CHAPTER XVI

EVANGELINE'S COUNTRY

"I will admit that what he is saying is perfectly true."

"And absolutely necessary, Martine, to our understanding properly this land of Evangeline."

"But he needn't talk so conceitedly, as if he were the only one in the world who knows that there was no real Basil, nor Gabriel, and that Evangeline herself was somebody else. Why, even in Chicago, where we are farther away from Acadia than you are in Massachusetts, we know that. But just listen,"--and as Martine and Amy stood there in silence a few feet from the willows, they heard Mr. Knight's rather shrill voice saying:

"I am aware that you Americans have mapped out almost every inch of Grand Pre, and that you can point out the site of Basil's smithy, and Gabriel's house, and the old church, although as a matter of fact only the last is at all certain. It is quite natural that you should accept your Longfellow as real history, but--"

Here Martine could restrain herself no longer. Stepping forward she faced Mr. Knight, who stopped talking in his surprise at her sudden appearance from the background; and in a clear voice she began to recite:

"'with a summons sonorous Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat. Thronged erelong was the church with men. Without, in the churchyard, Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest. Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement.'

Isn't that history," she asked gravely, "as well as Longfellow?"

"Why, yes, in a general way," responded Mr. Knight, with an amused smile. "As to details, why, I am not quite so sure, though I can assure you I have no intention of questioning Mr. Longfellow's accuracy. Far from it. His picture of the deportation is wonderfully complete."

"Yet you were criticising him."

"Oh, no, only the tendency of some tourists to connect everything in the neighborhood of Grand Pre with something mentioned by Longfellow."

"But if it makes the place more interesting," began Martine.

"Oh, certainly, that is one of the uses of poetry, and really, Miss Stratford, I intended no criticism of 'Evangeline,' only--" and again that smile of amusement--"you will pardon me when I say that these are not Evangeline's willows, as some call them, except in the poetic sense."

"They are very picturesque," said Amy, in an effort to turn the conversation. "Until I came to Nova Scotia I had never thought of willows as so strong and sturdy. In fact, I had in mind only the weeping variety."

The line of willows, a dozen or so beside the rail fence, with two or three cows grazing in their shade, formed a picture so tempting that Priscilla turned her camera upon it, and with a wave of her hand pointed to something beyond. In a minute or two Mrs. Redmond and Amy were beside her, with Mr. Knight and Martine but a step behind.

"Shall you object if we call this Evangeline's well?" asked Martine, with a touch of scorn in her voice.

"Ah, call it what you please, Miss Stratford. It is certainly an old French well. Evangeline may have drunk from it."

"Is it quite safe to drink from an old well?"

"Oh, mamma, you are not usually so anxious."

"I can assure you, Mrs. Redmond, that this is pure water. The wall was built a few years ago, and you will find the water deliciously cold. This well, by the way, is probably near the site of the priest's house;" and involuntarily he glanced toward Martine.

"Oh," she rejoined, as if in answer to his glance, "I thought that there was no priest--except in the poem."

"Ah, surely there had been a priest, though not Father Felician; and indeed at the time of the deportation the priest was away from Grand Pre, a prisoner at Halifax, and so he could not exhort the people. But these are mere matters of detail. Undoubtedly we are now standing very near the site of the church."

"I wonder if the bells are hidden in the earth like those we heard of at Annapolis," and Amy turned to Martine with a smile, hoping to divert her from quizzing Mr. Knight.

"Ah, the bells!" exclaimed the offending young man. "There is a story--if you should care for it."

"By all means," replied Mrs. Redmond; and under the embarrassing gaze of four pairs of eyes Mr. Knight told his tale.

"It isn't a remarkable story in any way, only they say that when the Acadians saw that they were prisoners, some of them managed to take down the bell and wall it up in one of the vaults under the church, while the church treasure was put in the other. Years afterwards, in the days of the English settlers, a strange vessel was seen in the Basin one night. People who passed this way thought they heard queer noises during the night, and in the morning the ground near the site of the old church was disturbed. Some people said that in the night they had heard a bell ringing. That night there came a terrible storm, and soon bits of wreckage drifted in that must have come from the strange vessel. In this way every one believed that the theft had been avenged--if the strangers stole the bell and the treasure. It is only fair to say," continued Mr. Knight, "that some believe that the bell was taken by returning Acadians who wished to set it up in an Acadian chapel on the Gaspe coast. At any rate, there are people still living who have heard their parents say that at certain times they can hear the distant ringing of this Grand Pre bell."

"How weird!" cried Martine. "Are there any more stories like that? I love them."

"Oh, there are some others connected with buried treasures, but an evil fate was usually supposed to attend those who grew suddenly rich by unearthing Acadian treasure; and there are tales of ghostly fires on St. John's eve; and other stories used to trouble me very much when I was small and had to pass lonely places in the night."

"Oho," thought Martine, though she said nothing, "then it is as I thought; he is easily scared."

"At the time of the deportation," said Mr. Knight, as they took their places again in the carriage, "the water came much nearer the village. Since the days of the Acadians thousands of acres of dyke-lands have been reclaimed. When the Connecticut settlers came they found many dykes broken, through which the sea was rolling in, and they might have had a hard time repairing them if they had not found a few Acadians still left in the country, who had managed to escape the English and were lurking in the neighborhood of their old homes."

"That reminds me," said Priscilla; "who were the Acadians, that is, where did they come from in the first place? I have never thought of this before."

"Why, Priscilla, they were--" then Amy stopped, not feeling quite sure of her ground.

"Oh, they were French, from--" and Martine could get no farther.

"Of course they were French, but why did they know so much about dykes and such things?"

When no one else seemed inclined to answer the question, Mr. Knight undertook to reply.

"The Acadians of Grand Pre, like the Acadians of Annapolis, were nearly all descended from a group of peasants from Rochelle, Pictou, and Saintonge, who came out with D'Aunay and Razilly about 1630. They came from a region of marshes, and they brought with them the art of building dykes. The _aboiteaux_ that they built were marvels, and before you go we must try to show you one of the dykes at low tide, when all the wonderful method of building will be displayed. Pierre Terriau, by the way, was the name of the first Acadian to settle in the Grand Pre region. He came to the shores of the Habitant in 1671. Others soon joined him. The people at Minas were so shut off from Port Royal that they grew very independent. Indeed, this desire to escape the close observation of those at the Fort was what sent Acadians from Port Royal to this new region. In time there were three parishes in Minas,--St. Joseph, St. Charles, and Grand Pre,--and the people were like one great family, constantly inter-marrying, and always ready to help one another.

"'Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows; But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners; There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance,'

as your Longfellow says;" and Martine, had she been inclined, might have taken this as an apology for the disrespect she had imagined cast on her poet a little earlier.

But there was no time now to discuss either Longfellow or the Acadians. Before the party stretched the broad dyke-lands, where already many farmers were cutting hay, while here and there were mammoth haystacks.

Priscilla snapped her camera at a hay wagon with a larger load than any she had ever seen, drawn by two of the heaviest, sleekest oxen; Amy made a few notes in her diary; Mrs. Redmond sighed for her palette and sketch-book; and Martine exclaimed loudly on the richness of color, the vivid green of the marshes, the unclouded blue of the sky, and the richer blue of the water, with a glimpse here and there of reddish shores, and above all Blomidon, the magnificent, showing up in the distance, like a veritable giant.

"Have you seen all that you care to see at Grand Pre?" asked Mr. Knight, politely, with a "Here, driver, draw up for a last look at Blomidon before we turn toward Avonport."

"How dark it looks now!" exclaimed Amy, pointing to the promontory.

"That is because the sun no longer shines on it," replied Mr. Knight "Listen to one of our poets:

"'This is that black bastion, based in surge, Pregnant with agate and with amethyst, Whose foot the tides of storied Minas scourge, Whose top austere withdraws into its mist.

* * * * *

"'Yonder, across these reeling fields of foam, Came the sad threat of the avenging ships. What profit now to know if just the doom, Though harsh. The streaming eyes, the praying lips, The shadow of inextinguishable pain, The poet's deathless music, these remain.'"

"Have we seen all that we can see?" interrupted Martine, untouched by the poetical tribute to her Acadians. She was determined to show no appreciation of anything said by Mr. Knight.

"Have we seen all that we can see?" repeated Martine, adding with some sharpness, "I thought that there would be much more."

"Well, I am sure--" and Mr. Knight hesitated, "I am sorry--but there isn't so very much--you know all the Acadian houses were burnt, and it's just a modern village--the old Covenanter Church is perhaps the oldest thing--and you've seen the old well and the willows and the things that we point out to Americans."

"There it is!" thought Martine, "that same patronizing tone when he speaks of Americans."

"Oh, there is one thing," continued the unhappy young man, conscious now, as at all times, of Martine's disapproval, "I should have shown you the little ridge near the station where Colonel Noble and one of his soldiers were buried, after that terrible fight in 1747. You remember the French had only seven killed to the one hundred English who were slaughtered."

"That was a cowardly attack," said Amy, warmly.

"But it was the real French, and not the Acadians, who were responsible," interposed Martine.

"Yet the Acadians helped--at least as guides."

"This pleasant country has certainly witnessed a great deal of tragedy." Mrs. Redmond's voice was that of the peacemaker.

"Yet through it all Blomidon has remained there calm and placid." Up to this time Priscilla had had little to say.

"But Glooscap, the deity of the Micmacs," responded Mrs. Redmond,--"you remember that after the white men came to Minas, displeased with their teachings, he fled away, and has never been seen since.

"'You can see yourself Five Islands Glooscap flung at him that day, When from Blomidon to Sharp he tore the Beaver's dam away. Cleared the channel, and the waters thundered out into the Bay. Here he left us--see the orchards, red and gold in every tree! All the land from Gaspereau to Portapique and Cheverie, All the garden lands of Minas and a passage out to sea.'"

"Why, mamma, I never heard you quote poetry--at such length."

"Perhaps you thought that I couldn't, but this is a Canadian poet, and later you must read more of the myths grouped around Glooscap."

"Oh, I know that Blomidon was his home, and Minas his beaver-pond, and Spencer Island used to be his kettle that he tipped upside down when he deserted Acadia, and two rocks there in the Bay were once his dogs that he turned to stone at the same time. He never was cruel, never grew old, and was never to die, and so I suppose that the Indians are looking constantly for him to come back and restore their own to them."

"As to that," said the serious Mr. Knight, "the Indians in Nova Scotia are much better off than in the days of Glooscap. They may sit side by side with white children in almost all the schools of the country. Many of them live on land of their own, and raise live stock--though unluckily they prefer ponies to heifers, and in every way the government is fitting them for the full responsibilities of citizenship."

"Oh, dear," sighed Martine, laying her hand on Amy's and leaning forward so that those on the back seat might not hear. "What a regular schoolmaster he is! He is more improving even than you, Miss Amy Redmond. But listen--how much more appreciative is our dear Priscilla."

In spite of herself Amy could but smile as Priscilla's gentle voice came to her. "Thank you, Mr. Knight; the present condition of the Indians interests me very much, and I have made a note of what you have said to report at one of our Indian Aid Association meetings when I return home," whereat the driver of their vehicle laughed, chuckled, and shook his head.

"I'd like to show her some specimen Micmacs," he said to Martine, "that come round here oftener than once in a while, and have some distance to travel before they are fully fitted for the responsibilities of citizenship."

"Now, ladies, a last look at Blomidon," cried Mr. Knight, as the carriage took a sharp turn, and then, after one long, backward look, they pressed on and drove westward toward Avonport.

"Dear Prissie," said Martine, when at last they stood on the broad beach, "you have been a very good girl to-day." Priscilla, reddening at her words, made no reply.

"Yes, you have been very good," continued Martine, "and when Mr. Knight recalls this afternoon he will remember with pleasure the close attention that you have given to his every word."

"Oh, Martine, how absurd you are; I never heard you talk so pompously before."

"This is the effect of a few hours spent with an eloquent guide, philosopher, and friend. Poor Amy is under the spell now; he seems to be teaching her geology."

Looking in the direction of the spot where they had left Mrs. Redmond and Amy, Priscilla saw that Mr. Knight was pointing at the stones with his walking-stick, as if they were diagrams on a blackboard.

"He is probably explaining the rock formation," said Priscilla, solemnly. "My guidebook says that the region has great geological interest."

"Then let us go off by ourselves somewhere, for if he gets the chance he will try to teach us all he knows, and really, I could not stand any more instruction to-day. Come, Prissie."

At first Priscilla hesitated.

"Do come; we'll have such a good chance to study those rocks and crags by ourselves."

"I'd rather wait for the others, but still--"

"That's a good girl;" and, half dragging Priscilla by the arm, Martine set off rapidly toward the bold cliffs that promised them more entertainment than they had had that afternoon.

"There are sure to be shells," said Martine, "and perhaps curious seaweeds in some of the little pools. The tide is so high that undoubtedly there are many strange things washed up here."

Martine was correct in her surmises, and for half an hour the two felt like explorers as they picked their way from stone to stone, filling their hands with trophies.

"Isn't it fun?" cried Martine. "I feel as if we were quite alone in the world. We can just enjoy ourselves without thinking of history or geology, or anything else."

"I wonder if the others will be worried," said Priscilla, who herself was not quite sure that she enjoyed this sensation of being quite alone in the world, with nobody near but Martine.

"Of course they won't be worried. We shall be back before they even miss us. Besides, I'd like to worry Mr. Knight."

Priscilla looked at her watch. "I think that we ought to return now; we have been gone more than half an hour."

"Oh, not yet--but listen; some one is calling. It is Mr. Knight. 'Young ladies, young ladies,'" and Martine mimicked the tones that now were borne quite clearly to their ears. "I just won't have him find us, and lead us back as if we were two children who had done something that we shouldn't; let us hide behind these rocks until he passes."

Somewhat against her will Priscilla allowed herself to be led into a rocky nook where a jutting ledge hid them effectually from any passer-by.

So Mr. Knight, walking along the cliffs above them, even had he peered down to the lower level, could hardly have seen them. His "Young ladies, young ladies, we're starting home now," grew feebler and feebler, and when Martine had assured herself that he was really a safe distance away, she came out from her hiding-place with a cry of "Danger past."

"We mustn't stay here too long," remonstrated Priscilla; "Mrs. Redmond will be worried."

"I am perfectly willing to go now," replied Martine, "since Mr. Knight won't lead me by the nose. We had a hard climb to this grotto, but it will be much easier going down."

Hardly had Martine spoken when Priscilla, who was a few steps ahead of her, turned back with a cry of alarm.

"Look, Martine; what shall we do?"

Stepping up beside her friend, Martine too exclaimed in surprise.

"Do you suppose it will come any higher? I have heard of the rapid rise of the tide, but this has just rushed in."

Even in that first quick glance both girls realized that they were in a critical position. In going up to the "grotto," as Martine called it, they had taken no notice of tide-water marks, such as both of them might have observed. The rocky arms by which they had ascended were now covered by water, and an incoming wave dashed over Priscilla's feet as they stood there, uncertain what to do.

"Will it come all the way in? We shall be drenched if it does."

"No," said Martine, turning about and inspecting the nook where they had been standing when they heard Mr. Knight's voice.

"You can see that if the last high tide had come in lately as far as that little hollow, there would be some water there now. Instead, it is perfectly dry. You can prove that for yourself."

"Yes, yes, you are right; by standing back here we can at least keep dry, but oh, dear, when shall we get out?"

"Probably not until Mr. Knight rescues us," replied Martine, cheerfully, "and even he will hardly come to our relief until low tide, which is probably some hours away."

Whatever the real danger, Priscilla and Martine saw at once that they were in a very disagreeable predicament. The little niche in which alone they could have a dry footing on three sides had steep walls, whose height at the lowest was surely twenty feet. Martine scanned the sides carefully, but the stone surface was perfectly smooth. Nowhere was there a projection that offered the least foothold. It was in no way possible for either girl to climb to the top. Toward them flowed the advancing tide. It had entirely cut them off from the path by which they had reached the grotto, and though it might not be dangerously deep at every point of the beach and rocks that it now covered, neither girl had courage to venture into the water.

Martine indeed had proposed to wade as far as it seemed safe, and then, if necessary, swim to some point where she might get a footing.

"No, no," Priscilla had remonstrated, "you might in some way miss the others, and if you had to wait around for some time in your wet clothes you would be really worse off than you are now--and besides, I should hate to be left here all alone."

"It might be a waste of energy," replied Martine, "for surely the tide cannot come up to this little hollow; so it is only a question of time when we shall get out of this. But it does seem to me that so unusually clever a person as that Mr. Knight thinks himself might have found us before this."

"You aren't quite fair, Martine, for he certainly was just above us here, calling with all his might. I dare say that he even looked over the edge. You hid yourself so completely, and made me hide too, so that when he looked he could not see us. He must think that we went in exactly the opposite direction, and he and the others are probably a mile away now, searching for us."

"I do not care how much bother Mr. Knight has, but I do regret putting Mrs. Redmond and Amy to such trouble. Why did you come with me, Priscilla? If you had refused we shouldn't have got into this scrape."

"Oh, Martine, when you fairly dragged me here! Surely you are unjust."

Martine knew that she was unjust but like many persons who realize their own foolishness, she experienced a certain relief for the present in blaming some one else.

"It will be hours," she grumbled, "before the tide will be low enough to let us out for it is still coming in, and we shall be kept here for some time after it turns."

"If we get out before dark I shall be thankful. It will be terribly disagreeable to find ourselves alone here in the dark."

"Oh, it won't be as bad as that!" Martine's voice became suddenly cheerful. Self-reproach had taken hold of her. What if Priscilla should really suffer from this escapade? As if in answer to her thoughts, Priscilla coughed once or twice.

"There it is," thought Martine; "Priscilla is away for her health, and I may undo all the good of the summer. It will be a great disappointment to Mrs. Redmond, as well as to Priscilla's mother. They both expected so much from this trip." Which reflections showed that Martine was certainly not a villain of the deepest dye. Had she been hardened in perversity she could not so soon have reached a state of repentance.

But repentance without works avails little, and when Priscilla coughed for a fourth time Martine became quite feverish with anxiety.

Two large clouds in the distance seemed to her to indicate a coming storm. Wretched enough would their condition be if they should be caught by a heavy rain while they were in this exposed position.