CHAPTER V.

_THE HEIR TO GRAND-PRÉ._

"Along my father's dykes I roam again, Among the willows by the river side, These miles of green I know from hill to tide, And every creek and river's ruddy stain. Neglected long and shunned, our dead have lain, Here where a people's dearest hope had died."

Frank Winslow was more and more drawn to Pierre as he continued the history of the Gotros and his connection with them. He looked at him now as he stood thoughtfully gazing about him upon the scene which would change its character when he died, and which had been unchanged for over a century. He must have felt that to him were entrusted the traditions of a family and a name. His was the duty to be fulfilled in the accomplishment of a purpose that had come to him through four generations. In him was the death of this aim, and the end of the name associated with that purpose. In not complying with the conditions of the trust imposed upon him, was he really to blame for the final failure of that great ambitious purpose transmitted through so many of his ancestors and conditioned with so many difficulties? Winslow felt that a strange fatality had followed upon the actions of Pierre, and a cruel punishment had come on him for the violation of the Gotro traditions. His case had been a most remarkable one. As he thought of the years of sorrow the old man had had to endure, and had borne so faithfully and without murmur, he saw in Pierre a complete expiation for any blame that might stand against him. The spell was broken. The punishment for the broken family law was fully meted out in Pierre's life. He yet suffered for his act, but he had sacrificed himself to relieve others. If he did wrong, or made a mistake, he bore the penalty of it in himself that nobody else might suffer.

While Winslow mused thus, and felt the sorrow that must be moving the heart of his aged friend, he could not give voice to his sympathy, for he realized that such a grief was beyond his range of expression in condolence. Words would have been out of place. He could but wait. He felt his feelings pledged to support the old man in his deep grief. While they were silent, each guided by his peculiar emotions, Pierre's beautiful daughter appeared at the door of the stone house. Seeing the two men, she approached quickly, and before her father was aware of her presence she had placed her hand upon his arm and laughingly called him from his reverie.

"Père!"

Pierre turned to her, and with a smile placed his hand upon her shoulder, saying to Winslow as he did so:

"To this girl have the generations of the Pierres come. What remains of their proud ambitions and lifelong desires dies with me. In her may begin the better life, free from those stern traditions, that may make the blood of the Gotros pure again, even though the name be never revived again in us."

"You have been kept apart from your own people even, by the purpose your ancestors imposed. It has isolated you," said Winslow.

He did not say what was in his mind concerning Marie. He did not express the desire he experienced to take upon himself the guardianship of this maiden, should occasion require it. He determined that she would not be entirely alone or without protection if the care of the father were taken from her. He noted the love of the old man for this girl. He realized the anxiety of the father, who had been almost a mother as well, for the lovely charge which had been left to his care. This fixed Winslow's resolve to take the old man's place whenever it should be necessary. He did not feel that he could disclose the feelings that moved him on the subject, although he knew that Pierre reciprocated the friendship Winslow had for him. He desired to tell Pierre that he need have no fear. Yet he could not do so, certainly not before the young woman. The situation was delicate, and only time could show how they stood to each other. Pierre, though an old man, looked so strong and hale that he knew in all probability he would add two decades to his life, and by that time his daughter would be of sufficient age to be no longer a cause of anxiety.

Winslow looked upon his self-imposed task as a matter of course. He was a young man, but the work of his life had matured him early, and the peculiar character of his experiences had thrown him in contact with older men rather than with the things of youth. He looked upon Marie as a child. She did not impress him in any other way. And as a child he dealt with her, and gave her such a place in his mind as made him now resolve to become, as it were, a father to her should she be left in the world without a protector. He found another condition in his life from that moment. He was no longer alone and with but himself to consider henceforth. He deemed it a sacred trust placed upon him by the friendship that had sprung up between the last Pierre and himself.

The old man again turned to Winslow, and holding his daughter's hand, said:

"To this girl, after I am gone, belongs Grand-Pré. Long ago the Pierres learned of the death of all who had land there, and by the marriage of the second Pierre he united in his family all title and claim to Grand-Pré. From this you may believe sprung the desire to maintain and perpetuate the ownership that they vainly hoped might eventually be enjoyed in the possession of land that had been taken from them. This desire and hope led to a care that the interests should not be lost or divided, and hence arose the traditions of the Pierre Gotros, and the penalty of any infringement of the family law. That there could be but one male heir was an imperative condition. The fate of the family was cast upon one son. If there should be a daughter she should not marry. There has been but one son, and no daughter married till my sister broke the established law.

"That I am heir to Grand-Pré gives me no concern. What was once our land is never to return to us. We have waited for a century. The persons who now claim it and who dwell upon it recognize no claim made by any Acadian for the land of his fathers. The government has at no time considered the right or wrong of returning it to the heirs of the original owners. It has all passed out of our hands, and I see no hope, no possibility of chance, remote or otherwise, of the land of the Gotros, the home of the Pierres, the Grand-Pré of our desire and ambition, ever being put back into our hands again. We can but point to that beautiful country and say that it was once ours. Not a trace of our occupation remains, and it is never to see us more. At my time of life I cannot feel regret at this. What I may have once thought of it does not concern me now. My daughter is heir to all my claims upon Grand-Pré. But the penalties shall never fall to her. I feel that the purpose of our family dies with me. Indeed it is now dead. Marie enters upon a new lease of life not embarrassed by the traditions of a family, and not restrained by the conditions placed upon the Pierres. It has cost our family much to free her, if there is any meaning in what has been experienced. But that is done.

"It has always seemed strange to me that the hope of the Gotros lived so long. It must have grown out of the great love our people have always had for their homes. It must have been this love that brought them back after the deportation. It certainly bound several generations of them to a hopeless purpose of one day being able to return to Grand-Pré. Grand-Pré village, you must understand, was, in comparison with the country usually called Grand-Pré, but a small part. Less than twenty families were included in the village, yet it was a rich village, the choicest of all Minas. It gave its name to almost the whole section. It had the church, in which the people were kept prisoners. Near it on the east is the burying ground, to-day without a mark to tell where our people sleep.

"Your writers and historians for years have been justifying the act of that people who removed the Acadians. Simple statement of the case was not deemed sufficient, and all kinds of reasons have been stated to give foundation for the deportation. Perhaps you do not know that facts have come to light within a few years which prove beyond a doubt that the governor of the province of Nova Scotia, Lawrence, was the chief instrument in bringing about the removal of the Acadians. The country under his administration had a large French population. Lawrence hated the Acadians, and by harsh treatment, arbitrary manner, and irritating restrictions put upon their movements he drove them to the extreme of fear and unhappiness. He compelled them to look upon him as an enemy, and to expect any violence at his hands. He had determined to get rid of them, and drove them to desperation to do something that would give a reason for removing them. He kept up the agitation against them in New England by false statements as to their behaviour and attitude towards the English. At the last, in spite of his efforts, he had to make accusations that were without foundation to give a show of reason for removing them. Yet all this effort against the people, and the deportation itself, were contrary to the expressed wishes of the government of England, and orders came, but too late, to stay any attempt at removing the Acadian people out of the country. As may be expected, the records of Lawrence's administration stand against the people. The genius that could develop the scheme of removing a people from their homes, and leave them to the mercy of such cruel circumstances and unfavorable conditions, could well be expected to make the record of his term of office seem to stand against this people. According to the reports and documents of his administration the Acadians are condemned, that is, in the records that have been preserved. But strange to say, many records of certain important periods have been altogether lost or destroyed. This silence of history is construed against our people.

"Many of your people who visit here, and come to the island," continued Pierre, "send me books and histories that are printed from time to time dealing with the question of the deportation."

"Yes," said Winslow, "I have just read a book by one, a well-known Canadian writer, who most unfairly and slightingly deals with your people, and ignores utterly the latest accepted statements of history."

"Our families bear witness to the hatred of the New England people to the unfortunate and homeless race when they were thrown helpless among them. Many tales of cruelty are told of those days."

"It is a sad story," said Winslow. "My own kinsman, I am sorry to say, when he wrote his journal, was filled with apprehension that your Grand-Pré people were likely to rise, unarmed as they were, against his soldiers, and he dealt with them in a way only excused by the stern demands of discipline and a soldier's duty. He had to restrain his men from acts of brutality and oppression they were too apt to practise. It is too evident that to have been an Acadian was to be liable to almost any outrage at the hands of the rude soldiery. But the otherwise worthy colonel was somewhat vain, and made history for himself. He made the statement in his journal, and permits the belief, that all the Acadians were captured and removed. Among his private papers are statements to the contrary, however, and he regretted his connection with the deportation to his dying day. He was under orders. He fulfilled his most unpleasant duty, but one may read his protest upon every page of his journal. His pride was that of a soldier in the strict performance of his duty."

"There was no desire on the part of Governor Lawrence," continued Winslow, warmly, "to have the people treated kindly. They were of no further use in Nova Scotia. Indeed, they were on land that he desired to get from them for other people, and they had large stocks of cattle that would become confiscate when they were removed. Their return to their homes was contrary to his desire and against the success of his scheme. He endeavored in every way to prevent this. He made little attempt to arrange that they should find homes in New England, and, indeed, he found that they would not be permitted to land in many places. Yet he worked out his devilish plan to get rid of them at any cost, and he threw them upon the charity of the other provinces. If many died on the way to our country, packed as they were like animals in the holds of the small vessels, and without help or hope when they were landed at various points down our coast, and if disease thinned their ranks and hunger and fatigue killed, these were agents he was glad to have the aid of to lessen the possibility of any great number ever returning to the lands that they had been taken from. He was a most brutal man, with strength of purpose to accomplish anything and to bend others to his desires."

Winslow ceased speaking with the flush of manly scorn and indignation upon his face and the warmth of sincere enthusiasm glancing from his eyes.

Father and daughter looked upon him in silence. Marie felt the contagion of his feeling, while his presence and the force of his words moved strongly, absorbing her every thought and feeling.

"Salmon! Salmon!" came a loud and excited voice from the shore below. Pierre was roused to action by the words. He explained to Winslow that the first salmon had come up the Basin, and that there were fish in the weir.