"Because we have court near by, every year. The judge who comes exists in that room. It is a most stirabout time, for many witnesses and lawyers come. Perhaps monsieur pa.s.sed the court-house and saw a lady looking through the bars?"
"No, I did not. Who is the lady?"
"A naughty one, who sold liquor. She had no license, she could not pay her fine, therefore she must look through those iron bars," and Mrs.
Rose a Charlitte shuddered.
Vesper looked interested, and presently she went on: "But Clothilde Dubois has some mercies,--one rocking-chair, her own feather bed, some dainties to eat, and many friends to visit and talk through the bars."
"Is there much drinking among the Acadiens on this Bay?" asked Vesper.
"They do not drink at all," she said, stoutly.
"Really,--then you never see a drunken man?"
"I never see a drunken man," rejoined his pretty hostess.
"Then I suppose there are no fights."
"There are no fights among Acadiens. They are good people. They go to ma.s.s and vespers on Sunday. They listen to their good priests. In the evening one amuses oneself, and on Monday we rise early to work. There are no dances, no fights."
Vesper"s meditative glance wandered through the window to a square of gra.s.s outside, where some little girls in pink cotton dresses were playing croquet. He was drinking his coffee and watching their graceful behavior, when his attention was recalled to the room by hearing Mrs.
Rose a Charlitte say to her child, "There, Narcisse, is a morsel for thy trees."
The little boy had come from the corner where he had sat like a patient mouse, and, with some excitement, was heaping a plate with the food that Vesper had rejected.
"Not so fast, little one," said his mother, with an apologetic glance at the stranger. "Take these plates to the pantry, it will be better."
"Ah, but they will have a good dinner to-day," said the child. "I will give most to the French willows, my mother. In the morning it will all be gone."
"But, my treasure, it is the dogs that get it, not the trees."
"No, my mother," he drawled, "you do not know. In the night the long branches stretch out their arms; they sweep it up," and he clasped his tiny hands in ecstasy.
Vesper"s curiosity was aroused, although he had not understood half that the child had said. "Does he like trees?" he asked.
Rose a Charlitte made a puzzled gesture. "Sir, to him the trees, the flowers, the gra.s.s, are quite alive. He will not play croquet with those dear little girls lest his shoes hurt the gra.s.s. If I would allow, he would take all the food from the house and lay under the trees and the flowers. He often cries at night, for he says the hollyhocks and sunflowers are hungry, because they are tall and lean. He suffers terribly to see the big spruces and pines cut down and dragged to the sh.o.r.e. The doctor says he should go away for awhile, but it is a puzzle, for I cannot endure to have him leave me."
Vesper gave more attention than he yet had done to the perusal of the child"s sensitive yet strangely composed face. Then he glanced at the mother. Did she understand him?
She did. In her deep blue eyes he could readily perceive the quick flash of maternal love and sympathy whenever her boy spoke to her. She was young, too, extremely young, to have the care of rearing a child. She must have been married in her cradle, and with that thought in mind he said, "Do Acadien women marry at an early age?"
"Not more so than the English," said Mrs. Rose, with a shrug of her graceful, sloping shoulders, "though I was but young,--but seventeen.
But my husband wished it so. He had built this house. He had been long ready for marriage," and she glanced at the wall behind Vesper.
The young man turned around. Just behind him hung the enlarged photograph of a man of middle age,--a man who must have been many years older than his young wife, and whose death had, evidently, not left a permanent blank in her affections.
In a nave, innocent way she imparted a few more particulars to Vesper with regard to her late husband, and, as he rose from the table, she followed him to the parlor and said, gently, "Perhaps monsieur will register."
Vesper sat down before the visitors" book on the table, and, taking up a pen, wrote, "Vesper L. Nimmo, _The Evening News_, Boston."
After he had pressed the blotting-paper on his words, and pushed the book from him, his landlady stretched out her hand in childlike curiosity. "Vesper," she said,--"that name is beautiful; it is in a hymn to the blessed virgin; but _Evening News_,--surely it means not a journal?"
Vesper a.s.sured her that it did.
The young French widow"s face fell. She gazed at him with a sudden and inexplicable change of expression, in which there was something of regret, something of reproach. "_Il faut que je m"en aille_" (I must go away), she murmured, reverting to her native language, and she swiftly withdrew.
Vesper lifted his level eyebrows and languidly strolled out to the veranda. "The Acadienne evidently entertains some prejudice against newspaper men. If my dear father were here he would immediately proceed, in his inimitable way, to clear it from her mind. As for me, I am not sufficiently interested," and he listlessly stretched himself out on a veranda settle.
"Monsieur," said a little voice, in deliberate French, "will you tell me a story about a tree?"
Vesper understood Narcisse this time, and, taking him on his knee, he pointed to the wooded hills across the Bay and related a wonderful tale of a city beyond the sun where the trees were not obliged to stand still in the earth from morning till night, but could walk about and visit men and women, who were their brothers and sisters, and sometimes the young trees would stoop down and play with the children.
CHAPTER V.
AGAPIT, THE ACADIEN.
"The music of our life is keyed To moods that sweep athwart the soul; The strain will oft in gladness roll, Or die in sobs and tears at need; But sad or gay, "tis ever true That, e"en as flowers from light take hue, The key is of our mood the deed."
AMINTA. CORNELIUs...o...b..IEN, _Archbishop of Halifax_.
After Mrs. Rose a Charlitte left Vesper she pa.s.sed through the kitchen, and, ascending an open stairway leading to regions above, was soon at the door of the highest room in the house.
Away up there, sitting at a large table drawn up to the window which commanded an extensive view of the Bay, sat a st.u.r.dy, black-haired young man. As Mrs. Rose entered the room she glanced about approvingly--for she was a model housekeeper--at the neatly arranged books and papers on tables and shelves, and then said, regretfully, and in French, "There is another of them."
"Of them,--of whom?" said the young man, peevishly, and in the same language.
"Of the foolish ones who write," continued Mrs. Rose, with gentle mischief; "who waste much time in scribbling."
"There are people whose brains are continually stewing over cooking-stoves," said the young man, scornfully; "they are incapable of rising higher."
"La, la, Agapit," she said, good-naturedly. "Do not be angry with thy cousin. I came to warn thee lest thou shouldst talk freely to him and afterward be sorry."
The young man threw his pen on the table, pushed back his chair, and, springing to his feet, began to pace excitedly up and down the room, gesticulating eagerly as he talked.
"When fine weather comes," he exclaimed, "strangers flock to the Bay. We are glad to see them,--all but these abominable idiots. Therefore when they arrive let the frost come, let us have hail, wind, and snow to drive them home, that we may enjoy peace."
"But unfortunately in June we have fine weather," said Mrs. Rose.
"I will insult him," said her black-haired cousin, wildly. "I will drive him from the house," and he stood on tiptoe and glared in her face.
"No, no; thou wilt do nothing of the sort, Agapit."
"I will," he said, distractedly. "I will, I will, I will."
"Agapit," said the young woman, firmly, "if it were not for the strangers I should have only crusts for my child, not good bread and b.u.t.ter, therefore calm thyself. Thou must be civil to this stranger."