A lady looks through a door at a couple“THE ‘LADYE OF HIGH DEGREE’ . . . SAW THEM STANDING ALSO.”
“THE ‘LADYE OF HIGH DEGREE’ . . . SAW THEM STANDING ALSO.”
Turning she saw the bride standing by her side. She scarcely knew how to answer, and before she could do so she noticed that another had entered the room, and she knew instinctively that Mr. Stanley had come.
“That is one of my treasures. Are you admiring it?” he said in the strong voice that seemed so unlike his old one, and the guest murmured something about the picture, and looking about uneasily excused herself and slipped away.
They stood a moment before the picture together, the husband and wife. They were tired with the evening’s talk, and a sight of this refreshed them both and gave the promise of future joy.
The “ladye of high degree,” passing through that hall, having purposely come by another route from the cloak room rather than through the study, saw them standing also, and understood—that she did not understand, and went out into the night with a lonely longing for something, she knew not what.
As the two stood together the husband said: “Do you know, dear, that picture has made the turning point in my life. Ever since it came in here I have felt that his presence was with me wherever I went. And I have you to thank for it all. And through it I have gained you, this richest, sweetest blessing of my life. Do you know, I found a verse in my Bible to-day that it seems to me fits me and that picture. It is this: ‘The angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them.’ ”
GABRIEL THE ACADIANBYEDITH M. NICHOLL BOWYER
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
BY
EDITH M. NICHOLL BOWYER
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
A man in religious garb scolding a man“ ‘It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre.”
“ ‘It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre.”
There is a history in all men’s lives,Figuring the nature of the times deceased;The which observed, a man may prophesy,With a near aim, of the main chance of thingsAs yet not come to life; which in their seedsAnd weak beginnings lie intreasured.—Shakespeare, Henry IV.
There is a history in all men’s lives,Figuring the nature of the times deceased;The which observed, a man may prophesy,With a near aim, of the main chance of thingsAs yet not come to life; which in their seedsAnd weak beginnings lie intreasured.—Shakespeare, Henry IV.
There is a history in all men’s lives,Figuring the nature of the times deceased;The which observed, a man may prophesy,With a near aim, of the main chance of thingsAs yet not come to life; which in their seedsAnd weak beginnings lie intreasured.—Shakespeare, Henry IV.
There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life; which in their seeds
And weak beginnings lie intreasured.
—Shakespeare, Henry IV.
GABRIEL THE ACADIAN
“It is the name my mother called me by,” quoth Gabriel sturdily.
For a moment there was silence, save for a murmur of horror that ran through the assembled Acadians at the daring of a boy who thus defied the fierce priest; yet his bearing was perfectly respectful.
“It is a heretic name!” exclaimed Le Loutre.
“Pardon,M. l’Abbé, but it is said not. My father also bare it, and his father before him. Never willingly will I be called by any other. Did not my mother swear on the crucifix to my dying sire that his child should bear his name? And to break a holy vow—is not that of all things the most sinful, Omon père?”
“Thy father died unshriven.”
“My father was of the Protestant faith,” rejoined the boy quickly. “He died faithful to his own, though far from the land of his birth. He would have carried my mother to join the colonists in Virginia, where abide many of his kindred, but the prospect of leaving our Acadian land did not please her, and he loved her more than kin or country. My father was a good soldier and brave, monsieur; he was but true to the flag he served, and to which all we of Acadia have sworn allegiance, and daily break our vows!”
He raised his eyes of English blue, and looked straight into those of the Abbé Le Loutre, black and angry as a thundercloud.
A fine figure of a seventeen-year-old lad he was. At his age many an Acadian youth was beginning to dream of wife and home all his own. Tall and strongly built, his light curls tossed back from a brow whose tell-tale fairness showed through the ruddy bronze left by the suns and storms of Acadia.
This time the exclamations of horror rose louder than before, and above them was heard the piteous remonstrance of the villagecuré, “Ah,mon fils, submit thyself to the goodabbé.”
Gabriel’s fearless glance swept the rows of dull Acadian faces. It seemed to him as if in actual bodily fear the villagers crouched before the enraged priest, who drove, rather than led, his timid, ignorant flock, and the gentlecuré, his subordinate. And the whip with which he goaded them was none other than the ferocious band of Micmac Indians, to whom he had been sent by the French government, nominally as missionary, but in reality that he might keep the Acadians, by fair means or foul, in a continual state of rebellion to their easy-going English rulers.
The murmurs died away into awed silence. Then, with a scornful lift of the hand, Le Loutre turned from the boy and faced the trembling villagers. His address at first was in the usual strain, only, if possible, more intolerant and fanatic than at his last visit, and Gabriel soon pushed impatiently out of the crowd, and flung himself down upon the river’s bank. Presently, however, he found himself listening intently. Here were threats more terrible, even, than of old. Gabriel was brave; his father’s blood did not run in his veins for naught; but for once he wondered not that his countrymen cowered beneath the lash of that fierce tongue.
“The people of Acadia are the people of my mother,” he often said, “and I love them. But they are cowards.”
And when he looked forth from the harbor mouth of Chebucto and swept with his eyes the wide Atlantic, there burned in his young bosom a fire that would have amazed his placid kinsmen had they known of it, content, as they were, with the daily round of humble submission to the priests, petty legal quarrels or equally petty gossip with the neighbors, and daily tilling of the soil—a fire that was kindled a hundred years before in one who sailed the seas with Raleigh, and which burned anew in this young scion of an ancient race.
“I want to go, to see, to do!” he would cry, flinging wide his arms.
But now, as he gave unwilling ear to Le Loutre, his boyish heart sank. Could theabbéin truth fulfill these threats of driving the people to French soil, whether they would or no? Could he force them, in the name of God and the king, to forsake their pleasant homes in which the English, whatever might be their crimes against the French, at least allowed the Acadians to live in peace, unpunished too during all these years for their want of loyalty to sworn allegiance? Gabriel’s eyes traveled beyond that dominant figure, and dwelt upon the savage band of “converts” gathered behind the priest. Yes, he could, and would!
Wrapt in his own thoughts, Gabriel noticed neither the dispersion of the people nor the ominous fact that his grandfather, Pierre Grétin, was accompanied on his homeward way by Le Loutre himself. His eyes were upon the flowing river, and the light step of his Cousin Margot failed to arouse him. Her sweet face was close to his, and her small hand on his shoulder ere he stirred.
“Gabriel, I have somewhat to say to thee.”
“What is it,ma mie?”
“Wilt thou not depart to-night to thy friends whom thou dost sometimes visit without the walls of the new Halifax, by the harbor called of us Chebucto? There lives that English priest who taught thee discontent with our blessed religion and with our belovedcuré.”
“Not with ourcuré, Margot. He is good; he makes all religion beautiful and true. But wouldst thou blame me because my heart turns to the faith of my father? That in which my mother might have found courage to rear me had she lived?”
“No,mon cousin, no, not blame. But grievous danger threatens all who defy theabbé, and thee more than others, because of thy hated English blood. But listen, Gabriel; dost thou indeed love Margot as though she were thine own sister?”
The boy was silent a moment, then he answered simply:
“That I cannot tell thee, Margot, seeing that I never had a sister. But I love thee as I love none other besides.”
“That is well,” she said with equal simplicity, “because to save thy life for my sake thou must act contrary to thy nature.”
He sprang to his feet, his blue eyes flashing so that for a moment Margot quailed before him.
“You would not have me play the coward and liar?” he cried. “That I cannot do, even for thee. I am an Acadian—yes. Yet neither of these things will I be!”
“I too am an Acadian,” replied the young girl with quiet dignity, “yet am I not false. Timid I may be, for such is the wont of my sex.”
“Pardon,ma cousine, pardon,” exclaimed Gabriel remorsefully. “Thou knowest how it is with me; my heart beats, and the words rush, and it is all over.”
“Wilt thou never learn prudence?” she retorted, smiling. “We Acadians have learned it in nigh forty years of lying helpless like a lamb betwixt two snapping wolves.”
“Prudence, dost thou call it, Margot? My father called it by a harsher name; and even my mother said that was a poor thing we did, to live, a free people, under one flag; untaxed, ministered to by our own priests, the very necessaries of life supplied to us, and yet intriguing, forever intriguing, with those of the other flag.”
“The flag under which we live is an alien flag,” said gentle Margot.
“That may be; but have we ever been called upon to fight for it? And now that we are summoned to swear the full oath of allegiance, we have richly deserved this mild rebuke. The French are cruel; we go with them only through fear of the Indians.”
“Thegran’-père, he goes with none,” interposed the girl with a flash of spirit. “He tills the soil in peace, meddling not with French or English.”
“Ah, but even he will have to choose ere many days are past; theabbédoes not bring here his flock for naught. And,” cried the lad, clenching his fists, “who would be a neutral? Not I!” Then more quietly: “Hast thou not heard them tell, Margot, how when France yielded Acadia to England we were free, all of us, to move within the year to French soil if we would? But we would neither go nor remain and take the oath of fealty; nevertheless we were permitted to stay unsworn for seventeen years, intriguing then even as we do now. At last the oath was won from us, and more than twenty years since then have come and gone, and once again, because of our untruth and the cruelties practised upon English settlers, the word has gone forth that we must swear anew. What kind of a people, then are we, Margot, to be thus double-faced? Thirteen thousand souls, and withal afraid of priests and Indians! Not daring, not one of us, to play the man and come out boldly for the one flag or the other. Oh, we are cowards—cowards all!”
He flung himself upon the ground and covered his face with his hands.
To simple, yet wise little Margot these bursts of passion on the part of her cousin were almost incomprehensible. Her nature was a still, clear pool, whilst his was as the young torrent leaping down the rocks, unconscious of its own power, but eager to join the strong and swelling stream beneath, upon whose bosom the great ships float down to the deep sea. But although she did not understand, love gave her sympathy. She kneeled beside him, and once more laid her hand upon his shoulder; but the words she would have uttered died in her throat, and instead she exclaimed in accents of terror:
“O Gabriel, Gabriel, arise. It is thegran’-pèrewho calls, and with him is still theabbé.”
In an instant the lad was on his feet.
“Gabriel,mon fils!”
The thin, cracked voice floated across the meadows from the door of the small hut, which was considered by even prosperous Acadians like Grétin all-sufficient for the family needs. Without a moment’s hesitation Gabriel took his cousin’s hand, and led her, half crying now, toward their home, where the tall form of the priest was plainly visible, towering over that of the grandfather.
These were stirring times for Acadie. Lord Cornwallis was governor of the province—the Cornwallis described by Walpole as “a brave, sensible young man, of great temper and good nature.” He needed to be all this and more, for the Acadians were a difficult people to deal with. Vacillating, ignorant, and priest-ridden, it was the easiest thing in the world for the French to hold them in actual fact, while by treaty ceding them to England, an alien power and race. Fear, however, played a large part in French influence; and this was invariably the case throughout the long dissensions betwixt France and England. Indian savagery was winked at, even encouraged, by French authorities in their dealings both with English and Acadians; and the fair escutcheon of France was defaced by many a stain of blood cruelly, wantonly, treacherously shed. That the Acadians should be in sympathy with France rather than with England was natural; their wrong-doing consisted not in that, but in their readiness to accept English protection while plotting steadily with the French against the flag to which they had sworn fealty rather than move to French soil. They were now in a somewhat sorry plight.
The long-patient English government, through Cornwallis, was requiring of them a fresh oath, and better faith in keeping it, if they continued to reside in the province, whilst the governor of those French possessions, now called Cape Breton and Prince Edward’s Island, was using every means in his power, hideous threats included, to induce them to come definitely under the French flag. What those means might eventually be even such young creatures as Margot and Gabriel knew only too well.
The cousins found their grandfather looking troubled and distressed, and the priest still wearing the menacing air which had all that day awed his village audience.
“It is full time you of Port Royal bethought you of your duty to your religion and your king instead of forever quarreling among yourselves, and enriching pettifogging men of law. But for thee, Grétin, though special indulgence has ever been shown thee, it will be well that thou shouldst take thought for thy family before it is too late. Thou knowest my flock of old,” alluding to his savage converts, “and the kind of lambs they are. Homes await the loyal subjects of God and the king on the Isle of St. Jean and Isle Royale, and if they see not what is best for their own souls’ good I have the means to make them see it!”
Grétin was both morally and intellectually the superior of those among whom he lived, and he was also braver than his neighbors, but of what avail is superiority when a man stands alone? It was for this reason, combined with the habit of subjection to priestly authority, that he replied hastily:
“Yes,M. l’Abbé, it is even as you say.
“This boy must be disciplined,” continued the priest sternly.
“Yes,M. l’Abbé, so it must be.”
It was at this moment that “the boy” presented himself, his head erect, his face pale, and holding the hand of his cousin.
“Drop the maiden’s hand and follow me!” was theabbé’sharsh salutation. “I have that to say which is not for feminine ears.”
Gabriel obeyed, but there was something in his air which, though promising submission, meant submission within definite limits.
Le Loutre entered the hut and closed the door on the peaceful, pastoral scene without, lit up by the rays of the declining sun. Then seating himself on a bench, rude and plain as were the furnishings of all the homes of the frugal and industrious Acadians, however rich in land and stock, he addressed Gabriel standing respectfully before him.
“What is thine age?”
“I shall be eighteen at the Christmastide.”
“Humph! a well-grown youth! Dost thou call thyself boy or man?”
An irrepressible smile curled Gabriel’s fresh lips, but he answered demurely:
“Neither,mon père.”
“Dare not to trifle with me, son of a heretic!” broke out the priest, his imperious temper rising. Accustomed to see all men cringe before him, this lad’s fearless demeanor was particularly galling to Le Loutre. He controlled himself again, however, and proceeded with that persuasiveness of which when it suited him he was master:
“It is as man, not boy, I call upon thee this day to serve God and the king, and to prove thyself worthy of the confidence I would repose in thee. I give thee thy just due, thou hast a good courage, and it is men of such mettle that Louis requires,men, hearest thou?”
Gabriel’s frank, yet searching, gaze was riveted on the priest’s face; and so keen were those blue eyes that Le Loutre shifted his, momentarily disconcerted. For perhaps the first time in his remarkable career he was conscious of difficulty in explaining the righteousness, according to his creed, of “doing evil that good may come.” Not that he himself doubted; he was too honest a zealot for that; but in this case explanation was somehow not easy.
“Thou knowest,” he said at length, “of this new oath that the heretics would extort from God’s people. To keep them in the fold and preserve their souls alive at any cost is my priestly duty; but in order to accomplish this I must have loyal aid. My Micmacs waver, they have even made a treaty with the English. This cannot be permitted to endure. It is therefore the king’s wish that they be secretly encouraged to break it, and to this end loyal Acadians in disguise must accompany them when they go to Halifax. Later these same faithful subjects will continue their work for the holy cause in the old way.”
Le Loutre paused and regarded Gabriel fixedly. The boy’s face was alight with sudden comprehension. It was not the priest’s custom to speak openly of his plans, but he was fully aware that he was now dealing with no ordinary dull-witted Acadian peasant. What an invaluable ally this half-heretic lad would be could he only mold him to his will.
Gabriel had not lived his brief span of life in Port Royal for nothing. He already knew that Le Loutre was quite capable of using force to drive the Acadians from their thriving farms to make new homes for themselves on French soil, rather than that they should pledge their word to the English again, even though that pledge might be broken as before. And there was evidently some scheme more serious in process of hatching than the well-worn one of painting and disguising Acadians and sending them out with the Micmacs to plunder and slay English settlers. The ancient farce of “Indian warfare” was to wear a new face. The existence of peace between the two countries had never been any hindrance to French scheming. Gabriel had only too vivid recollections of the fate of certain Acadians, who had been cajoled or frightened into joining those Indian war-parties, and who, when taken prisoner by the English, had been disowned by the French and declared to have “acted of their own accord.”
The lad’s heart was heavy within him. If he defied the priest and refused to stoop to that which in his eyes was baseness and treachery, his life would be made a torment, nay, perhaps forfeited, none could foretell where Le Loutre would stop. And worse, far worse than this, thegran’-père, hitherto well regarded by the bigoted priest and granted many indulgences, would be ruthlessly hunted from the dear home to the bleak, uncleared shores of Isle Royale, or, as the English named it, Cape Breton. Thegran’-père—he was old—he would certainly die without the strong grandson to help him. And Margot? Ah, it was too bitter! In spite of himself Gabriel covered his eyes with his hand as if to shut out the frightful vision.
The face of Le Loutre glowed with triumph. He had not expected so easy a victory. To his present scheme this youth, with his knowledge of the English tongue and the customs of the fort, was well-nigh indispensable; moreover, his intelligence and his sense of honor were alike keen, and once pledged to him, the priest knew that he would never turn traitor. Under pretense of trading in furs a French vessel had brought to Acadie guns and ammunition enough to arm both Acadians and Indians, and the latter were already being secretly bribed by the Intendant at Louisburg through Le Loutre; for a signal act of treachery was now required of them.
But the priest had triumphed too soon. When at length Gabriel raised his head, though his young face looked almost ghostly in the dying light, his eyes were shining with high resolve. Not that the path of duty was as yet perfectly clear before him, or that he knew whither it might lead, but he was resolute to take no other. Nevertheless he understood that mere defiance would not help either himself or those far dearer than self. Therefore he controlled himself and said quietly:
“M. l’Abbéhas without doubt heard of thatprêtrefrom the New England who instructs a flock outside the walls of Halifax?”
Le Loutre scowled darkly.
“Art thou a heretic already? I feared as much.”
“No,M. l’Abbé,” replied the boy in the same restrained tones; “yet I confess that the faith of my fathers holds much of interest for me. And he is good,monsieur, oh, good! like our own belovedcuré.”
Here he hesitated; then took courage, and went on rapidly:
“He bade me always to remember, even if I should not in the end turn to my father’s faith, that one of its noblest commands is: Never do evil that good may come. Also that my father obeyed that command. Omon père, choose some one else for thy purpose; one who is not divided in heart as I, but who hates the English as my blood will not let me do, and to whom the Holy Catholic Church is the only church!”
For a moment it seemed as though the priest would strike the pleading face upturned to his, so fierce a flame of wrath swept over him, but instead he said with a sneer:
“And thou wouldst thrust the words of a heretic down the throat of a priest of God and the king? There is but one explanation, boy, thou art a coward!”
The hot blood surged into Gabriel’s cheeks. All his prudence was tossed aside beneath the lash of that tongue. Flinging back his head he confronted Le Loutre with an air which compelled, as it never had failed to do, the reluctant admiration of the man to whom courage seemed the best of God’s gifts to mortals.
“M. l’Abbé,” said the boy, in the low tones of an unbending resolve, “I am no coward; but I should be both coward and liar were I to do your bidding.”
For a breathing space the two pairs of eyes held one another like wrestlers. Then:
“As thou wilt,” rejoined the priest coldly. “But forget not that no traitors to God and the king can dwell at ease in Acadie. Mine are no empty threats.”
He flung wide the door and called to the waiting Micmacs. As they stepped out of the surrounding gloom, the pine torches carried by them illuminated their ferocious countenances. Margot sprang forward and cast herself upon her knees before the priest.
“Omon père, mon père, do with me what you will, inflict on me any penance that seems unto you good; but spare, oh, spare my cousin, if only for the sake of thegran’-père!”
The girl’s agonized pleading rang out into the night. Then, in a voice rendered tremulous by years and infirmity, but still not devoid of dignity, Grétin himself spoke.
“M. l’Abbé,” he said, “the boy is of heretic blood—yes. But also is he of my blood—mine, who am a faithful servant of the true church. If he has been led astray, I myself will see to it that he returns to the fold. For he is a good lad, and the prop and staff of my old age.”
Le Loutre turned on thegran’-pèrehis piercing eyes.
“Thou hast reason, Grétin. Thou hast indeed been a faithful servant of the church, but art thou that now? Do not thy religion and thy king demand of thee that thou shouldst leave, with all that is thine, the air breathed by pestilential heretics, and dost thou not still linger, battening in their green pastures, yea, feeding from their hand? Art thou, therefore, fit to be the guide of erring youth? It may be too, that thou wilt have to suffer for his sin if he repent not.”
The old man bowed his head, and a low moan escaped him.
“Hurt not the lad,” he murmured. “He is as the very apple of my eye.”
“My Micmacs will look to his repentance,” retorted the priest grimly. “In the saving of the soul the body may have to endure somewhat, but holy church is merciful to the penitent.”
As he spoke Gabriel sprang from the detaining hands, of the Indians, and kneeling at the feet of the old man, lifted the shriveled fingers and laid them upon his own fair head.
“Bless me, even me, Omon père,” he cried.
But thegran’-pèrefell upon his neck and wept.
“Oh, Gabriel, my son, my son!”
Before he could so much as speak to Margot, the Indians, at a sign from Le Loutre, relentless always in the performance of what he believed to be his duty and now enraged by defeat, seized the youth and disappeared with him into the forest. Lingering only to make the sign of the cross over the helpless and bereaved pair, Le Loutre himself followed.
Gabriel, hurried along through “brake, bush, and brier,” each arm grasped by a brawny Micmac, had no time for thought. A grown man of settled convictions might have found his situation a very labyrinth of difficulty. How much more, then, a growing lad, unavoidably halting betwixt two nationalities and two forms of religion?
After what seemed endless hours, but which in reality was but a short time, the party arrived at the settlement of wigwams on the bank of the Shubenacadie. The priest was no longer to be seen. “Am I then to be left to the mercy of these savages?” thought Gabriel. Yet close on the heels of the thought flashed the consciousness that the Indians’ violence had considerably slackened since the disappearance of Le Loutre. The bonds with which they had tied their prisoner were so loose that he easily slipped out of them, and approaching the squaws who were gathering wood for the fires, he addressed them in their own language and proceeded to help them. The braves merely turned their heads and glanced at him indifferently. “Not enough gold!” he heard one mutter to another. He had already heard that the Micmacs had grown shrewd enough to put their own price on the harassing of recalcitrant or timid Acadians, and the taking of English scalps; and like all ignorant or savage races had quickly learned to overestimate their services and become insatiate in their demands. Gabriel’s chances, therefore, depended to some extent on the condition of the priest’s treasury; also on the fact that he was personally acquainted with certain members of the band, to whom by reason of his skill in woodcraft and familiarity with the habits of the forest game he had not only occasionally been of service, but whose respect he had won.
“This is the white boy who knows even as does the red man the lair of the wild deer and where in the noonday heat they turn their steps to drink,” observed one to the other, as Gabriel, restraining every symptom of fear, quietly joined the group around the now blazing fire and helped himself out of the common pot.
“Yes,” he put in coolly, “and I can tell you more than that if you will.”
There are natures, those of women as well as of men, whose vitality quickens in the face of actual danger. They may be even cowardly in the mere anticipation, but the trumpet-call of duty, honor, or sacrifice, or the less high-sounding clarion of self-preservation, sets them on their feet, face forward to the coming foe. In Gabriel all these forces were at work, though Margot’s sweet, pale face and thegran’-père’sbowed gray head, were the strongest influences. And behind all these was that irrepressible spirit of adventure, never wholly absent from the normally healthy young mind.
Drawing on his store of woodland stories, and occasionally pausing to give ear to those furnished by the now interested Micmacs, an hour passed in total oblivion by the captors of the commands laid on them concerning their prisoner; and when at last a tall dark form suddenly appeared within the circle of light, and a well-known terrible voice broke forth in objurgation; it was plain that the owner of both was scarcely more welcome to his “lambs” than to the prisoner.
“What is that I behold?” exclaimed Le Loutre. “Where is your Christian service, vowed to God and the king? Instead, I find feasting and foolish gabbling, with a traitorous captive in the midst!”
The faces of the Indians clouded in sullen silence. The lash of the priest’s tongue went unsparingly on. At length the leader growled out, “The pale faces from over the sea bring no more gifts. The red men grow weary of taking the scalps of friendly white men who are at war with your people but who do the Indian no wrong. They at the new fort have treated us well. And as for this boy, you give us not enough to take the scalp of so mighty a hunter and true a tracker.”
Le Loutre’s face paled with baffled rage. True it was that owing to some at present unexplained delay the customary large remittances from France for the bribing of Indians who were friendly to the English were not forthcoming, and with a heart-leap of joy Gabriel saw the truth written in his eyes.
“Fools! Did I bid you take his scalp? Did I not bid you rather to chasten him for his faithlessness and force him back to his duty? This you know well enough how to do without my guiding presence. Yet I come to find——”
With a gesture of unutterable scorn he waved his black-robed arm.
But his personal influence was on the wane, and he knew it. It was money, gifts, that were needed, and for these he must wait. Yet were there still a few whose greed was of the kind that will take anything rather than nothing, and on these he depended, and not in vain.
Stealthily, like dark spirits, two or three Indians glided from behind their companions, and took up their station beside the priest. Strengthened by these mute allies he once more faced the group at the fire, and proceeded to pour forth in fervid eloquence alternate persuasion, threat, and glowing promise of future reward. Gabriel soon discovered that he was not the central figure in this tirade—that larger projects than the fate of one boy were being held before the now attentive Indians, who uttered guttural notes of assent or dissent.
“A hundredlivresfor each scalp—a hundredlivres, mark you! This boy knows, as you cannot do, the plan of the fort at Halifax, and the number of its defenders. If he be so mighty a tracker, let him track these English dogs to their lair and fire them out of it, or in it, it matters not which, so that to God and the king are restored what is rightly theirs. But remember, a hundredlivresis yours for every English scalp! My people may not do this thing, for they have signed a peace with their enemies, but for your people it is otherwise.”
“Have we too, not set our totems to a solemn treaty?” growled one dissenting voice.
Once more from the priest that gesture of contempt.
“And what is that for such as you?” he said. “What is a broken treaty to the Indian?”
Gabriel, unable longer to contain himself, sprang to his feet.
“Mon père!” he cried, his heart in a flame, a blaze of sudden illumination in his soul. “Nay, never moremon père! M. l’Abbé, is this, then, the Christianity, the fealty to God and the king, to which you would have me faithful? Then, God willing, faithless will I be.”
For a long minute there was dead silence, broken only by the quick breathing of the excited boy. The Indians, though not fully understanding the words, realized their daring, and gazed upon him with all the admiration of which their anger was capable.
“Do your work,” said Le Loutre at last coldly, signing to the Micmacs at his side.
In a moment Gabriel was thrown to the ground, his arms bound to his side, his feet tied. A hole was dug in the ground, a post placed in it, and around the post fresh logs were heaped.
Such scenes, alas! were not uncommon under the despotic rule of Abbé Le Loutre, and though no instance is recorded of actual sacrifice of life, owing perhaps almost as much to Acadian timidity as to priestly forbearance, much terror and temporary suffering were caused by his blind fanaticism. But in this boy of mixed race there was stouter stuff to deal with, and his English blood was to the priest as a thing accursed.
Days passed, and Pierre Grétin and his granddaughter could obtain no news of Gabriel. Tossed and torn by conflicting emotions, communal as well as personal, the old man’s strength seemed to be ebbing from him. Yet never did he need it more. The village of Port Royal (now Annapolis), nay, all Acadie, was in the confusion of helpless distress. What should they do, these poor ignorant habitans? To whom should they listen? In their hearts they knew that every word of Cornwallis’ proclamation was true, that under English rule they had enjoyed freedom, both secular and religious. On the other hand, Le Loutre swept down upon them continually with the firebrand of his eloquence. “Come to French soil,” he cried, “seek new homes under the old flag! For three yearsle bon roiwill support you. You are French at heart—what have you to do with these English? Refuse, and the consolations of religion will be denied you and your property shall be given over to the savages.”
True, they were French at heart, the most of them, but not all; and their tranquil, sluggish lives had drifted so peacefully on the broad river of the English governor’s indulgence. It was almost worth while to renew the oath of allegiance to these foreigners and sleep quietly once more under their own rooftrees. But would they sleep quietly? Ah, there was the rub! Le Loutre had ever been a man of his word.
Therefore it came to pass that French ships passing to Isle St. Jean, now called Prince Edward Island, and Isle Royale, now Cape Breton, had for two years many hundred Acadians for passengers, some willing, more reluctant, destined to semi-starvation and unutterable misery in the new and desolate country in which their small stock of courage was to be so grievously tried, and in which few of them plucked up spirit sufficient to clear new land for their subsistence, but existed, or ceased to exist, on such meagre supplies as the French government furnished them.
“Gran’-père,” said Margot one evening, as bereft of most of their near neighbors they clung almost alone to their humble home, “mon gran’-père, what think you, has become of our Gabriel?” Her eyes were heavy with weeping, her round cheeks pale.
Grétin, in yet worse case, had scarce strength to take his turn with her behind their yoke of oxen at the plow. He sat on a bench at the door of the hut, both hands leaning heavily on his staff. For a while he answered nothing, but his sunken gaze wandered along the banks of the river, from one desolated home to another. In scarcely more than two or three still burned the sweet fires of home, and those that were forsaken had been plundered by the Indians, fresh traces of whose presence were daily visible. The good villagecuré, beloved of all, and the influence of whose noble life and teachings represented all that was best in the Catholic church, was gone too. Torn by contending duties he had decided that the forlorn exiles needed his ministrations more than those still remaining in their homes, and had followed them to French soil.
“Le bon Dieuknows, my child!” Grétin answered at last, in the dull tones of hopeless old age.
“SurelyM. l’Abbéwould not permit that—that——” her voice broke.
“That his fair young life should be destroyed by those savages? No, my child, no—that can I not believe. Moreover, Jean Jacques, Paul Pierre—they were his friends among the Micmacs. AndM. l’Abbé—no, he would bend but not break the boy.”
There was a long silence. The evening dews, tears of the soil for the banishment of her children, sparkled on the wide meadows beneath the now rising moon.
“Margot, we can no longer resist the priest’s will,” he said again, “and alone we are not able to till the land, so that it may bring forth crops for our sustenance.”
But a burst of tears from the girl interrupted him. Flinging herself at his feet, she threw her arms around him and hid her face in his breast.
“Gran’-père, mon gran’-père!” she cried, “I will work! I can plow—I can dig! I am young it is true, and small, but we women of Acadie are strong. You shall care for the house—it is I who will till the land. Let us not leave Acadie. Gabriel may return—sick, wounded, who knows? and we gone, the house desolate! IfM. l’Abbésets his Micmacs on us to drive us forth, I will plead with them. They have hearkened to me before now, they will again. If not, then we must go forth indeed, but not yet, not yet!”