"Charlitte never became drunk," said Rose, in a plaintive voice, "but I have mended the shirts of my brothers at least a hundred times."
"Then I have but one more time," said the youthful Madame Kessy. "After that I shall throw it in the fire. Go into the house, my husband. I was a fool to have married thee," she added, under her breath.
Isidore stood tottering on his feet, and regarded her with tipsy gravity. "And thou shalt come with me, my pretty one, and make me a hot supper and sing me a song."
"I will not do that. Thou canst eat cold bread, and I will sing thee a song with my tongue that will not please thee."
"The priest married us," said Isidore, doggedly, and in momentary sobriety he stalked to the place where she stood, picked her up, and, putting her under his arm, carried her into the house, she meanwhile protesting and laughing hysterically while she shrieked out something to Rose about the loan of a sleeve pattern.
"Yes, yes, I understand," called Rose, "the big sleeve, with many folds; I will send it. Make thy husband his supper and come soon to see me."
"Rose," said Agapit, severely, as they drove away, "is it a good thing to make light of that curse of curses?"
"To make light of it! _Mon Dieu_, you do not understand. It is men who make women laugh even when their hearts are breaking."
Agapit did not reply, and, as they were about to enter a thick wood, he pa.s.sed the reins to Vesper and got out to light the lamps.
While he was fidgeting with them, Rose moved around so that she could look into the front seat.
"Your child is all right," said Vesper, gazing down at the head laid confidingly against his arm. "He is sound asleep,--not a bit alarmed by that fuss."
"It does not frighten him when human beings cry out. He only sorrows for things that have no voices, and he is always right when with you. It is not that; I wish to ask you--to ask you to forgive me."
"For what?"
"But you know--I told you what was not true."
"Do not speak of it. It was a mere bagatelle."
"It is not a bagatelle to make untruths," she said, wearily, "but I often do it,--most readily when I am frightened. But you did not frighten me."
Vesper did not reply except by a rea.s.suring glance, which in her preoccupation she lost, and, catching her breath, she went on, "I think so often of a sentence from an Englishman that the sisters of a convent used to say to us,--it is about the little lies as well as the big ones that come from the pit."
"Do you mean Ruskin?" said Vesper, curiously, "when he speaks of "one falsity as harmless, and another as slight, and another as unintended,--cast them all aside; they may be light and accidental, but they are ugly soot from the smoke of the pit for all that?""
"Yes, yes, it is that,--will you write it for me?--and remember," she continued, hurriedly, as she saw Agapit preparing to reenter the cart, "that I did not say what I did to make a fine tale, but for my people whom I love. You were a stranger, and I supposed you would linger but a day and then proceed, and it is hard for me to say that the Acadiens are no better than the English,--that they will get drunk and fight. I did not imagine that you would see them, yet I should not have told the story," and with her flaxen head drooping on her breast she turned away from him.
"When is lying justifiable?" asked Vesper of Agapit.
The young Acadien plunged into a long argument that lasted until they reached the top of the hill overlooking Sleeping Water. Then he paused, and as he once more saw above him the wide expanse of sky to which he was accustomed, and knew that before him lay the Bay, wide, open, and free, he drew a long breath.
"Ah, but I am glad to arrive home. When I go to the woods it is as if a large window through which I had been taking in the whole world had been closed."
No one replied to him, and he soon swung them around the corner and up to the inn door. Rose led her sleepy boy into the kitchen, where bright lights were burning, and where the maid Celina seemed to be entertaining callers. Vesper took the lantern and followed Agapit to the stable.
"Is it a habit of yours to give your hotel guests drives?" he asked, hanging the lantern on a hook and a.s.sisting Agapit in unbuckling straps.
"Yes, whenever it pleases us. Many, also, hire our horse and pony. You see that we have no common horse in Toochune."
"Yes, I know he is a thoroughbred."
"Rose, of course, could not buy such an animal. He was a gift from her uncle in Louisiana. He also sent her this dog-cart and her organ. He is rich, very rich. He went South as a boy, and was adopted by an old farmer; Rose is the daughter of his favorite sister, and I tell her that she will inherit from him, for his wife is dead and he is alone, but she says not to count on what one does not know."
Vesper had already been favored with these items of information by his mother, so he said nothing, and a.s.sisted Agapit in his task of making long-legged Toochune comfortable for the night. Having finished, and being rewarded by a grateful glance from the animal"s l.u.s.trous eyes, they both went to the pump outside and washed their hands.
"It is too fine for the house," said Agapit. "Are you too fatigued to walk? If agreeable I will take you to Sleeping Water River, where you have not yet been, and tell you how it acc.u.mulated its name. There is no one inside," he continued, as Vesper cast a glance at the kitchen windows, "but the miller and his wife, in whom I no longer take pleasure, and the mail-driver who tells so long stories."
"So long that you have no chance."
"Exactly," said Agapit, fumbling in his pocket. "See what I bought to-day of a travelling merchant. Four cigars for ten cents. Two for you, and two for me. Shall we smoke them?"
Vesper took the cigars, slipped them in his pocket, and brought out one of his own, then with Agapit took the road leading back from the village to the river.
CHAPTER XII.
AN UNHAPPY RIVER.
"Pools and shadows merge Beneath the branches, where the rushes lean And stumble p.r.o.ne; and sad along the verge The marsh-hen totters. Strange the branches play Above the snake-roots in the dark and wet, Adown the hueless trunks, this summer day.
Strange things the willows whisper."
J. F. H.
"There is a story among the old people," said Agapit, "that a band of Acadiens, who evaded the English at the time of the expulsion, sailed into this Bay in a schooner. They anch.o.r.ed opposite Sleeping Water, and some of the men came ash.o.r.e in a boat. Not knowing that an English ship lay up yonder, hidden by a point of land, they pressed back into the woods towards Sleeping Water Lake. Some of the English, also, were on their way to this lake, for it is historic. The Acadiens found traces of them and turned towards the sh.o.r.e, but the English pursued over the marshes by the river, which at last the Acadiens must cross. They threw aside their guns and jumped in, and, as one head rose after another, the English, standing on the bank, shot until all but one were killed.
This one was a Le Blanc, a descendant of Rene Le Blanc, that one reads of in "Evangeline." Rising up on the bank, he found himself alone.
Figure the anguish of his heart,--his brothers and friends were dead. He would never see them again, and he turned and stretched out a hand in a supreme adieu. The English, who would not trouble to swim, fired at him, and called, "Go to sleep with your comrades in the river."
""They sleep," he cried, "but they will rise again in their children,"
and, quite untouched by their fire, he ran to his boat, and, reaching the ship, set sail to New Brunswick; and in later years his children and the children of the murdered ones came back to the Bay, and began to call the river Sleeping Water, and, in time, the lake, which was Queen Anne"s Lake, was also changed to Sleeping Water Lake."
"And the soldiers?"
"Ah! you look for vengeance, but does vengeance always come? Remember the Persian distich:
""They came, conquered, and burned, Pillaged, murdered, and went.""
"I do not understand this question thoroughly," said Vesper, with irritation, "yet from your conversation it seems not so barbarous a thing that the Acadiens should have been transported as that those who remained should have been so persecuted."
"Now is your time to read "Richard." I have long been waiting for your health to be restored, for it is exciting."
"That is the Acadien historian you have spoken of?"
"Yes; and when you read him you will understand my joy at the venerable letter you showed me. You will see why we blame the guilty Lawrence and his colleagues, and not England herself, for the wickedness wrought her French children."
Vesper smoked out his cigar in silence. They had left the village street some distance behind them, and were now walking along a flat, narrow road, having a thick, hedge-like border of tangled bushes and wild flowers that were agitated by a gentle breeze, and waved out a sweet, faint perfume on the night air. On either side of them were low, gra.s.sy marshes, screened by clumps of green.