--_Tatler._
The next day Claudine"s left eyelid trembled in Bidiane"s direction.
The girl followed her to the pantry, where she heard, murmured over a pan of milk, "They go to-night, as soon as it is dark,--Mirabelle Marie, Suretta, and Mosee-Delice."
"Very well," said Bidiane, curling her lip, "we will go too."
Accordingly, that evening, when Mirabelle Marie clapped her rakish hat on her head,--for nothing would induce her to wear a handkerchief,--and said that she was going to visit a sick neighbor, Bidiane demurely commended her thoughtfulness, and sent an affecting message to the invalid.
However, the mistress of the inn had no sooner disappeared than her younger helpmeets tied black handkerchiefs on their heads, and slipped out to the yard, each carrying a rolled-up sheet and a paper of pins.
With much suppressed laughter they glided up behind the barn, and struck across the fields to the station road. When half-way there, Bidiane felt something damp and cold touch her hand, and, with a start and a slight scream, discovered that her uncle"s dog, Bastarache, in that way signified his wish to join the expedition.
"Come, then, good dog," she said, in French, for he was a late acquisition and, having been brought up in the woods, understood no English, "thou, too, shalt be a ghost."
It was a dark, furiously windy night, for the hot gale that had been blowing over the Bay for three days was just about dying away with a fiercer display of energy than before.
The stars were out, but they did not give much light, and Bidiane and Claudine had only to stand a little aside from the road, under a group of spruces, in order to be completely hidden from the three women as they went tugging by. They had met at the corner, and, in no fear of discovery, for the night was most unpleasant and there were few people stirring, they trudged boldly on, screaming neighborhood news at the top of their voices, in order to be heard above the noise of the wind.
Bidiane and Claudine followed them at a safe distance. "_Mon Dieu_, but Mirabelle Marie"s fat legs will ache to-morrow," said Claudine, "she that walks so little."
"If it were an honest errand that she was going on, she would have asked for the horse. As it is, she was ashamed to do so."
The three women fairly galloped over the road to the station, for, at first, both tongues and heels were excited, and even Mirabelle Marie, although she was the only fat one of the party, managed to keep up with the others.
To Claudine, Bidiane, and the dog, the few miles to the station were a mere bagatelle. However, after crossing the railway track, they were obliged to go more slowly, for the three in front had begun to flag.
They also had stopped gossiping, and when an occasional wagon approached, they stepped into the bushes beside the road until it had pa.s.sed by.
The dog, in great wonderment of mind, chafed at the string that Bidiane took from her pocket and fastened around his neck. He scented his mistress on ahead, and did not understand why the two parties might not be amicably united.
A mile beyond the station, the three gold-seekers left the main road and plunged into a rough wood-track that led to the lake. Here the darkness was intense; the trees formed a thick screen overhead, through which only occasional glimpses of a narrow lane of stars could be obtained.
"This is terrible," gasped Bidiane, as her foot struck a root; "lift your feet high, Claudine."
Claudine gave her a hand. She was almost hysterical from listening to the groaning on ahead. "Since the day of my husband"s death, I have not laughed so much," she said, winking away the nervous tears in her eyes.
"I do not love fun as much as some people, but when I laugh, I laugh hard."
"My aunt will be in bed to-morrow," sighed Bidiane; "what a pity that she is such a goose."
"She is tough," giggled Claudine, "do not disturb yourself. It is you that I fear for."
At last, the black, damp, dark road emerged on a clearing. There stood the Indian"s dwelling,--small and yellow, with a fertile garden before it, and a tiny, prosperous orchard at the back.
"You must enter this house some day," whispered Claudine. "Everything shines there, and they are well fixed. Nannichette has a sewing-machine, and a fine cook-stove, and when she does not help her husband make baskets, she sews and bakes."
"Will her husband approve of this expedition?"
"No, no, he must have gone to the sh.o.r.e, or Nannichette would not undertake it,--listen to what Mirabelle Marie says."
The fat woman had sunk exhausted on the doorstep of the yellow house.
"Nannichette, I be _deche_ if I go a step furder, till you gimme _checque chouse pour mouiller la langue_" (give me something to wet my tongue).
"All right," said Nannichette, in the soft, drawling tones that she had caught from the Indians, and she brought her out a pitcher of milk.
Mirabelle Marie put the pitcher to her lips, and gurgled over the milk a joyful thanksgiving that she had got away from the rough road, and the rougher wind, that raged like a bull; then she said, "Your husband is away?"
"No," said Nannichette, in some embarra.s.sment, "he ain"t, but come in."
Mirabelle Marie rose, and with her companions went into the house, while Bidiane and Claudine crept to the windows.
"Dear me, this is the best Indian house that I ever saw," said Bidiane, taking a survey, through the cheap lace curtains, of the sewing-machine, the cupboard of dishes, and the neat tables and chairs inside. Then she glided on in a voyage of discovery around the house, skirting the diminutive bedrooms, where half a dozen children lay snoring in comfortable beds, and finally arriving outside a shed, where a tall, slight Indian was on his knees, planing staves for a tub by the light of a lamp on a bracket above him.
His wife"s work lay on the floor. When not suffering from the gold fever, she twisted together the dried strips of maple wood and scented gra.s.ses, and made baskets that she sold at a good price.
The Indian did not move an eyelid, but he plainly saw Bidiane and Claudine, and wondered why they were not with the other women, who, in some uneasiness of mind, stood in the doorway, looking at him over each other"s shoulders.
After his brief nod and taciturn "Hullo, ladies," his wife said, "We go for walk in woods."
"What for you lie?" he said, in English, for the Micmacs of the Bay are accomplished linguists, and make use of three languages. "You go to dig gold," and he grunted contemptuously.
No one replied to him, and he continued, "Ladies, all religions is good.
I cannot say, you go h.e.l.l "cause you Catholic, an" I go heaven "cause I Protestant. All same with G.o.d, if you believe your religion. But your priesties not say to dig gold."
He took up the stave that he had laid down, and went on with his work of smoothing it, while the four "ladies," Mirabelle Marie, Suretta, Mosee-Delice, and his wife, appeared to be somewhat ashamed of themselves.
""Pon my soul an" body, there ain"t no harm in diggin" gold," said Mirabelle Marie. "That gives us fun."
"How many you be?" he asked.
"Four," said Nannichette, who was regarding her lord and master with some shyness; for stupid as she was, she recognized the fact that he was the more civilized being, and that the prosperity of their family was largely due to him.
The Indian"s liquid eyes glistened for an instant towards the window, where stood Bidiane and Claudine. "Take care, ladies, there be ghosties in the woods."
The four women laughed loudly, but in a shaky manner; then taking each a handful of raspberries, from a huge basketful that Nannichette offered them, and that was destined for the preserve pot on the morrow, they once more plunged into the dark woods.
Bidiane and Claudine restrained the leaping dog, and quietly followed them. The former could not conceal her delight when they came suddenly upon the lake. It lay like a huge, dusky mirror, turned up to the sky with a myriad stars piercing its gla.s.sy bosom.
"Stop," murmured Claudine.
The four women had paused ahead of them. They were talking and gesticulating violently, for all conversation was forbidden while digging. One word spoken aloud, and the charm would be broken, the spirit would rush angrily from the spot.
Therefore they were finishing up their ends of talk, and Nannichette was a.s.suring them that she would take them to the exact spot revealed to her in the vision.
Presently they set off in Indian file, Nannichette in front, as the one led by the spirit, and carrying with her a washed and polished spade, that she had brought from her home.
Claudine and Bidiane were careful not to speak, for there was not a word uttered now by the women in front, and the pursuers needed to follow them with extreme caution. On they went, climbing silently over the gra.s.sy mounds that were now the only reminders of the old French fort, or stumbling unexpectedly and noisily into the great heap of clam sh.e.l.ls, whose contents had been eaten by the hungry exiles of long ago.
At last they stopped. Nannichette stared up at the sky, down at the ground, across the lake on her right, and into the woods on her left, and then pointed to a spot in the gra.s.s, and with a magical flourish of the spade began to dig.