CHAPTER III

TOWARD METEGHAN

Amy rested her hand on her bicycle, waiting to mount.

"I did not think that it would be quite so lonely; but still, you're sure it's perfectly safe?"

"Oh, yes, Miss, and not a long way." There was a trace of accent in the speech of the man who replied to Amy's question. He had just deposited a pouch of mail in the vehicle in which sat Mrs. Redmond, Priscilla, and Martine, and had turned to adjust the harness of his meek-looking horse.

"You are not afraid, are you?" Priscilla's voice was anxious. "I wish that I had brought my bicycle, and could ride with you."

"You _do_ look like a maiden all forlorn,--spruce trees to right of you, spruce trees to left of you. Excuse my smiling;" and Martine's smile lengthened itself into a decided giggle.

"Don't," whispered Priscilla. "The driver will think that you are laughing at him." It always surprised her that Martine should show so little respect for Amy, who was several years her senior.

"Amy," interposed Mrs. Redmond, "do you object to our driving away and leaving you? Doubtless if we tried, we could find some kind of a conveyance to carry you and the bicycle."

"Not till after dinner, Madame." Their driver turned toward Mrs. Redmond, lifting his hat politely,--"Every horse is away now."

"The only thing for Amy to do is to let you hold her on your lap, Priscilla, while I take the bicycle on mine." At which absurd suggestion even Priscilla was forced to laugh; for the vehicle sent down to Meteghan station for her Majesty's mail was as narrow and shallow as any carriage could well be that made even a pretence of holding four persons. But with the deftness that comes with experience the driver had managed to find room not only for his passengers, but for their suit case and bags, for several packages that had come by train, and finally for his great pouch of mail.

"There must be a perfect cavern under the seat," whispered Martine to Mrs. Redmond. "I am sure that we could put Amy there."

But even as she spoke Amy had mounted, and was up the hill ahead before the driver had taken his seat. Yet although Amy had taken the hill so well, she was soon out of breath. The road was soft, and the hill steeper than she had thought, and when a little chubby boy darted directly toward her, she slipped from her wheel and bent down to talk to the little fellow.

To her surprise, at first he did not respond to her "What's your name?" but hung his head shyly. Then it occurred to her that he did not understand, and when she repeated her question in French his "Louis, Mademoiselle," showed that her venture had been right.

"Does every one here speak French, Monsieur?" she asked, as the carriage approached.

"Yes, all," responded the driver, stopping beside her for a moment.

"And no English?"

"Oh, many, though some have no English."

Martine and Priscilla praised the bright eyes of little Louis. Mrs. Redmond handed him an illustrated paper that she had brought from the train, and the driver started up his horse.

"You follow me," he called back to Amy.

"Yes, yes," cried Amy, laughing, knowing that she could soon pass him; but while she loitered to talk with the child, the carriage was soon so far ahead that she could barely discern the fluttering of the long veil that Martine held out to stream in the wind like a flag.

After leaving little Louis, Amy pedalled along leisurely. At first she passed only one or two houses, but each of them offered her something to think of. In front of one, two or three barefooted children were playing hop-scotch, with the limits marked out in lines drawn by a stick on the dusty road. "I should think they'd stub their toes," she thought, as she watched them, "but they're so well-dressed, except their feet, that I suppose they prefer to go without shoes."

In the doorway of a second cottage, set like the other, close to the road, a mother was standing with a baby in her arms, and a tiny little girl clinging to her skirts. These children, like all the others she had seen, had the brightest of black eyes. Beside the door was a well, boarded in, with a bucket beside it.

The woman looked so friendly that Amy stopped for a drink of water, and, making use of her best French, she spent a few minutes talking with the woman.

A fine team of oxen hauling an empty hay wagon, beside which walked a strapping youth in blue jeans and a flapping straw hat, was the next reminder to Amy that she was indeed in a foreign country. After she had returned the cheerful _bonjour_ of two or three bareheaded women whom she met trudging along toward a hayfield, Amy was recalled to herself. Her mother and the others were out of sight. "The driver will think that I am not even following;" and making good speed up a long, gradual hill, she saw the carriage waiting for her some distance ahead.

"This way, this way," shouted Martine. The driver waved his whip toward the left, and when Amy caught up, they had changed their direction, and she could feel the soft fresh breeze blowing in from St. Mary's Bay.

"Did you ever see such a clear blue sky?"

"Oh, yes, Martine,"--Amy was thinking of cloudless days on the North Shore,--"but none bluer, perhaps."

"But it seems so foreign," interposed Priscilla, in a tone that expressed some disapproval of foreign things. "I'm not sure that I like it."

"It seems different from other places, though I can't tell why."

"This child is part of the why. Just look at him." Martine pointed to a little boy of about eight, dressed in black, with deep embroidered ruffles of white falling about his wrists, and a broad ruffled collar on his coat. He wore a hat that was something like a tam-o'-shanter, and something like a mortar-board, and he carried a large slate under his arm.

"He's evidently on his way home from school. See the crowd of children behind him."

As the children drew nearer, some stood still, the better to see the party of strangers. Thus the latter had a chance to note various peculiarities of dress and general appearance. One or two little girls wore sunbonnets, one or two wore hats, and several had on their heads black _couvre-chefs_, that made them look like little old women. The sturdy little boys in blouses were more like other boys, and they indeed were too busy racing and tumbling over one another to pay attention to the travellers.

"Amy," exclaimed Martine, "you should have kept beside us all the way, we have been hearing such wonderful stories. Down there by the bridge there are several descendants of the Baron d'Entremont, and other people whose ancestors came from France hundreds of years ago."

"The Baron d'Entremont!" Amy felt a thrill of pleasure. Surely that was one of the names that Fritz had mentioned in connection with Pubnico, and if she too could come across some of his descendants, how delightful this would be!

The houses were now nearer together than they had been. At the right there was a glimmer of blue water. On the bridge at the foot of the decline Amy dismounted to watch the men loading with lumber a little schooner at the wharf near-by. The carriage drew up before the tiny post-office, where part of the mail was left. A gray-bearded man in the door of a small shop caught Amy's eye. With his broad-brimmed hat, loose trousers, and slippers,--yes, slippers,--he reminded her of pictures she had seen of old Frenchmen. She longed to snap her kodak, to catch him just as he stood there, leaning on his cane. But she did not dare, there was something so very venerable and dignified in his appearance.

Then her eye fell on the name d'Entremont over the shop. Martine and Priscilla joined her. Martine was in great spirits.

"Your mother is writing a post-card in the office. So, while we are waiting, let us go in here and try the d'Entremont brand of ginger ale. They're sure to have some, and one doesn't often have the chance to patronize the descendant of a French nobleman."

Within the dim little shop two or three men were lounging near the counter, who probably said to themselves, "Oh, those foolish Americans!"

But their manner showed no disrespect as they moved aside, and the proprietor made one or two pleasant remarks as he served the trio.

A few minutes later Amy was again on her bicycle, the others had taken their places in the carriage, and the little village was behind them. The large farms that they had seen near Meteghan station gave place to small gardens. The houses were near together, and they were painted in colors that drew many exclamations of approval from Martine. "This is great! I never dreamed that I should see a lavender cottage with green trimmings,--and what a shade of yellow for a house! Oh, Mrs. Redmond, I hope that our water-colors will last the trip. I'm afraid that we'll use them all up, painting the wonders of Meteghan. This is Meteghan, isn't it?"

"Yes, Mees," replied the driver. "It was all Meteghan, from the station, only that was a different name for the other post-office. But there is our church; this is the true village."

"Star of the Sea" was an imposing building, but the journey since leaving Yarmouth had been long, and they were too eager now to reach their destination to give the church more than a passing glance.

Amy's quick eye had noted the swinging sign of the little inn not so very far beyond the church, and, hastening ahead, she was the first to be welcomed by Madame, wife of their driver, who was also proprietor of the small hotel.

Welcomed with ceremonious politeness, they were soon made to feel perfectly at home. When the question was pressed, they all admitted that they were very hungry. In the pleasant rooms to which they were shown, they had barely time to make themselves ready when a loud bell called them to dinner. As the four entered the dining-room, they saw that there were several other guests at the long table. One, a stout man with a fondness for jokes, proved to be the agent for a millinery house in Halifax. There were one or two others who said so little that even Amy could not tell whether they were French or English; two middle-aged ladies near Mrs. Redmond quickly let her know that they were teachers from Connecticut, now for the first time making a tour of the provinces. They had sailed from New York to Halifax for the sake of the sea voyage, and had come down slowly through Windsor, Grand Pre, and Annapolis, and were enthusiastic about all these places.

"But if you can," one of them concluded, "you must have a few days at Little Brook,--Petit Ruisseau, as some call it. It's the centre of everything interesting in Clare; it's really where the first Acadians landed after the expulsion, and only a short distance from Point a l'Eglise."

Amy listened eagerly. Here evidently was some one who could tell her much that she wished to hear about this new country, and later, when they were all outside on the little piazza at the front, she learned what she wished to know. On consulting her mother, they decided that after a day at Meteghan they would go on to Little Brook, and spend at least two or three days there--if possible at the Hotel Paris, which the teachers recommended.

Missing Priscilla and Martine, Amy found them in the little sitting-room.

"Tell me," whispered Martine, "aren't you disappointed?"

"Disappointed with what?"

"Why, in this house--this room especially; it's so--so unforeign."

Amy glanced around her,--at the bright-flowered carpet; the marble-topped table, on which was displayed a bouquet of wax-flowers under a glass globe; on the two machine-made oak rockers; and then on the pictures.

"Where do you suppose they found that picture of the Queen with such very pink cheeks, and a mouth as small as a pin, and those wax-figure princelings--and those saints? Do you suppose Madame and her children know the names of them all?"

At that moment Madame herself entered the door.

"You like pretty things. Ah, you must see my rugs, if you would care to."

"Yes, indeed," Amy replied politely.

"Then come with me. They are in my room,--the best,--and the American ladies always admire them."

So the two girls followed their landlady upstairs, where she proudly displayed rug after rug of wonderful design and still more wonderful color. Martine dared not say what she thought,--that it seemed a pity that so much time had been put into things that could only dazzle rather than please the average beholder. Amy conscientiously praised those that could be properly praised,--for here and there was a rug of really artistic design,--and Priscilla gave an exclamation of delight as she noticed on the bed a really exquisite spread.

"You like that?" asked Madame. "It is good work, all by hand; only two or tree women can now make them. My old aunt who made that is dead, but--"

"It is like the finest Marseilles, only I never saw so beautiful a pattern. I did not know people could make such things by hand."

"On a loom, surely yes; there are only one or two in Meteghan, but you can see one work, if you wish, at Alexandre Babet's."

"There, that will be something to see! Is it far?" cried Martine.

"Oh, no. You can find it quickly."

"After we are rested," responded Amy. "The sun is still hot. Your rugs and the spread are beautiful."

As the girls sat down on the piazza, Priscilla turned to Amy. "You did not think those rugs really beautiful?"

Amy did not resent this slight touch of reproach, even though Priscilla was so much her junior.

"Yes, and no. Some of them were beautiful even from my point of view. They all were from that of their owner, and since she desired to please us by showing them, it seemed only fair to reward her with a word of praise."

"But if every one praises her she will go on using those terrible aniline colors. They made my head ache just to look at them."

"Oh, Priscilla, you are so precise I'll call you 'Prim' as well as 'Prissie.'"

"_No_ one else calls me 'Prissie,' Martine."

"No one else dares tease you. Probably your little brothers and sisters are frightened to death of you, and then, because you are the oldest, you have always been made to think that you are absolutely perfect."

"Oh, Martine!"

"There, there, I know just how it is. It's so in our family; I have an elder brother, and he has always been held up as a model, although, between you and me, he's far from perfect. It just keeps me busy, showing him his faults. So, Miss Prissie, if you are too old-maidish I'll have to show you yours."

Priscilla was helpless under Martine's rapid fire of words. In her moments of reflection it surprised her that a girl whom six months before she had not even heard of, should now venture to say things to her that no one in her own family would dare to say.

A little later, Amy and Priscilla and Martine set out to see the loom that made the fine quilts. Priscilla had desired to postpone the visit until next morning. "It would be better to rest now."

"I'm tired resting," protested Martine. "Unless we move on, I will go indoors, and play doleful things on the melodeon. You don't know what I am when I'm melancholy."

Unmoved by Martine, when Amy showed that it was better not to spend the whole afternoon listlessly, Priscilla objected no longer.

The Babet house was a ten minutes' walk up the street. After mistaking one or two houses for the one they were seeking, their third trial brought a tall, long-bearded man to the door who answered to the name of Alexandre Babet.

"We hear that some one here--your wife, perhaps,--makes those beautiful quilts."

"Oh, yes," responded Alexandre, in fair English. "They are good quilts, and we have a loom."

Martine pinched Priscilla's arm. "I'm disappointed; I thought that he'd speak French."

"Come in, come in;" and Alexandre showed them into the neatest of sitting-rooms,--neat, but painfully bare. It was brightened, to be sure, by one or two gay pictures of saints in brilliant-colored garments, and by two or three geraniums in flower on the window. But the wooden floor was unpainted, and on it was only one rug, and there was little furniture besides the high dresser and a long table.

Alexandre went off to summon his wife, and soon she came in from the kitchen, accompanied by another, whom Alexandre introduced as his sister. The girls soon became embarrassed under the piercing gaze of their black eyes. The women wore dark calico gowns with little shawls over their shoulders, and their _couvre-chefs_ were bound closely to their heads. Neither of them understood English, nor spoke it. But Alexandre proved as talkative as any two women. Moreover, he occasionally translated his own words into French, and in the same way made the women understand what the young American girls said--to the great amusement of Amy and Martine. Priscilla sat solemnly through the conversation, as if she found something pathetic in the aspect of the women.

During a moment of silence, when the room seemed rather close and uncomfortable,--for the windows were shut, and the blinds were drawn,--there came a gentle tapping on the door. Madame Babet sprang to her feet.

"No, no, sit still; she can come in." Then turning to the others, Alexandre added, "It is Yvonne, our little one. Come in, Yvonne," he called in a louder tone; "here are Americans."

Upon this the door was pushed open, and a little girl wearing a pink gingham gown and a white sunbonnet, entered slowly, holding one hand outstretched, as if not quite sure of herself. Then, walking directly toward Madame Babet, she slipped to the floor beside her, and laid her head on her lap.

The girls looked from her to Alexandre to read an explanation in his face, and he, understanding, raised his hand to his eyes.

"Blind!" exclaimed Martine, involuntarily. "Poor little thing!"

"She understands English," said the man, warningly; "she does not wish pity."

"I see much," said Yvonne, proudly, "when the light does not glare. I see the American ladies. This one is pretty;" and rising, she made her way carefully to Martine, and laid her hand confidingly in hers.

Martine's color deepened; she felt a great tenderness toward the girl, and she raised the little hand to her lips.