, fronting me with eyes
grown suddenly cruel. I felt that he meant it, for the moment at least.

“Say, rather,” said I, smiling, “that you would honestly try your best
to kill me. It would be an interesting experiment. Well, now we
understand each other. _I_ will honestly try my best to do you what will
be, in my eyes, the sorest injury in the world. But I will try by fair
means only, and if I fail I will bear you no grudge. In all else,
however, believe that I do greatly desire your welfare, and will seize
with eagerness any occasion of doing you a service. You are perhaps less
unworthy of Mademoiselle de Lamourie than I am, save that you cannot
love her so well. And _now_,” I added with a smile, “will you take my
hand?”

As I held it out to him he at first drew back and seemed disposed to
repulse me. Then his face cleared.

“You are honest!” he exclaimed, and wrung my hand with great cordiality.
“I rather like you—and I am very sorry for you. I have her promise.”

“Well,” said I, “if also you have her love you are the most fortunate
man on God’s earth!”

“I have it!” said he blithely, and strode off down the path between the
apple-trees, his fine shoulders held squarely, and a confidence in all
his bearing. But a wave of pity for him, and strange tenderness, went
over me in that moment, for in that moment I felt an assurance that I
should win.

It was an assurance doomed to swift ruin. It was an assurance destined
soon to be hidden under such a vast wreckage of my hopes that even
memory marvelled when she dragged it forth to light.

                              Chapter VIII

                      The Moon in the Apple-bough

During all our conversation we had stood in plain view of the windows,
so that our friendly parting must have been visible to all the house. On
my return within doors I found Yvonne walking up and down in a graceful
impatience, her black lace shawl thrown lightly about her head.

“If you want to,” said she, “you may come out on the porch with me for a
little while, monsieur. I want you to talk to me.”

“Yvonne,” exclaimed her mother, in a rebuking voice, “will not this room
do as well?”

“No, indeed, little mamma,” said she wilfully. “_Nothing_ will do as
well as the porch, where the moonlight is, and the smell of the
apple-blossoms. You know, dear, Grand Pré is not Paris!”

“Nor yet is it Quebec,” said I pointedly.

Monsieur de Lamourie smiled. Whatever Yvonne would was in his eyes good.
But her mother yielded only with a little gesture of protest.

“Yvonne is always a law unto herself,” she murmured.

“And to others, I judge,” said I, following the light figure out upon
the porch, and closing the door behind me.

I praised the saints for the freedom of Grand Pré. At Quebec
Mademoiselle would have been the most formal of the formalists, because
in Quebec it was easy to be misjudged.

In the corner of the porch, where a huge apple-bough thrust its blossoms
in beneath the roof, was slung a stout hammock such as sailors use on
shipboard. Mademoiselle de Lamourie had seen these during a voyage down
the Gulf from Quebec, and had so fancied them that her father had been
impelled to have one netted for her by the shad-fishers. It was her
favoured lounging-place, and thither she betook herself now without
apology. In silence I held the tricksy netting for her. In silence I
placed the cushion beneath her head. Then she said:

“You may sit there,” and she pointed, with a little imperious motion, to
a stout bench standing against the wall.

I accepted the seat, but not its location. I brought it and placed it as
close as I dared to the hammock. In doing so I clumsily set the hammock
swinging.

“Please stop it,” said Mademoiselle; and as I seated myself I laid my
hand on the side of the hammock to arrest its motion. My fingers found
themselves in contact with other fingers, very slim and warm and soft.
My breath came in a quick gasp, and I drew away my hand in a strange and
overwhelming perturbation. The hammock was left to stop of itself—and,
indeed, its swinging was but slight. As for me, I was possessed by an
infinite amazement to find myself thus put to confusion by a touch. I
had no word to say, but sat gazing dumbly at the white figure in the
moonlight.

Her face was very pallid in that colorless light, and her eyes greater
and darker than ever, deeps of mystery,—and now, I thought, of grave
mockery as well. She watched me for a little in silence, and then said:

“I let you come out here to talk to me, monsieur!”

I straightened myself upon the bench, and tried my voice. My misgivings
were justified. It trembled, beyond a doubt. The witch had me at a grave
disadvantage. But I spoke on quietly.

“From my two years in the woods of the West, mademoiselle,” said I, “I
brought home to Grand Pré certain wonderful dreams. Of these I find some
more than realized; but one, which gave all meaning to the rest, has
been put to death this night.”

“Even in Grand Pré dreams are no new thing,” she said in haste. “I want
to hear of deeds, of brave and great action. Tell me what you have
done—for I know that will be brave.” And she smiled at me such kind
encouragement that my heart began thumping with vehemence. However, I
made shift to tell her a little of my wanderings—of a bush fight here, a
night march there, of the foiling of a foe, of the timely succour of a
friend—till I saw that I was pleasing her. Her face leaned a little
toward me. Her eyes spoke, dilating and contracting. Her lips were
slightly parted as she listened. And into every adventure, every
situation, every movement, I contrived to weave a suggestion of her
influence, of the thought of her guiding and upholding me. These things,
touched lightly and at once let pass, she did not rebuke. She feigned
not to understand them.

At last I paused and looked at her, waiting for a word of praise or
blame.

“And your poetry, monsieur?” she said gently. “Surely that was not all
the time forgotten. This Acadian land, with its wonder and its beauty,
has found no interpreter but you, and your brave work in the field would
be a misfortune, not a benefit, if it cost us your song.”

“The loss of my verses were no great loss,” said I.

“Indeed, monsieur,” she said earnestly, “I do not think you can be as
modest as you pretend. But I am sincere. Since we have known your song
of them, I think that mamma and I have watched only through your eyes
the great sweep of the Minas tides. And only the other day I heard papa,
who cares for no poetry but his old ‘_Chansons de Gestes_,’ quoting you
to Father Fafard with evident enthusiasm.” She paused—but I said
nothing. I had talked long; and I wished her to continue. What she was
saying, the manner of her saying it, were such as I could long listen
to.

“As for me,” she went on, “I never walk down the orchard in summer time
without saying over to myself your song of the apple-leaves.”

“You do, really, remember my verses?” said I, flushing with surprise and
joy. I was not used to commendation for such things, my verses being
wont to win no more approval than they merited, which I felt to be very
little.

She laughed softly, and began to quote:

                  “O apple leaves, so cool and green
                    Against the summer sky,
                  You stir, although the wind is still
                    And not a bird goes by!
                          You start,
                    And softly move apart
                      In hushed expectancy.
                  Who is the gracious visitor
                      Whose form I cannot see?

                  “O apple leaves, the mystic light
                    All down your dim arcade!
                  Why do your shadows tremble so,
                    Half glad and half afraid?
                          The air
                    Is an unspoken prayer;
                      Your eyes look all one way.
                  Who is the secret visitor
                      Your tremors would betray?”

It was a slight thing, which I had never thought particularly well of;
but on her lips it achieved a music unimagined before.

“Your voice,” said I, “makes it beautiful, as it makes all words
beautiful. Yes, I have written some small bits of verse during my exile,
but they have been different from those of mine which you honour with
your praise. They have had another, a more wonderful, theme—a theme all
too high for them, which nevertheless spurred them to their best. They
have at least one merit—they speak the truth from my heart.” As I spoke
I felt myself leaning forward, though not of set purpose, and my voice
sank almost to a whisper.

“One of them,” I continued, begins in this way:

            “A moonbeam or a breath, above thine eyes I bow,
                  Silent, unseen,
            But not, ah! not unknown”—

“Wait!” she interrupted, in a voice that sounded a little faint. “Wait!
I want to hear them all, monsieur; but not to-night. You shall say them
to me to-morrow. I must not stay to listen to them to-night. I am a
little—cold, I think! Help me out, please!” And she rashly gave me her
hand.

Now, it was my honest intention at that instant to do just her bidding
and no more; but when I touched her fingers reason and judgment flowed
from me. I bowed my head over them to the edge of the hammock, and with
both my hands crushed them to my lips. She sank back upon her cushion,
with a little catching of her breath.

After a few moments I raised my head—but with no speech and with no set
purpose—and looked at her face. It was very grave, and curiously
troubled, but I detected no reproach in the great eyes that met mine. A
fierce impulse seized me to gather her in my arms—but I durst not, and
my eyes dropped as I thought of it. By chance they rested upon her
feet—upon the tiny, quill-worked, beaded white moccasins, demurely
crossed, the one over the other. Her skirt was so closely gathered about
her ankles that just an inch or two of one arched instep was visible
over the edge of the low-cut moccasin. Before I myself could realize
what I was about to do, or half the boldness of the act, in a passion
that was all worship I threw myself down beside her feet and kissed
them.

It was for an instant only that my daring so prevailed. Then she
suddenly slipped away. In a breathless confusion I sprang to my feet,
and found her standing erect at the other side of the hammock. Her eyes
blazed upon me; but one small hand was at her throat, as if she found it
hard to speak.

“How could you dare?” she panted. “What right did I give you? What right
did I ever give you?”

I leaned against the pillar that supported one end of the hammock.

“Forgive me! I could not help it. I have loved you, worshipped you, so
long!” I said in a very low voice.

“How dare you speak so?” she cried. “You forget that”—

“No, I remember!” I interrupted doggedly. “I forget nothing. You do not
love him. You are mine.”

“Oh!” she gasped, lifting both hands sharply to her face and dropping
them at once. “I shall never trust you again.”

And in a moment she had flashed past me, with a sob, and disappeared
into the house.

                               Chapter IX

              In Sleep a King, but Waking, no such Matter

De Lamourie himself showed me to my room, a low chamber under the eaves,
very plainly furnished. In the houses of the few Acadian gentry there
was little of the luxury to be found in the seigneurial mansions of the
St. Lawrence. In the De Lamourie house, for example, there were but two
serving-maids, with one man to work the little farm.

If De Lamourie had noted any excitement on Yvonne’s part, or any
abstraction on mine, he said nothing of it. With simple kindness he set
down the candle on my dressing-table and wished me good sleep. But at
the door he turned.

“Are you well assured that the abbé will not attempt to carry out his
threat?” he asked, with a tinge of anxiety in his voice.

“I am confident of it,” I answered boldly. “That worthy ecclesiastic
will not try issues with me, when I hold the king’s commission.”

Just why I should have been so overweeningly secure is not clear to me
now that I look back upon it. That I should have expected the terrible
La Garne to bow so pliantly to my command appears to me now the most
fatuous of vain follies. In truth I was thinking only of Yvonne. But De
Lamourie seemed to take my assurance as final, and went away in blither
mood.

My room was lighted by a narrow, high-peaked dormer window, through
which I could look out across the moonlit orchards, the level dyke
lands, the wide and winding mouth of the Gaspereau, and the
far-glimmering breast of Minas. Upon these my eyes rested long—but the
eyes of my soul saw quite another loveliness than that of the
moon-flooded landscape. They brooded upon Yvonne’s face—the troubled,
changing, pleading look in her eyes—her sharp and strange emotion at the
last. Over and over it all I went, reliving each moment, each word, each
look, each breath. Then, being deeply wearied by my long day’s tramp,
but with no hint of sleep coming to my eyes, I threw myself down upon
the bed to deliciously think it all over yet again. I had grown sure
that Yvonne loved me. Yet once more, in a still ecstasy of reverence and
love, I fell at her feet and kissed them. Then I thought about the stone
which Mother Pêche had given me, and its mystic virtues, which I would
explain to Yvonne on the morrow in the apple-orchard. Then I found
myself fancying that it was Yvonne who had given me the talisman,
bidding me guard it well if I would ever hope to win her from my English
rival. And then—the sunlight lay in a white streak across my bed-foot,
the morning sky was blue over the dyke lands, and the robins were joyous
in the apple-blooms under my window. What a marvellous air blew in upon
my face, sweet with all freshness and cleanness and wholesome strength!
I sprang up, deriding myself. I had slept all night in my clothes.

At breakfast I found myself in plain favour; I had made good my boast
and shielded the house from the Black Abbé. Yvonne met my eager looks
with a baffling lightness. She was all gay courtesy to me, but there was
that in her face which well dashed my hopes. Some faint encouragement,
indeed, I drew from the thought that her pallor (which became her
wonderfully) seemed to tell the tale of a sleepless night. Had she,
then, lain awake, wearily reproaching herself, while I slept like a
clod? If so, my punishment was not long delayed. Before the breakfast
was over I was in a fever of despairing solicitude. At last I achieved a
moment’s speech with Yvonne while the others were out of earshot.

“This morning,” said I, “in the apple-orchard, by an old tree which I
shall all my life remember, I am to read you those verses, am I not?
That was your decree.”

She faced me with laughter in her eyes, but the eyes dropped in spite of
her, and the colour came a little back to her cheeks.

“I decree otherwise this morning,” she said, in a voice whose lightness
was not perfect. “I am busy to-day, and shall not hear your poems at
all, unless you read them to _us_ this evening.”

“I will read them to you alone,” I muttered, “who alone are the source
of them, or I will burn them at once!”

“Don’t burn them,” she said, flashing one radiant glance at me.

“Then when may I read them to you?” I begged.

“When you are older, and a little wiser, and a great deal better,” she
laughed, turning away with a finality in her air that convinced me my
day was lost.

Putting my bravest face on my defeat, I said to Madame de Lamourie:

“If you will pardon me, Madame, I shall constrain myself and attend to
certain duties in and about Grand Pré to-day. I must see the curé; and I
have a commission to execute for the Sieur de Briart, which will take me
perhaps as far as Pereau. In such case I shall not be back here before
to-morrow noon.”

“If our pleasure concerns you,” said Madame very graciously, “make your
absence as brief as you can.”

“I was born with a nice regard for self,” I replied. “You may be sure I
shall return as quickly as possible.”

“And what if the Black Abbé should come while you are away?” questioned
Yvonne, in mock alarm.

“If that extraordinary priest makes my presence here a long necessity I
shall come to regard him as my best friend,” said I, laughing, as I
bowed myself out to join De Lamourie in a stroll over the farm.

During this walk I learned much of the state of unrest and painful dread
under which Acadie was laboring. De Lamourie told me how the English
governor at Halifax was bringing a mighty pressure to bear upon all the
Acadian householders, urging them to swear allegiance to King George.
This, he said, very many were willing to do, as the English had governed
them with justice and a most patient indulgence. For his own part, while
he regretted to go counter to opinions which I held well-nigh sacred, he
declared that, in his judgment, the cause of France was forever lost in
Acadie, if not in all Canada. He felt it his duty to give in his
allegiance to the English throne, under whose protection he had
prospered these many years. But strong as the English were, he said, the
prospect was not reassuring; for many of those who had taken the oath
had been brought to swift repentance by the Black Abbé’s painted and
yelling pack, the very Christian Micmacs of Shubenacadie; while others
had been pillaged, maltreated, and even in some cases murdered, by the
band of masquerading cut-throats who served the will of the infamous
Vaurin.

At this I grew hot within, realizing as I had not done before the vile
connection into which the Commandant Vergor had cast me. But I said
nothing, being unwilling to interrupt De Lamourie’s impassioned story.
He told of horrid treacheries on the part of the Micmacs, disavowed,
indeed, by La Garne, but unquestionably winked at by him as a means of
keeping the Acadians in hand. He told of whole villages wiped out by the
Black Abbé’s order, the houses burned, the trembling villagers removed
to Ile St. Jean or across the isthmus, that they might be beyond the
reach of English seductions. He told, too, of the hideous massacre at
Dartmouth, the infant English settlement across the harbor from Halifax.
This had come to my ears, but he gave me the reeking particulars.

“And this, too,” I asked in horror, “is it La Garne’s work?”

“He is accused of it by the English,” said he, “but for once he is
accused unjustly, I do believe. It was Vaurin who planned it; Vaurin and
his cut-throats, disguised as Indians and with a few of La Garne’s flock
to help, who carried it out. It was too purposeless for La Garne. He
rules his savages with a rod of iron, and it is said that his
displeasure lay heavy for a time upon the braves who had taken part in
that outrage. They went without pay or booty for many months. But at
length he forgave them—he had work for them to do.”

When the tale was done, and it was a tale that filled me with shame for
my country’s cause, I said:

“It is well my word carried such weight with the good abbé last night.
It is well indeed, and it is wonderful!”

“I cannot even yet quite understand it,” said De Lamourie, “but the
essential part is the highly satisfactory result. I am going to Halifax
next Monday, Paul, with a half score followers who feel as I do; and
though I cannot expect you to sympathize with my course, I dare to hope
you may be able to prolong your visit so as to keep my wife and daughter
under your effective protection.”

I think I must have let the eagerness with which I accepted this trust
betray itself in voice or face, for Monsieur de Lamourie looked at me
curiously. But I really cared little what his suspicions might be. If I
could win Yvonne I thought I might be sure of Yvonne’s father.

Having well admired the orchard, and tried to distinguish the “pippin”
trees from the “belle-fleurs,” the “Jeannetons” from the “Pride of
Normandie;” having praised the rich and even growth of the flax field;
having talked with an excellent assumption of wisdom on the well-bred
and well-fed cattle which were a hobby with this courtier farmer, this
Versailles Acadian, I stepped forth into the main street of Grand Pré
and turned toward the house of Father Fafard. I was curiously troubled
by an uneasiness as to the Black Abbé, and I knew no better antidote to
a bad priest than a good one.

                               Chapter X

                          A Grand Pré Morning

When I stepped off the wide grounds of Monsieur de Lamourie I was at the
extreme eastern end of the village. How little did I dream that this
fairest of Acadian towns was lying even now beneath the shadow of doom!
I am never superstitious in the morning. Little did I dream how near was
the fulfilment of Grûl’s grim prophecy, or how, in that fulfilment,
Grand Pré was presently to fade like an exhalation from the face of this
wide green Acadian land! It pleases me, since no mortal eye shall ever
again see Grand Pré as she was, to find that now I recall with
clear-edged memory the picture which she made that June morning. Not
only do I see her, but I hear her pleasant sounds—the shallow rushing of
the Gaspereau at ebb; the mooing of the cattle on the uplands; the
mellow tangle of small bell-music from the bobolinks a-hover over the
dyke meadows; now and then a neighbour call from roadside to barn or
porch or window; and ever the cheery _cling-clank_, _cling-clank_ from
the forge far up the street. Not only do I hear the pleasant sounds, but
the clean smells of that fragrant country come back continually with
wholesome reminiscence. Oh, how the apple-blossoms breathed their souls
out upon that tender morning air! How the spring wind, soft with a vital
moisture, persuaded forth the obscure essences of grass and sod and
thicket! How good was the salty sea-tang from the uncovered flats, and
the emptied channels, and the still-dripping lines of tide-mark sedge!
There was a faint savour of tar, too, at intervals, evasively pungent;
for some three furlongs distant, at the end of a lane which ran at right
angles to the main street, a little creek fell into the Gaspereau, and
by the wharf at the creek-mouth were fishermen mending their boats for
the shad-fishing.

Oh, that unjustly ignored member, the nose! How subtle and
indestructible are its memories! They know the swiftest way to the
sources of joy and tears. The eye, the ear, the nice nerves of the
finger tip,—these have no such sway over the mysteries of remembrance.
They have never been quite so intimate, for a sweet smell duly
apprehended becomes a part of the very brain and blood. I have a little
cream-yellow kerchief of silk laid away in many folds of scentless
paper. Sometimes I untie it and look at it. How well I remember it as
once it clung about the fair hair of my young mother! I see myself, a
thin, dark, grave-faced little boy, leaning against her knee and looking
up with love into her face. The memory moves me—but as a picture. “Was
it I?” I am able to wonder. “And did I, that dark boy, have a mother
like that?” But when I bury my face in the kerchief, and inhale the
faint savour it still wonderfully holds, I know, I feel it all. Once
more I am in her arms, strained to her breast, my small face pressed
close to her smooth neck where the tiny ripples of silken gold began;
and I smell the delicate, intimate sweetness that seemed to be her very
self; and my eyes run over with hot tears of longing for her kiss. I
have a skirt of hers, too, laid away, and an apron; but these do not so
much move me, for as a child I spoiled them with weeping into them, I
think. The kerchief was not then large enough to attract the childish
vehemence of my sorrow, so it was spared, till by and by I came to know
and guard the priceless talisman of memory which it held.

For some minutes I stood at the street-foot, looking down the river-bank
to the wharf and the boats, steeping my brain in those pleasant smells
of Grand Pré. Then I turned up the street. It was all as I had left it
two years before, save that then the apple-trees were green like the
willows by the marsh edge; while now they were white and pink, a foam of
bee-thronged sweetness surging close about the village roofs. The
cottages on either side the street were low, and dazzling white with
lime-wash from the Piziquid quarries. Their wide-flaring gables were
presented with great regularity to the street. The roofs of the larger
cottages were broken by narrow dormer windows; and all, large and small
alike, were stained to a dark purplish-slate color with a wash which is
made, I understand, by mixing the lime with a quantity of slaked
hard-wood ash. The houses stood each with a little space before it, now
neatly tilled and deeply tufted with young green, but presently to
become a mass of colour when the scarlet lychnis, blue larkspur,
lavender, marigolds, and other summer-blooming plants should break into
flower. Far up the street, at the point where a crossroad led out over
the marshes to the low, dark-wooded ridge of the island, stood the
forge; and as I drew nearer the warm, friendly breath of the fire purred
under the anvil’s clinking. Back of the forge, along the brink of the
open green levels, stood a grove of rounded willow-trees. Further on, a
lane bordered with smaller cabins ran in a careless, winding fashion up
the hillside; and a little way from the corner, dwarfing the roofs,
loftily overpeering the most venerable apple-trees, and wearing a
conscious air of benignant supervision, rose the church of Grand Pré,
somewhat squatly capacious in the body, but with a spire that soared
very graciously. Just beyond, but hidden by the church, I could see in
my mind’s eye the curé’s cottage. My footsteps hastened at the thought
of Father Fafard and his greeting.

The men of the village were at that hour mostly away in the fields; but
there were enough at home about belated barnyard business to halt me
many times with their welcomes before I got to the forge. These
greetings, in the main, had the old-time heartiness, making me feel my
citizenship in Grand Pré. But there was much eager interrogation as to
the cause of my presence, and a something of suspicion, at times, in the
acceptance of my simple answer, which puzzled and vexed me. It was borne
in upon me that I was thought to be commissioned with great matters, and
my frankness but a mask for grave and dubious affairs.

Outside the forge, when at last I came to it, stood waiting two horses,
while another was inside being shod. The acrid smell of the searing iron
upon the hoof awoke in my breast a throng of boyish memories, which,
however, I had not time to note and discriminate between; for the owners
of the two horses hailed and stopped me. They were men of the
out-settlements, whom I knew but well enough to pass the weather with.
Yet I saw it in their eyes that they had heard something of my arrival.
Question hung upon their lips. I gave them no time for it, but with as
little patience as consisted with civility I hastened into the forge and
seized the hand of the smith, my old friend and my true friend, Nicole
Brun.

“Master Paul!” he cried, in a voice which meant a thousand welcomes; and
stood gripping my fingers, and searching me with his eyes, while the
iron in his other hand slowly faded from pink to purple.

“Well,” I laughed presently, “there is one man in Grand Pré, I perceive,
who is merely glad to greet me home, and not too deeply troubled over
the reasons for my coming.”

“Hein! You’ve seen it and heard it already,” said Nicole, releasing my
fingers from his knotty grasp, and throwing back his thick shoulders
with a significant shrug. “Mother Pêche told me last night of your
coming; and last night, too, the Black Abbé passed this way. The town is
all of a buzz with reasons, this way and that. And some there be that
are for you, but more that fear you, Master Paul.”

“Fear me?” I asked, incredulous.

“Along of the Black Abbé and Vaurin!” answered Nicole, as if explaining
everything.

“That Vaurin—curse him!” I exclaimed angrily. “But what say _you_,
Nicole? I give you my word, as I have told every one, I come to Grand
Pré on my own private business, and mix not at all with public matters.”

“So?” said he, lifting his shaggy eyebrows in plain surprise. “But in
any case it had been all the same to me. I’m a quiet man, and bide me
here, taking no part but to forge an honest shoe for the beast of friend
or foe; but I’m _your_ man, Master Paul, through thick and thin, as my
father was your father’s. ‘Tis a hard thing to decide, these days, what
with Halifax and the English governor pulling one way, Quebec and the
Black Abbé pulling the other, and his reverence’s red devils up to Lord
knows what! But I follow you, Master Paul, come what may! I’m ready.”

I laid my hand laughingly on his shoulder, and thanked him.

“I believe you, my friend,” said I. “And there’s no man I trust more.
But I’ve no lead to set you just now. Be true to France, in all
openness, and lend no ear to treachery, is all I say. I am the king’s
man, heart and soul; but the English are a fair foe, and to be fought
with fair weapons, say I, or not at all.”

“Right you are, Master Paul,” grunted Nicole in hearty approval. There
was a triumphant grin on his square and sooty face, which I marked with
a passing wonder.

“And as for this Vaurin,” I continued, “I spit on all such sneaking
fire-in-the-night, throat-slitting, scalp-lifting rabble, who bring a
good cause to bitter shame!”

I spoke with unwonted heat; for I was yet wroth at the commandant for
his misuse of my ignorance, and smarting raw at the notion of being
classed in with Vaurin.

I observed that at my words Nicole’s triumphant grin was shot across
with a sort of apprehension; and at the same moment I observed, too, a
sturdy stranger, apparently the owner of the horse now being shod. He
sat to the right of the forge fire, far back against the wall; but as I
finished he sprang to his feet and came briskly forward.

“Blood of God,” he snarled blasphemously, “but this is carrying the joke
too far! You play your part a trifle too well, young man. Let me counsel
you to keep a respectful tongue in your head when you speak of your
betters.”

“Faith, and I do that!” said I pleasantly, taking note of him with care.
From his speech I read him to be a Gascon of the lower sort; while from
his dress I judged that he played the gentleman adventurer. But I set
him down for a hardy rogue.

“But from whom do I receive in such ill language such excellent good
advice?” I went on.

“One who can enforce it!” he cried roughly, misled by my civil air. “I’m
a friend of Captain Vaurin, whom I have the honour to serve. It seems to
suit some purpose of yours just now to deny it, but you were with him
yesterday, in counsel with him, a messenger from Colonel Vergor to him;
and you came on here at his orders.”

“That is a lie!” said I very gently, smiling upon him. “The other
rascal, Vergor, tricked me with his letter; and he shall pay for it!”

Thus given the lie, but so softly, the fellow uttered a choking gurgle
betwixt astonishment and rage, and I calculated the chance of his
rushing upon me without warning. He was, as I think I said, a very
sturdy figure of a man, though not tall; and he gave sign of courage
enough in his angry little eyes and jutting chin. A side glance at
Nicole showed me that he was pleased with the turn of affairs, and had
small love for the stranger. I caught at the doorway the faces of the
two men from the out-settlements, with eyes and ears all agog.

The stranger gulped down his rage and set himself to ape my coolness.

“Whatever your business with my captain,” said he, “we are here now as
private gentlemen, and you must give me satisfaction. Be good enough to
draw, monsieur.”

Now, I was embarrassed and annoyed by this encounter, for I certainly
could not fight one of Vaurin’s crew, and I was in haste to see Father
Fafard. I cursed my folly in having been led into such an unworthy
altercation. How most quickly should I get out of it?

“I am a captain in the king’s service,” said I abruptly, “and I cannot
cross swords but with a gentleman.”

The fellow spluttered in a fine fury, more or less assumed, I must
believe. His oaths were of a sort which grated me, but having delivered
himself of them he said:

“I too serve the king. And I too, I’d have you know, am a gentleman.
None of your Canadian half-breed seigneurs, but a gentleman of Gascony.
Out with your sword, or I spit you!”

“I’m very sorry,” I answered smoothly, “that I cannot fight with one of
Vaurin’s cut-throats, for I perceive you to be a stout-hearted rascal
who might give me a good bout. But as for the gentleman of Gascony,
faith, my credulity will not stand so great a tax. From your accents,
Monsieur, I could almost name the particular sty by the Bordeaux
waterside which must claim the distinction of your birth.”

As I had calculated, this insult brought it. My prod had struck the raw.
With a choking curse the fellow sprang at me, naked handed, blind in his
bull strength.

I dropped one foot to the rear, met and stopped the rush by planting my
left fist in his face, then gave him my right under his jaw, with the
full thrust of my body, from the foot up. It was a beautiful trick,
learned of an English prisoner at Montreal, who had trained me all one
winter in the fistic art of his countrymen. My impetuous antagonist went
backward over the anvil, and seemed in small haste to pick himself up.
The spectators gaped at the strange tactics; and Nicole, as I bade him
good-by, chuckled:

“There’ll be trouble for this somewhere, Master Paul! Watch out
sharp—and don’t go ‘round o’ nights without taking me along. Le Fûret is
not nicknamed ‘The Ferret’ for nothing!”

“All right, my friend,” said I; “when I want a guard I’ll send for you.”

I went off toward Father Fafard’s, pleased with myself, pleased with the
English captain who had taught me such a useful accomplishment, and
pleased, I confess, with Vaurin’s minion for having afforded me such a
fair chance to display it.

                               Chapter XI

                             Father Fafard

The incident at the forge, as it seemed to me, was one to scatter
effectually any rumours of my connection with Vaurin, and I
congratulated myself most heartily upon it. It could not fail, I
thought, to look well in Yvonne’s eyes. It confirmed me in my resolve to
go to Canard that afternoon, and perhaps to Pereau, getting my uncle’s
business off my hands, and not returning to De Lamourie Place till I
might be sure that the circumstances had been heard and well digested
there. Having this course settled in my mind, I passed the church,
entered the gate between its flowering lilac-bushes, and hastened up the
narrow path to Father Fafard’s door. Ere I could reach it the good
priest stood upon his threshold to greet me, both hands out, his kind
grey eyes half closed by the crowding smiles that creased his round and
ruddy face.

“My boy!” he said. “I have looked for you all the morning. Why didn’t
you come to me last night?”

His voice, big, yet low and soft, had ever quaintly reminded me of a
ripe apple in its mellow firmness.

Both hands in his, I answered, bantering him:

“But, father, the church gave me work to do last night. Could I neglect
that? I had to see that the Reverend Father La Garne did not turn aside
from his sacred ministrations to burn down the houses of my friends.”

The kind face grew grave and stern.

“I know! I know!” he said. “This land of Acadie is in an evil case. But
come, let us eat, and talk afterwards. I have waited for you far past my
hour.”

He turned into his little dining-room, a very plainly furnished closet
off the kitchen.

I was hungry, so for a space there was no talk, while the fried chicken
and barley cakes which the brown old housekeeper set before us made
rapid disappearance. Then came sweet curds with thick cream, and sugar
of the maple grated over them,—a dish of which delectable memories had
clung to me from boyhood. This savory and wholesome meal done, Father
Fafard brought out some dark-red West Indian rum which smelled most
pleasantly. As he poured it for me he tapped the bottle and said:

“This comes to us by way of Boston. These English have an excellent
judgment in liquor, Paul. It is one of our small compensations.”

I laughed, thinking of the scant concern it was to Father Fafard, ever,
for all his fineness of palate, one of the most abstemious of men. As we
sat at ease and sipped the brew he said:

“I hear you faced down the Black Abbé last night, and fairly drove him
off the field.”

“I had that satisfaction,” said I, striving to look modest over it.

“He gave way to you, the Black Abbé himself, who browbeats the
commandant at Beauséjour, and fears no man living,—unless it be that mad
heretic Grûl, perchance! And he yielded to your authority, my boy? How
do you account for the miracle?”

Now it had not hitherto seemed to me so much of a miracle, and I was a
shade nettled that it should seem one to others. I was used to
controlling violent men, and why not meddling priests?

“I suppose he saw I meant it. Perhaps he respected the king’s
commission. I know not,” said I with indifference.

Father Fafard smiled dryly.

“I grant,” said he, “that you are a hard man to cross, Paul, for all
your graciousness. But La Garne would risk that, or anything; and he
cares for the king’s commission only when it suits him to care for it.
Oh, no! If he gave way to you he believed you were doing his work, and
he would not interfere. What _is_ your errand to Acadie, Paul?” he
added, suddenly leaning forward and searching my face.

I felt myself flush with indignation, and half rose from my seat. Then I
remembered that he knew nothing of my reasons for coming, and that his
question was but natural. This cooled me. But I looked him reproachfully
in the eyes.

“Do _you_ think me a conspirator and a companion of cut-throats?” I
asked. “I have no public business to bring me here to Grand Pré, father.
I got short leave from my general, my first in two years, and I have
come to Acadie for my own pleasure and for no reason else. My word!”

He leaned back with an air of relief.

“It is, of course, enough, Paul,” said he heartily. “But in these bad
days one knows not what to expect, nor whence the bolt may fall. There
is distrust on all sides. As for my unhappy people, they are like to be
ground to dust between the upper stone of England and the lower stone of
France.” He sighed heavily, looking out upon his dooryard lilacs as if
he thought to bid them soon farewell. Then the kindly glance came back
into his eyes, and he turned them again upon me.

“But why,” he inquired, “did you go first to Monsieur de Lamourie’s,
instead of coming, as of old, at once to me?”

I hesitated; then decided to speak frankly, so far as might seem
fitting.

“Grûl warned me,” said I, “that Mademoiselle de Lamourie was in danger.
I dared not delay.”

“Why she in especial?” he persisted, gravely teasing, as was his right
and custom. “Were not monsieur and madame in like peril of the good
abbé’s hand?”

“It was her peril that most concerned me,” I said bluntly.

He studied my face, and then, I suppose, read my heart, which I made no
effort to veil. The smile went from his lips.

“I fear you love the girl, Paul,” said he very gently. “I am sorry for
you, more sorry than I can say. But you are too late. Were you told
about the Englishman?”

“I met him,” said I, with a voice less steady than I desired it to be,
for my heart was straightway in insurrection at the topic. “Madame told
me, incidentally. But it is _not_ too late, father! I may call it so
when she is dead, or I.”

“It is your hurt that speaks in haste,” said he rebukingly. “But you
know you are wrong, and such words idle. Indeed, my dear, dear boy, I
would you had her, not he. But her troth is solemnly plighted, and he is
a good man and fair to look at; though I like him not over well. As he
was a Protestant, I long stood out against him; but Giles de Lamourie is
now half English at heart, and Yvonne is wilful. Why were you not here
to help me a half year back, my boy?”

“Ay! why not?” I exclaimed bitterly, gripping my pewter mug till it lost
all semblance of a mug. “And why was I a fool, a blind, blind dolt, when
I _was_ here, two years back? But I am here now. And you shall see I am
not too late!”

“You speak rashly, Paul,” said he, with a trace of sternness. “You may
be sure, however much I love you, I will not help you now in your wicked
purpose. Would you make her false to her word?”

“Her word was false to her heart, that I know,” said I. “Better be false
for a little than for a lifetime, and two lives made as one death for
it.”

The round, kindly face smiled ironically at the passion which had crept
into my voice.

“You speak now as a poet, I think, Paul,” said he. “I suppose I must
allow for some hyperbole and not be too much alarmed at your passion.
Yet I must confess you seem to me too old for this child-talk of life
and death, as if they were both compassed in a woman’s loving or not
loving.”

“I speak with all sobriety, father,” said I, “and I speak of that which
I know. Forgive me if I suggest that you do less.”

The priest’s eyes shaded as with sorrowful remembrance, and he looked
out across the apple-trees as he answered:

“You think I have always been a priest,” said he; “that I have always
dwelt where the passions and pains of earth can touch me only as
reflected from the hearts of others—the hearts into which I look as into
a mirror. How should I understand what I see in such a mirror, if I had
not myself once known these things that make storm in man’s life? I have
loved, Paul.”

“How much?” I asked.

“Enough,” said he, “to lose her for her own good. I was a poor student
with no prospects. She was beautiful and good, and her duty to her
family required that she should marry as they wished. I had no right to
her. I could not have her. For her love I vowed to live single—and I
have come to know that the love of a woman is but one small part of
life.”

“Plainly,” said I, watching him with interest, “there was no resistless
compulsion in that love. But you are right; of most lives love is but an
accident, the plaything of propinquity. It dimly feels its
insignificance in the face of serious affairs, and gives place, as it
should. But there is a love which is different. Few, indeed, are they
who are born to endure the light of its uncovered face; but all have
heard the dim tradition of it. I cannot make you understand it, father,
any more than I could teach a blind man the wonder of that radiating
blue up there. That old half-knowledge of yours has sealed your eyes
more closely than if you had never known at all. I can only tell you
there is a love to which life and death must serve as lackeys.”

As he listened, first astonishment marked his face; for never before had
I spoken to him save as a boy to his trusted master. Then indignation
struggled with solicitude. Then he seemed to remember that I was not a
boy, but a man well hardened in the school of stern experience.
Therefore he seemed to decide that I must be treated with mild banter.
He lay back in his chair, folded his well-kept hands on his ample
stomach, and chuckled indulgently before replying.

“The fever is upon you, Paul,” said he. “Poet and peasant alike must
have it. In this form it is not often more dangerous or more lasting
than measles; but unlike measles, alas, one attack grants no immunity
from another!”

I loved him well, and his jibes stung me not at all. I fell comfortably
into his mood.

“A frontier fighter must be his own physician,” I said lightly. “You
shall see how I will medicine this fever.”

“I will trust Yvonne de Lamourie’s plighted word,” he said gravely,
after a pause of some moments. Then a wave of strong feeling went over
his face, and he broke out with a passion in his voice:

“Paul, do not misjudge me. I love you as my own son, and there is no one
else in the world whom I love as I love Yvonne de Lamourie. Not her own
father can love her as I do, a lonely old man to whom her face is more
than sunshine. Do I not desire with all my heart that you should have
her—you whom I trust, you whom I know to be a true son of the church?
But as I must tell you again, though it grieves me to say it, you have
come too late. The Englishman’s faithful and unselfish devotion has won
her promise. She will keep it, and she will bring him into the church.
Moreover, she owes him more than she can ever repay. Giles de Lamourie
has long been under the suspicion of the English government, who accused
him, unjustly, of having had a hand in the massacre of the New
Englanders here. His estates were on the very verge of confiscation; but
Anderson saved him and made him secure. That there is some dreadful fate
even now hanging over this fair land I feel assured. What it may be I
dare not guess; but in the hour of ruin George Anderson will see that
the house of De Lamourie stands unscathed. For, Paul, I know that Heaven
is with the English in this quarrel. Our iniquity in high places has not
escaped unseen.”

“Grûl’s prophecy touches even you,” I remarked, rising. “But I must go,
father. I have errands across the dyke, for my uncle; and I would be
back for the night, if possible, to ease the fears of Monsieur de
Lamourie. And as for _her_—be assured I will use none but fair means in
the great venture of my life.”

“I am assured of it, Paul,” said he, grasping my outstretched hand with
all affection. “And I am assured, too, that you will utterly and
irremediably fail. Therefore I am the less troubled, my dear boy, though
my heart is sore enough for you.”

“I can but thank God,” I retorted cheerfully, retreating down the path
between the lilacs, “that the offices of priest and prophet do sometimes
exist apart.”

As I looked back at him, before turning down the lane, his kind, round,
ruddy face was puckered solicitously over a problem which grew but the
harder as he pondered it.

                              Chapter XII

                         Le Fûret at the Ferry

From the curé’s I cut across the fields to escape further delay, and so,
avoiding the westerly skirts of the village, came out upon the Canard
trail. I made the utmost haste, for the afternoon was already on the
wane. For some three miles beyond the village the road runs through a
piece of old woods, mostly of beech, birch, and maple, whose young
greenery exhaled a most pleasant smell on the fresh June air. By the
wayside grew the flowers of later spring, purple wake-robins, the pink
and white wild honeysuckle, the solitary painted triangle of the
trillium, and the tender pink bells of the linnæa, revealed by their
perfume. Once I frightened a scurrying covey of young partridges. As for
the squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits, so pert were they in their
fearless curiosity that I was ready to pretend they were the same as
those which of old in my boyish vagabondings I had taught to be unafraid
of my approach. With the one half of my soul I was a boy again,
retraversing these dear familiar woods; the other half of me, meanwhile,
was bowed with a presentiment of disaster. The confidence in the
priest’s tone still thrilled me with fear. But under whatever
alternations of hope and despair, deep down in my heart where the great
resolves take form deliberately my purpose settled into the shape which
does not change. By the time I emerged from the wood I was ready to
laugh at Father Fafard or anyone else who should tell me that success
would not be mine at the last.

“She may not know it yet herself, but she is mine,” I declared to the
open marshes, as I set foot out upon the raised way which led over to
the Habitants Ferry.

The ferry-boat which crosses the deep and turbid tide of the Habitants
is a clumsy scow propelled by a single oar thrust out from the stern.
The river is hardly passable save for an hour on either side of full
flood. The rest of the time it is a shrinking yet ever-turbulent stream
which roars along between precipitous banks of red engulfing slime. When
I reached the shore of this unstable water it lacked but a few minutes
of flood. The scow was just putting off for the opposite shore, with one
passenger. I recognized the ferryman, yellow Ba’tiste Chouan, ever a
friend to me in the dear old days. I shouted for him to wait.

The scow was already some half score feet from land, but Ba’tiste,
seeing the prospect of more silver, stopped and made as if to turn back.
At once, however, his passenger interfered, with vehement gestures, and
eager speech which I could not hear. Eying him closely, I perceived that
it was none other than that ruffian of Vaurin’s whom I had so
incontinently discomfited at the forge. His haste I could now well
understand, and I saw him urging it with such effective silvern argument
that Ba’tiste began to yield.

“Ba’tiste,” I cried sharply, “don’t you know me? Take a good look at me;
my haste is urgent.”

My voice caught him. “_Tiens!_ It’s Master Paul,” he cried, and
straightway thrust back to shore, calmly ignoring threats and bribes
alike.

As I sprang aboard and grasped Ba’tiste’s gaunt claw I expected nothing
less than a second bout with my adversary of the morning. But he, while
I talked with the ferryman of this and that, according to the wont of
old acquaintances long apart, kept a discreet silence at the other end
of the scow, where, as I casually noted, he stood with folded arms
looking out over the water. A scarlet feather stuck foppishly in his
dark cap became him very well; and I could not but account him a proper
figure of a man, though somewhat short.

Presently, at a pause in our talk, he turned and approached us. To my
astonishment he wore a civil smile.

“I was in the wrong this morning, Monsieur Grande,” he said, in a
hearty, frank voice such as I like, though well I know it is no
certificate of an honest heart. “I interfered in a gentleman’s private
business; and though your rebuke was something more sharp than I could
have wished, I deserved it. Allow me to make my apologies.”

Now it is one of my weaknesses that I can scarce resist the devil
himself if he speaks me fair and seeks to make amends.

“Well,” said I reluctantly, “we will forget the incident, monsieur, if
it please you. I cannot but honour a brave man always; and you could not
but speak up for your captain, he not being by to speak for himself. My
opinion of him I will keep behind my teeth out of deference to your
presence.”

“That’s fair, monsieur,” said he, apparently quite content. “And I will
keep my nose out of another gentleman’s business. My way lies to Canard.
May I hope for the honour of your company on the road—since fate,
however rudely, has thrown us together?”

Another weakness of mine is to be uselessly frank—to resent even politic
concealment. Here was one whom I knew for an enemy. I spoke him the
plain truth with a childish carelessness.

“I have affairs both at Canard and at Pereau,” said I. “But I know not
if I shall get so far as the latter to-night.”

“Ah!” said he, “I might have known as much. Father La Garne will lie at
Pereau to-night, and I am to meet Captain Vaurin there.”

I turned upon him fiercely, but his face was so devoid of malice that my
resentment somehow stuck in my throat. Seeing it in my face, however, he
made haste to apologize.

“Pardon me, monsieur, if I imply too much, or again trespass upon your
private matters,” he exclaimed courteously. “But you will surely allow
that, in view of your late visit to Piziquid, my mistake is a not
unnatural one.”

I was forced to acknowledge the justice of this.

“But be pleased to remember that it is none the less a mistake,” said I
with emphasis, “and one that is peculiarly distasteful to me.”

“Assuredly, monsieur,” he assented most civilly. And by this we were at
the landing. As we stepped off I turned for a final word with Ba’tiste;
and he, while giving me account of a new road to the Canard, shorter
than the old trail, managed to convey a whispered warning that my
companion was not to be trusted.

“It is Le Fûret,” he said, as if that explained.

“That’s all right, my friend,” I laughed confidently. “I know all about
that.”

Then I turned up the new road, striding amicably by the side of my late
antagonist, and busily wondering how I was to be rid of him without a
rudeness.

But I might have spared myself this foolish solicitude; for presently,
coming to a little lane which led up to a fair house behind some
willows, he remarked:

“I will call here, monsieur, while you are visiting at Machault’s
yonder; and will join you, if I may, the other side of the pasture.”

With the word he had bowed himself off, leaving me wondering mightily
how he knew I was bound for Simon Machault’s—as in truth I was, on
matters pertaining to my uncle’s rents. I was sure I had made no mention
of Machault, and I was nettled that the fellow should so appear to
divine my affairs. I made up my mind to question him sharply on the
matter when he should rejoin me.

But I was to see no more of him that day. After a pleasant interview
with Machault, whence I departed with my pockets the heavier for some
rentals paid ungrudgingly to the Sieur de Briart, I continued my way
alone, my mind altogether at ease as to the house of De Lamourie, since
I had learned that the Black Abbé and the blacker Vaurin would lie that
night at Pereau. Then suddenly, as I was about to turn into the yard of
another farmhouse, one of those strange things happened which we puzzle
over for a time and afterward set down among the unaccountable. Some
force, within or without, turned me sharp about and faced me back toward
Grand Pré. Before I realized at all what I was up to, I was retracing my
steps toward the ferry. But with an effort I stopped to take counsel
with myself.

                              Chapter XIII

                          Unwilling to be Wise

At first I was for mocking and laughing down so blind a propulsion, but
then the thought that it was in some sort an outward expression of my
great desire for Yvonne compelled me to take it with sobriety. Possibly,
indeed, it meant that she was thinking of me, needing me even, at the
moment; and at this I sprang forward in fierce haste lest I should be
too late for the ferry. I was not going to follow blindly an impulse
which I could not quite comprehend. I would not be a plaything of whims
and vapours. But I would so far yield as to get safely upon the Grand
Pré side of the river, pay a visit or two there which I had intended
deferring to next day, and return to De Lamourie’s about bed-time, too
late to invite another rebuff from Yvonne. This compromise gave me peace
of mind, but did not delay my pace. I was back at the ferry in a few
minutes, in time to see old yellow Ba’tiste fastening up the scow as a
sign that ferrying was over till next tide.

I rushed down to him with a vehemence which left no need of words.
Dashing through the waterside strip of red and glistening mud I sprang
upon the scow, and cried:

“If ever you loved me, Ba’tiste,—if ever you loved my father before
me,—one more trip! I must be in Grand Pré to-night if I have to swim!”

His lean, yellow, weather-tanned face wrinkled shrewdly, and he cast off
again without a moment’s hesitation, saying heartily as he did so:

“If it only depended on what _I_ could do for you, Master Paul, your
will and your way would right soon meet.”

“I always knew I could count on you, Ba’tiste,” said I warmly, watching
with satisfaction the tawny breadth of water widen out between the shore
and the rear of the scow, as the ferryman strained rhythmically upon the
great oar. I sniffed deep breaths of the cool, contenting air which blew
with a salty bitterness from the uncovering flats; and I dimly imagined
then what now I know, that when the breath of the tide flats has got
into one’s veins at birth he must make frequent return to them in
after-life, or his strength will languish.

“So you got wind, Master Paul, of Le Fûret’s return, and thought well to
keep on his track, eh?” panted Ba’tiste.

“What do you mean?” I asked, awakened from my reverie.

“Didn’t you know he came right back, as soon as he give you the slip?”
asked Ba’tiste. “I ferried him over again not an hour gone.”

“Why,” I cried in surprise, “I thought he was on his way to the Black
Abbé!”

Ba’tiste smiled wisely.

“He lied!” said he. “You don’t know that lot yet, Master Paul. I saw you
listened careless-like, but I thought you knew that was all lies about
the Black Abbé and Vaurin being at Pereau. If they’d been at Pereau ‘The
Ferret’ would ha’ said they were at Piziquid.”

“I’m an ass!” I exclaimed bitterly.

Ba’tiste laughed.

“That’s not the name you get hereabouts, Master Paul. But I reckon
you’ve been used to dealing with honest men.”

“I believe I do trust too easily, my friend,” said I. “But one thing I
know, and that is this: I will make never a mistake in trusting you, and
some other faithful friends whom I might name.”

This seemed to Ba’tiste too obvious to need reply, so he merely wished
me good fortune as I sprang ashore and made haste up the trail.

I made haste—but alas, not back toward Grand Pré! In the bitter
after-days I had leisure to curse the obstinate folly which led me to
carry out my plan of delay instead of hurrying straight to Yvonne’s
side. But I had made up my mind that the best time to return to De
Lamourie’s was about the end of evening—and my dull wits failed to see
in Le Fûret’s action any sufficient cause to change my plans. It never
occurred to me, conceited fool that I was, that the causes which had
swayed the Black Abbé to my will the night before might in the meantime
have ceased to work. Even had this idea succeeded in penetrating my
thick apprehension, I suppose it would have made no difference. I should
have felt sure that the abbé’s scoundrel crew would choose none but the
dim hours after midnight for anything their malice might intend. The
fact is, I had been yielding to inauthoritative impulses and vague
premonitions till the reaction had set in, determining me to be at all
costs coolly reasonable. Now Fortune with her fine irony loves to
emphasize the fact that the slave of reason often proves the most
pitiable of fools. Such was I when I turned to my right from the ferry,
and strode through the scented, leafy dusk to the open flax-fields of
the Le Marchand settlement, though the disregarded monitor within me was
urging that I should turn to the left, through the old beech woods, to
Grand Pré—and Yvonne.

The Le Marchand settlement in those days consisted of six little farms,
each with its strip of upland flax-field and apple-orchard, and a bit of
rich, secluded dyke held in common. All the Le Marchands—father and five
sons—still owned their hereditary allegiance to the Sieur de Briart, and
paid him their little rents as occasion offered. My welcome was not such
as is commonly accorded to the tax-gatherer. These retainers of my
uncle’s made me feel that I was myself their seigneur; and their rents,
paid voluntarily and upon their own reckonings, were in effect a
love-gift. I supped—chiefly upon buckwheat cakes—at the cottage of Le
Marchand _père_, and then, dark having fallen softly upon the quiet
fields, I set out at a gentle pace for Grand Pré village.

Soon after I got into the still dark of the woods the moon rose clear of
the Gaspereau hills, and thrust long white fingers toward me through the
leafage. The silence and the pale, elusive lights presently got a grip
upon my mood, and my anxieties doubled, and trebled, and crowded upon
each other, till I found myself walking at a breathless pace, just the
hither side of a run. I stopped short, with a laugh of vexation, and
forced myself to go moderately.

I was perhaps half way to Grand Pré, and in the deepest gloom of the
woods,—a little dip where scarce a moonbeam came,—when, with a
suddenness that gave even my seasoned nerves a start, a tall figure
stood noiselessly before me.

I clapped my hand upon my sword and asked angrily:

“Who are you?”

But even as I spoke I knew the apparition for Grûl. I laughed, and
exclaimed:

“Pardon me, Mysterious One. And pray tell me why you are come, for I am
in some haste!”

“Haste?” he reëchoed, with biting scorn. “Where was your haste two hours
ago? Fool, poor fool, staying to fill your belly and wag your chin with
the clod-hoppers! You are even now too late.”

“Too late for what?” I asked blankly, shaken with a nameless fear.

“Come and see!” was the curt answer; and he led the way forward to a
little knoll, whence, the trees having fallen apart, could be had a view
of Grand Pré.

There was a red light wavering at the back of the village, and against
it the gables stood out blackly.

“I think you promised to guard that house!” said Grûl.

But I had no answer. With a cry of rage and horror I was away, running
at the top of my speed. The Abbé’s stroke had fallen; and I—with a
sickness that clutched my heart—saw that my absence might well be set
down to treachery.

                              Chapter XIV

                          Love Me, Love my Dog

As I emerged from the woods I noted that the glare was greater than
before. But before I reached the outskirts of the village it had begun
to die down. My wild running up the main street attracted no
attention—every one able to be about was at the fire.

I have no doubt that I was not long in covering those two miles from the
western end of the village to the De Lamourie farm—but to me they seemed
leagues of torment. At last I reached the gate, and dashed panting up
the lane.

I saw that the house was already in ruins, though still burning with a
fierce glow. I saw also, and wondered at it, that there had been no
attempt made to quench the flames. There were no water buckets in view;
there was no confusion of household goods as when willing hands throng
to help; and the outbuildings, which might easily have been saved, were
only now getting fairly into blaze. Across my confusion and pain there
flashed a sense of the Black Abbé’s power. This fire was his doing—and
none dared interfere to mitigate the stroke lest the like should fall
upon them also. My eyes searched the mass of staring, redly lit faces,
expecting to find some one of the De Lamourie household; but in vain.
Presently I noticed that every one made way for me with an alacrity too
prompt for mere respect; and I grew dully conscious that I was an object
of shrinking aversion to my old fellow-villagers. My rage at the villain
priest began to turn upon these misjudging fools. But I knew not what to
say; I knew not what to do. I pushed roughly hither and thither,
demanding information, but getting only vague and muttered replies.

“Where are they?” I asked again and again, and broke out cursing
furiously; but every one I spoke to evaded a direct answer.

“Have that arch fiend and his red devils carried them off?” I asked at
last; and to this I got hushed, astonished, terrified replies of—

“No, monsieur!” and, “No indeed, monsieur! They have escaped!” and, “Oh,
but no, monsieur!”

Flinging myself fiercely away from the crowd, I rushed to look into a
detached two-story outbuilding which had but now got fairly burning. I
wondered if there were no stuff in it which I might rescue. The smoke
and flame were pouring so hotly from the door that I could not see what
was inside. But as I peered in, my face shaded with my hand from the
scorching glare, I heard a faint, pitiful mewing just above me, and
looked up.

There, on the sill of a window of the second story, a window from which
came volumes of smoke, but of flame only a slender, darting tongue,
crouched a white kitten. With a curious gripping at my heart I
recognized it as one which I had seen playing at Yvonne’s feet the
evening before. I remembered how it was forever pouncing with wild glee
upon the tip of her little slipper, forever being gently rolled over and
tickled into fresh ecstasies. The scene cut itself upon my brain as I
ran for a yet undamaged ladder, which I noticed leaning against a shed
near by.

The action doubtless filled the crowd with amazement, but no one raised
a hand to help me. The ladder was long and very awkward to manage, but
in little more than the time it takes to tell of it I got it up beside
the window and sprang to the rescue. By this time, however, the flames
were spouting forth. The moment I came within reach of it the little
animal leapt upon me and clung with frantic claws. A vivid sheet of
flame burst out in my very face, hurling me from the ladder; yet I
succeeded in alighting on my feet, jarred, but whole. There was a smell
of burnt hair in my nostrils, and I saw that the kitten’s coat, no
longer white, was finely crisped. But what I smelt was not all kitten’s
hair. Lifting my hand to my bitterly smarting face, I found my own
locks, over my forehead, seriously diminished, while my once fairly
abundant eyebrows and eyelashes were clean gone. My moustache, however,
had escaped—and even at that moment, when my mind was surely well
occupied with matters of importance, I could feel a thrill of
satisfaction. A man’s vanity is liable to assert itself at almost any
crisis; and it did not occur to me that a man lacking eyebrows and
eyelashes could not hope to be redeemed from the ridiculous by the most
luxuriant moustache that ever grew.

Half dazed, I stared about me, wondering what was next to be done.
Suddenly I thought—“Why, of course; they have gone to Father Fafard’s!”

The kitten clung to me, mewing piteously, and I was embarrassed by it.
First I dropped it into a large currant bush, where, as I thought, it
would not be trodden upon. Then, remembering that it was Yvonne’s, I
snatched it up, and with a grim laugh at the folly of my solicitude over
so small a matter strode off with it toward the parsonage. I passed in
front of the swaying crowd; and some one, out of sight, tittered. I had
begun to forget the fool rabble of villagers,—to regard them as a
painted mob in a picture, or as wooden puppets,—but their reality was
borne back upon me at that giggle. I walked on, scowling upon the faces
which shrank into gravity under my eye, till at last I noticed a
kind-looking girl. Into her arms, without ceremony, I thrust the little
animal; and as she took it I said:

“It belongs to Mademoiselle de Lamourie. Take care of it for her.”

Not waiting to hear her answer, I was off across the fields for the
parsonage.

                               Chapter XV

                         Ashes as it were Bread

All this had come and gone as it were in a dream, and it seemed to me
that I yet panted from my long race. I had seen nothing, meanwhile, of
the Black Abbé or of his painted pack. Spies, however, he had doubtless
in plenty among those gaping onlookers; and his devilish work yet
lighted me effectually on my way across the wet fields. The glow was
like great patches of blood upon the apple-trees, where the masses of
bloom fairly fronted the light. The hedgerow thickets took on a ruddy
bronze, a sparkle here and there as a wet leaf set the unwonted rays
rebounding. The shadows were sharply black, and strangely misleading
when they found themselves at odds with those cast by the moon. The
scene, as I hastened over the quiet back lots, was like the unreal
phantasmagoria of a dream. I found myself playing with the idea that it
all _was_ a dream, from my meeting with old Mother Pêche here—yes, in
this very field—the night before to the present breathless haste and
wild surmising. Then the whole bitter reality seemed to topple over, and
fall upon me and crush me down. Not only was Yvonne pledged to another,
but through grossest over-confidence I had failed her in her need, and
worst of all, the thought that made my heart beat shakingly, she
believed me a traitor. It forced a groan to my lips, but I ran on, and
presently emerged upon the lane a few paces from Father Fafard’s gate.

As I turned in the good priest came and stood in the doorway, peering
down the lane with anxious eyes. Seeing me, he sprang forward and began
to speak, but I interrupted him, crying:

“Are they here? I must see them.”

“They will not see you, Paul. They would curse you and shut their ears.
They believe _you_ did it.”

“But you, father, _you_,” I pleaded, “can undeceive them. Come with me.”
And I grasped him vehemently by the arm.

But he shook me off, with a sort of anxious impatience.

“Of course, Paul, I _know_ you did not do it. I _know_ you, as _she_
would, too, if she loved you,” he cried, in a voice made high and thin
by excitement. “I will tell them you are true. But—where is Yvonne?” And
he pushed past me to the gate, where he paused irresolutely.

“Don’t tell me she is not with you!” I cried.

“She ran out a minute ago, not telling us what she was going to do,” he
answered.

“But what for? What made her? She must have had some reason! What was
it?” I demanded, becoming cold and stern as I noted how his nerves were
shaken.

He collected himself with a visible effort, and then looked at me with a
kind of slow pity.