"It is kept by a woman?"
"Yes," said the stranger, with preternatural gravity; "Rose a Charlitte."
Vesper said nothing, and his face was rarely an index of his thoughts, yet the stranger, knowing in some indefinable way that he wished for further information, continued. "On the Bay, the friendly fashion prevails of using only the first name. Rose a Charlitte is rarely called Madame de Foret."
Vesper saw that some special interest attached to the proprietress of the Acadien inn, yet did not see his way clear to find out what it was.
His new acquaintance, however, had a relish for his subject of conversation, and pursued it with satisfaction. "She is very remarkable, and makes money, yet I hope that fate will intervene to preserve her from a life which is, perhaps, too public for a woman of her stamp. A rich uncle, one Auguste Le Noir, whose beautiful home among orange and fig trees on the Bayou Vermillon in Louisiana I visited last year, may perhaps rescue her. Not that she does anything at all out of the way," he added, hastily, "but she is beautiful and young."
Vesper repressed a slight start at the mention of the name Le Noir, then asked calmly if it was a common one among the Acadiens.
The Le Noirs and Le Blancs, the gentleman a.s.sured him, were as plentiful as blackberries, while as to Melancons, there were eighty families of them on the Bay. "This has given rise to the curious house-that-Jack-built system of naming," he said. "There is Jean a Jacques Melancon, which is Jean, the son of Jacques,--Jean a Basile, Jean a David, and sometimes Jean a Martin a Conrade a Benoit Melancon, but"--and he checked himself quickly--"I am, perhaps, wearying you with all this?" He was as a man anxious, yet hesitating, to impart information, and Vesper hastened to a.s.sure him that he was deeply interested in the Acadiens.
The cloud swept from the face of the vivacious gentleman. "You gratify me. The old prejudice against my countrymen still lingers in this province in the shape of indifference. I rarely discuss them unless I know my listener."
"Have I the pleasure of addressing an Acadien?" asked Vesper.
"I have the honor to be one," said the stout gentleman, and his face flushed like that of a girl.
Vesper gave him a quick glance. This was the first Acadien that he had ever seen, and he was about as far removed from the typical Acadien that he had pictured to himself as a man could be. This man was a gentleman.
He had expected to find the Acadiens, after all the trials they had gone through in their dispossession of property and wanderings by sea and land, degenerated into a despoiled and poverty-stricken remnant of peasantry. Curiously gratified by the discovery that here was one who had not gone under in the stress of war and persecution, he remarked that his companion was probably well-informed on the subject of the expulsion of his countrymen from this province.
"The expulsion,--ah!" said the gentleman, in a repressed voice. Then, unable to proceed, he made a helpless gesture and turned his face towards the window.
The younger man thought that there were tears in his eyes, and forbore to speak.
"One mentions it so calmly nowadays," said the Acadien, presently, looking at him. "There is no pa.s.sion, no resentment, yet it is a living flame in the breast of every true Acadien, and this is the reason,--it is a tragedy that is yet championed. It is commonly believed that the deportation of the Acadiens was a necessity brought about by their stubbornness."
"That is the view I have always taken of it," said Vesper, mildly. "I have never looked into the subject exhaustively, but my conclusion from desultory reading has been that the Acadiens were an obstinate set of people who dictated terms to the English, which, as a conquered race, they should not have done, and they got transported for it."
"Then let me beg you, my dear sir, to search into the matter. If you happen to visit the Sleeping Water Inn, ask for Agapit Le Noir. He is an enthusiast on the subject, and will inform you; and if at any time you find yourself in our beautiful city of Halifax, may I not beg the pleasure of a call? I shall be happy to lay before you some historical records of our race," and he offered Vesper a card on which was engraved, Dr. Bernardin a.r.s.eneau, Barrington Street, Halifax.
Vesper took the card, thanked him, and said, "Shall I find any of the descendants of the settlers of Grand Pre among the Acadiens on this Bay?"
"Many, many of them. When the French first came to Nova Scotia, they naturally selected the richest portions of the province. At the expulsion these farms were seized. When, through incredible hardships, they came struggling back to this country that they so much loved, they could not believe that their lands would not be restored to them. Many of them trudged on foot to fertile Grand Pre, to Port Royal, and other places. They looked in amazement at the settlers who had taken their homes. You know who they were?"
"No, I do not," said Vesper.
"They were your own countrymen, my dear sir, if, as I rightly judge, you come from the United States. They came to this country, and found waiting for them the fertile fields whose owners had been seized, imprisoned, tortured, and carried to foreign countries, some years before. Such is the justice of the world. For their portion the returned Acadiens received this strip of forest on the Bay Saint-Mary. You will see what they have made of it," and, with a smile at once friendly and sad, the stout gentleman left the train and descended to a little station at which they had just pulled up.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SLEEPING WATER INN.
"Montrez-moi votre menu et je vous montrerai mon coeur."
A few minutes later, the train had again entered the forest, and Vesper, who had a pa.s.sion for trees and ranked them with human beings in his affections, allowed the mystery and charm of these foreigners to steal over him. In dignified silence and reserve the tall pines seemed to draw back from the rude contact of the pa.s.sing train. The more a.s.sertive firs and spruces stood still, while the slender hackmatacks, most beautiful of all the trees of the wood, writhed and shook with fright, nervously tossing their tremulous arms and ta.s.selled heads, and breathing long odoriferous sighs that floated after, but did not at all touch the sympathies of the roaring monster from the outer world who so often desecrated their solitude.
Vesper"s delicate nostrils dilated as the spicy odors saluted them, and he thought, with tenderness, of the home trees that he loved, the elms of the Common and those of the square where he had been born. How many times he had encircled them with admiring footsteps, noting the individual characteristics of each tree, and giving to each one a separate place in his heart. Just for an instant he regretted that for to-night he could not lie down in their shadow. Then he turned irritably to the salesman, who was stretching and shaking out his legs, and performing other calisthenic exploits as accompaniments of waking.
"Haven"t we come to Great Scott yet?" he asked, getting up, and sauntering to Vesper"s window.
Vesper consulted his folder. Among the French names he could discover nothing like this, unless it was Grosses Coques, so called, his guide-book told him, because the Acadiens had discovered enormous clams there.
The salesman settled the question by dabbing at the name with his fat forefinger. "Confound these French names, and thank the Lord they"re beginning to give them up. This Sleeping Water we"re coming to used to be _L"Eau Dormante_. If I had my way, I"d string up on these pines every fellow that spoke a word of this gibberish. That would cure "em. Why can"t they have one language, as we do?"
"How would you like to talk French?" asked Vesper, quietly.
The little man laughed shrewdly, and not unkindly. "Every man to his liking. I guess it"s best not to fight too much."
"I get off here," said Vesper, gathering up his papers.
"Happy you,--you won"t have to wait for all of Evangeline"s heifers to step off the track between here and Halifax."
Vesper nodded to him, and, swinging himself from the car, went to find the conductor.
There was ample time to get that gentlemanly official"s consent to have his wheel and trunk put off at this station, instead of at Grand Pre, and ample time for Vesper to give a long look at the names in the line of cars, which were, successively, Basil the Blacksmith, Benedict the Father, Rene the Notary, and Gabriel the Lover, before the locomotive snuffed its nostrils and, panting and heaving, started off to trail its romantic appendages through the country of Evangeline.
When the train had disappeared, Vesper looked about him. He was no longer in the heart of the forest. An open country and scattering houses appeared in the distance, and here he could distinctly feel a mischievous breeze from the Bay that playfully ruffled his hair, and tossed back the violets at his feet every time that they bent over to look at their own sweet faces in the black, mirror-like pool of water set in a mossy bed beside them.
He stooped and picked one of the wistful purple blossoms, then stepped up on the platform of the gabled station-house. Inside the kitchen, a woman, sitting with her back to the pa.s.sing trains, was spinning, and at the same time rocking a cradle, while near the door stood an individual who, to Vesper"s secret amus.e.m.e.nt, might have posed either as a member of the human species, or as one of the cla.s.s _aves_.
He had many times seen the fellows of this white-haired, smooth-faced old man, in the Southern States in the shape of cardinal-birds. Those resplendent creatures in the male s.e.x are usually clothed in gay red jackets. This male"s plumage was also red, but, unlike the cardinal-birds, it had a tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of pearl b.u.t.tons and white lace. The bird"s high and conical crest was expressed in the man by a pointed red cap. The bird is nondescript as to the legs,--so also was the man; and the loud and musical note of the Southern songster was reproduced in the fife-like tones of the Acadien, when he presently spoke.
He was an official, and carried in his hand a locked bag containing her Majesty"s mail for her Acadien subjects of the Bay. Vesper had seen the mail-carriers along the route, tossing their bags to the pa.s.sing train, and receiving others in return, but none as gorgeous as this one, and he was wondering why the gentle-faced septuagenarian made himself so peculiar, when he was addressed in a sweet, high voice.
"Sir," said the bird-man, in French,--for was he not Emmanuel Victor De la Rive, lineal descendant of a French marquis who had married a queen"s maid of honor, and had subsequently bequeathed his bones and his large family of children to his adored Acadie?--"Sir, is it possible that you are a guest for the inn?"
"It is possible," said Vesper, gravely.
"Alas!" said the old man, turning to the dark-eyed woman, who had left her cradle and spinning-wheel, "is it not always so? When Rose a Charlitte does not send, there are arrivals. When she does, there are not. She will be in despair. Sir, shall I have the honor of taking you over in my road-cart?"
"I have a wheel," said Vesper, pointing to the bicycle, leaning disconsolately against his trunk.
The black-eyed woman immediately put out her hand for his checks.
"Then may I have the honor of showing you the way?" said Monsieur De la Rive, bowing before Vesper as if he were a divinity. "There are sides of the road which it is well to avoid."
"I shall be most happy to avail myself of your offer."
"I will send the trunk over," said the station woman. "There is a constant going that way."
Vesper thanked her, and left the station in the wake of the cardinal-bird, who sat perched on his narrow seat as easily as if it were a branch of a tree, turning his crested head at frequent intervals to look anxiously at the mail-bag which, for reasons best known to himself, he carried slung to a nail in the back of his cart.
At frequent intervals, too, he piped shrill and sweet remarks to Vesper.