"Does he know anything about machines?"
"He once sold sewing-machines, and he also would show how to work them."
"The very man,--we will give him the fifty dollars and tell him to pick you out a good wheel and bring it back in the schooner."
"Then there will be no duty to pay," said Claudine, joyfully.
"H"m,--well, perhaps we had better pay the duty," said Bidiane; "it won"t be so very much. It is a great temptation to smuggle things from the States, but I know we shouldn"t. By the way, I must tell Mirabelle Marie a good joke I just heard up the Bay. My aunt,--where are you?"
Mirabelle Marie came into the room and seated herself near Claudine.
"Marc a Jaddus a Dominique"s little girl gave him away," said Bidiane, laughingly. "She ran over to the custom-house in Belliveau"s Cove and told the man what lovely things her papa had brought from Boston, in his schooner, and the customs man hurried over, and Marc had to pay--I must tell you, too, that I bought some white ribbon for Alzelie Gauterot, while I was in the Cove," and Bidiane pulled a little parcel from her pocket.
Mirabelle Marie was intensely interested. Ever since the affair of the ghosts, which Bidiane had given up trying to persuade her was not ghostly, but very material, she had become deeply religious, and took her whole family to ma.s.s and vespers every Sunday.
Just now the children of the parish were in training for their first communion. She watched the little creatures daily trotting up the road towards the church to receive instruction, and she hoped that her boys would soon be among them. In the small daughter of her next-door neighbor, who was to make her first communion with the others, she took a special interest, and in her zeal had offered to make the dress, which kind office had devolved upon Bidiane and Claudine.
"Also, I have been thinking of a scheme to save money," said Bidiane.
"For a veil we can just take off this fly screen," and she pointed to white netting on the table. "No one but you and Claudine will know. It is fine and soft, and can be freshly done up."
"_Mon jheu!_ but you are smart, and a real Acadien brat," said her aunt.
"Claudine, will you go to the door? Some divil rings,--that is, some lady or gentleman," she added, as she caught a menacing glance from Bidiane.
"If you keep a hotel you must always be glad to see strangers," said Bidiane, severely. "It is money in your pocket."
"But such a trouble, and I am sleepy."
"If you are not careful you will have to give up this inn,--however, I must not scold, for you do far better than when I first came."
"It is the political gentleman," said Claudine, entering, and noiselessly closing the door behind her. "He who has been going up and down the Bay for a day or two. He wishes supper and a bed."
"_Sakerje!_" muttered Mirabelle Marie, rising with an effort. "If I was a man I guess I"d let pollyticks alone, and stay to hum. I s"ppose he"s got a nest with some feathers in it. I guess you"d better ask him out, though. There"s enough to start him, ain"t there?" and she waddled out to the kitchen.
"Ah, the political gentleman," said Bidiane. "It was he for whom I helped Maggie Guilbaut pick blackberries, yesterday. They expected him to call, and were going to offer him berries and cream."
Mirabelle Marie, on going to the kitchen, had left her niece sitting composedly at the table, only lifting an eyelid to glance at the door by which the stranger would enter; but when she returned, as she almost immediately did, to ask the gentleman whether he would prefer tea to coffee, a curious spectacle met her gaze.
Bidiane, with a face that was absolutely furious, had sprung to her feet and was grasping the sides of her bicycle skirt with clenched hands, while the stranger, who was a lean, dark man, with a pale, rather pleasing face, when not disfigured by a sarcastic smile, stood staring at her as if he remembered seeing her before, but had some difficulty in locating her among his acquaintances.
Upon her aunt"s appearance, Bidiane found her voice. "Either I or that man must leave this house," she said, pointing a scornful finger at him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""EITHER THAT MAN OR I MUST LEAVE THIS HOUSE.""]
Mirabelle Marie, who was not easily shocked, was plainly so on the present occasion. "Whist, Bidiane," she said, trying to pull her down on her chair; "this is the pollytickle genl"man,--county member they call "im."
"I do not care if he is member for fifty counties," said Bidiane, in concentrated scorn. "He is a libeller, a slanderer, and I will not stay under the same roof with him,--and to think it was for him I picked the blackberries,--we cannot entertain you here, sir."
The expression of disagreeable surprise with which the man with the unpleasant smile had regarded her gave way to one of cool disdain. "This is your house, I think?" he said, appealing to Mirabelle Marie.
"Yessir," she said, putting down her tea-caddy, and arranging both her hands on her hips, in which position she would hold them until the dispute was finished.
"And you do not refuse me entertainment?" he went on, with the same unpleasant smile. "You cannot, I think, as this is a public house, and you have no just reason for excluding me from it."
"My aunt," said Bidiane, flashing around to her in a towering pa.s.sion, "if you do not immediately turn this man out-of-doors, I shall never speak to you again."
"I be _deche_," sputtered the confused landlady, "if I see into this hash. Look at "em, Claudine. This genl"man"ll be mad if I do one thing, an" Biddy"ll take my head off if I do another. _Sakerje!_ You"ve got to fit it out yourselves."
"Listen, my aunt," said Bidiane, excitedly, and yet with an effort to control herself. "I will tell you what happened. On my way here I was in a hotel in Halifax. I had gone there with some people from the steamer who were taking charge of me. We were on our way to our rooms. We were all speaking English. No one would think that there was a French person in the party. We pa.s.sed a gentleman, this gentleman, who stood outside his door; he was speaking to a servant. "Bring me quickly," he said, "some water,--some hot water. I have been down among the evil-smelling French of Clare. I must go again, and I want a good wash first.""
Mirabelle Marie was by no means overcome with horror at the recitation of this trespa.s.s on the part of her would-be guest; but Claudine"s eyes blazed and flashed on the stranger"s back until he moved slightly, and shrugged his shoulders as if he felt their power.
"Imagine," cried Bidiane, "he called us "evil-smelling,"--we, the best housekeepers in the world, whose stoves shine, whose kitchen floors are as white as the beach! I choked with wrath. I ran up to him and said, "_Moi, je suis Acadienne_"" (I am an Acadienne). "Did I not, sir?"
The stranger lifted his eyebrows indulgently and satirically, but did not speak.
"And he was astonished," continued Bidiane. "_Ma foi_, but he was astonished! He started, and stared at me, and I said, "I will tell you what you are, sir, unless you apologize.""
"I guess yeh apologized, didn"t yeh?" said Mirabelle Marie, mildly.
"The young lady is dreaming," said the stranger, coolly, and he seated himself at the table. "Can you let me have something to eat at once, madame? I have a brother who resembles me; perhaps she saw him."
Bidiane grew so pale with wrath, and trembled so violently that Claudine ran to support her, and cried, "Tell us, Bidiane, what did you say to this bad man?"
Bidiane slightly recovered herself. "I said to him, "Sir, I regret to tell you that you are lying.""
The man at the table surveyed her in intense irritation. "I do not know where you come from, young woman," he said, hastily, "but you look Irish."
"And if I were not Acadien I would be Irish," she said, in a low voice, "for they also suffer for their country. Good-by, my aunt, I am going to Rose a Charlitte. I see you wish to keep this story-teller."
"Hole on, hole on," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mirabelle Marie in distress. "Look here, sir, you"ve gut me in a fix, and you"ve gut to git me out of it."
"I shall not leave your house unless you tell me to do so," he said, in cool, quiet anger.
Bidiane stretched out her hands to him, and with tears in her eyes exclaimed, pleadingly, "Say only that you regret having slandered the Acadiens. I will forget that you put my people to shame before the English, for they all knew that I was coming to Clare. We will overlook it. Acadiens are not ungenerous, sir."
"As I said before, you are dreaming," responded the stranger, in a restrained fury. "I never was so put upon in my life. I never saw you before."
Bidiane drew herself up like an inspired prophetess. "Beware, sir, of the wrath of G.o.d. You lied before,--you are lying now."
The man fell into such a repressed rage that Mirabelle Marie, who was the only unembarra.s.sed spectator, inasmuch as she was weak in racial loves and hatreds, felt called upon to decide the case. The gentleman, she saw, was the story-teller. Bidiane, who had not been particularly truthful as a child, had yet never told her a falsehood since her return from France.
"I"m awful sorry, sir, but you"ve gut to go. I brought up this leetle girl, an" her mother"s dead."
The gentleman rose,--a gentleman no longer, but a plain, common, very ugly-tempered man. These Acadiens were actually turning him, an Englishman, out of the inn. And he had thought the whole people so meek, so spiritless. He was doing them such an honor to personally canva.s.s them for votes for the approaching election. His astonishment almost overmastered his rage, and in a choking voice he said to Mirabelle Marie, "Your house will suffer for this,--you will regret it to the end of your life."
"I know some business," exclaimed Claudine, in sudden and irrepressible zeal. "I know that you wish to make laws, but will our men send you when they know what you say?"
He s.n.a.t.c.hed his hat from the seat behind him. His election was threatened. Unless he chained these women"s tongues, what he had said would run up and down the Bay like wildfire,--and yet a word now would stop it. Should he apologize? A devil rose in his heart. He would not.