Amy in Acadia Part 11

"Oh, he was very brave, and the first exile to land in Clare. He and his wife came across the bay in a little boat, bringing their baby too, and they landed safely on the sh.o.r.e that you can see from the window. They had a terrible pa.s.sage--and to think to-day that some people fear to cross the bay to St. John, even in a steamboat! At first they did have nothing, but they cut wood, and soon other Acadians joined them who had walked all the way around on land."

"Pierre," interposed Amy, "you describe things very well; what do you intend to be when you grow up?"

A shadow crossed Pierre's face. "I should like to be a sailor, and then a great captain, but I am not strong enough, and I shall never grow big; so I think I may be a teacher, and that is why I take trouble to speak and write English."

"You should be here," interrupted Madame Bourque, whose mind still dwelt on the Acadians, "on the fifteenth of August; that is the day of the return from exile that all the people in Clare celebrate."

"We shall hardly be in this part of the country then, Madame Bourque,"

responded Amy, "but we shall try to know all we can about the early Acadians before we leave Little Brook. But, Pierre," added Amy, "you haven't told us all that you know, have you? Haven't you some stories that your mother or grandmother has told you?"

"One about the cane I like much."

"Then tell it to us."

"Well, there was one of our family, a great-grand-uncle, I think, who lived down near Cape Sable before the exile; one time he was very kind to a shipwrecked captain and took him into his house and gave him clothes and food; then when my relative was driven from home they took him to Boston, and he had to wander about, begging his bread, for he could not speak English. And then he and his three sons with him were put in jail; then the captain whom he had been kind to heard that these Frenchmen were in jail, and, remembering the kindness he had had, went to visit the prisoners. How surprised he was to find his old acquaintance who had helped him after the shipwreck! My relative was glad to see him too. Then the captain went to the governor and told him about the kind Frenchman who was in jail, and the governor said to bring him before him and perhaps he would pardon him. As my relative had no clothes fit to wear before the governor, the captain bought him a beautiful suit and a cane with a large head. Then the governor, when he saw my grandfather, pardoned him and his three sons, and they stayed in Boston several years, until the Peace, when they all came back to Nova Scotia. I know this story is true, because I have seen the cane, which one of my cousins owns in Pubnico."

"Do you think that is true?" whispered Priscilla to Martine.

"Oh, true enough; it certainly is not very exciting. It has been handed down so long that the point is evidently lost."

Pierre, once started, continued to tell many stories of the hardships borne by the early Acadians, beside which the tale of Evangeline seemed almost cheerful.

"Now, Priscilla," said Martine, when Pierre paused, "you must admit that the English don't show themselves in a very good light compared with the Acadians. Did you ever hear of such cruelty?"

"There must have been some cause for it," rejoined Priscilla, stoutly; "we have heard only one side thus far. Perhaps the Acadians themselves were a little in the wrong."

"They certainly were not perfect," interposed Amy, taking part in the discussion, "as you will admit when you have read their history more carefully. We have not time to go into things more fully now, and I have thought that Grand Pre would be the best place for our study of the causes leading to the exile. It's putting the cart before the horse to talk too much of the effects before we know the causes."

Had Pierre exactly understood Amy he might have entered into a discussion with her, but for the moment he had run to the front door to admit Madame Bourque's little daughters, whom he had seen entering the yard. When he was again in the room Madame Bourque once more joined the group.

"How does it happen, Madame Bourque," asked Martine, mischievously, "that your hotel is the Hotel Paris? You should have named it 'Acadia'

or 'Evangeline,' or something like that."

"Ah," responded Madame Bourque, "it is that my husband is a Frenchman, from Paris, and I like my children not to forget that. Some day, when they grow up, they shall go to Paris."

"Have Acadians any real love for France?" asked Amy. "It is certainly a long, long time since their ancestors left it."

"Yes, indeed," replied Madame Bourque, "just as the Englishman always loves England, or the Irishman Ireland; they are still strangers in a strange land, though they must call the English Queen their queen," she concluded sentimentally. "Some Acadians go back to France to study, and some French boys come out to the college at Church Point, and one of them--ah, it is so romantic!--married an Acadienne a few years ago."

"Oh, tell us about it," exclaimed Martine; "I love anything romantic."

"Well, then," said Madame Bourque, "there was such a pretty girl at Church Point in the convent, and this youth was sent by his parents to study at the College of St. Anne. He fell in love with the pretty girl and would marry her, and oh, his father and mother they felt so bad, for they thought Acadians were something like Indians; and so they hurried out to Nova Scotia, and when they saw the girl they fell in love with her too, and knew she was no savage, and say their son can marry her.

But the girl would not leave her people, and as the son would not give up the girl, the parents decided to come to Acadia to live, for he was an only son and they were rich. So they have bought much land up beyond Weymouth, and they call it New France. They have a great mill where they cut timber, and a railroad of their own twenty miles long, by which they send it to the sea, and good houses and electric lights--all on account of a pretty Acadienne."

"That's just the kind of story I like," cried Martine. "I suppose history is just as true, but someway I have more interest in things that are happening to-day."

Madame Bourque now left the room to make arrangements for the early dinner. She had foretold that the fog would lift before noon, and accordingly Priscilla, looking out the window, was not surprised to catch a fleeting glimpse of the sun through an opening in the veil of mist.

"We'll take your word that the sun will shine," exclaimed Amy, "and I'll run upstairs and ask mamma if she will drive this afternoon. I imagine that the most there is to be seen is at Church Point, and the sooner we go there the better."

Madame Bourque, when asked, promised to have two carriages ready early in the afternoon, for Amy had not only invited Pierre to dinner, but intended to take him to drive with her.

"Mamma," said Amy, as she gave her mother an account of the morning, "you will find Madame Bourque very amusing. She evidently believes the Acadians to be the salt of the earth; but though I sympathize with their sufferings, I do not believe they were quite the superior beings that she paints them."

"It might be unkind," replied Mrs. Redmond, "to suggest that this is part of her stock in trade; the more remarkable she can represent the old Acadians to have been, the more interested will her guests be in the places a.s.sociated with them. They were a good, honest people."

"But they were peasants, were they not, mamma? You would think to hear her talk that they were very near n.o.bility."

"Oh, among the Acadians of to-day are doubtless many descendants of men of good family in France. Indeed, some of them can claim for ancestors Charles de la Tour and Baron D'Entremont; but the peasant blood is in the ascendant, and the strain of n.o.bility must be very slight."

At the dinner-table Pierre won Mrs. Redmond's heart by the gentleness of his manner, and she told Martine that Amy's protege would be a close rival of hers.

"No, indeed," replied Martine; "no one can rival Yvonne. Just think of her voice and her little curls and her pink cheeks."

"I'll admit that Pierre lacks these characteristics, though all in all they would hardly enhance his value. From what Amy says, however, I should judge that Pierre, even if he has neither curls nor pink cheeks, has a voice that is very effective when he uses it in telling stories."

Fearing that Pierre might overhear these personalities, Mrs. Redmond changed the conversation. "Amy," she said in a somewhat louder voice, "where do you suppose Fritz is now?"

"Oh, if Pubnico is as fascinatingly French as he expected it to be, he is probably there still. I doubt if he will be better entertained than we have been."

"I almost wish he were with us," rejoined Mrs. Redmond, "for he is always a fund of entertainment in himself; I have thought of him many times this dull morning, and I hope that we shall find a letter from him awaiting us at Digby."

If Amy agreed with her mother, she did not so express herself at this moment; yet if the truth were known, it must be said that more than once since their parting at Yarmouth she had regretted that she had not at least given Fritz a chance to join their party.

When the carriages came to the door in the afternoon Amy recognized them as having formed part of the funeral procession; they were shabby, with hard seats, and the horses, as well as the vehicles, looked as if they had seen better days. It was arranged that Amy and Pierre should go in the small carriage, as Madame Bourque's husband a.s.sured them that the horse was perfectly safe for a lady to drive. "Ah, he could not run away!"

"I should think not," said Amy. "If he manages to carry us even the three miles to Church Point I shall be surprised; he seems so dispirited that I imagine the funeral has made more impression on him than on Madame Bourque herself."

Mrs. Redmond, Priscilla, and Martine were in the second carriage, and Madame Bourque was the driver.

Amy noticed in gardens and windows fewer hollyhocks, oleanders, and other bright flowers than she had seen at Meteghan. The houses, too, were painted in less bright colors, and the village street had a less stirring appearance.

Pierre was a good cicerone; he pointed out near the edge of the sea the spot where the first of the returning exiles had landed. He also showed Amy a little one-story house on a slight elevation, said to be the oldest in the town, and to date but little later than the landing.

"It is hard," he said in his precise way, "to imagine that it was all forest here in those first years, since now there is hardly a tree in sight except the fruit trees in the orchards. The first comers had large grants of land from the government; thus the English tried to make up for the wrong they had done."

"But the farms are very small now," ventured Amy. "The yards are so close together."

"Ah, yes, that is it; each father had many children and divided his land among his sons, and as every one wanted his house to be on the village street, they have kept it up, cutting it up into long narrow strips, some of them running back one or two miles; and away at the end of the strips there are still forests that are worth money."

Some time before they reached Church Point, the lighthouse and the college buildings were seen in imposing outline in the distance.

Their horse justified Amy's forebodings, and when they overtook Madame Bourque and her party the latter were standing near a monument before the large building that Pierre had said was the College of St. Anne.

Amy, though undisturbed by Martine's gibes at the slowness of her steed, was glad enough to get out of the carriage. Both horses were left in charge of a boy whom Madame Bourque knew, while the sight-seers started to walk to the shrines of the Acadians--for by this term did Madame Bourque describe the burying-ground and site of the early houses.

"It is not a long walk," the voluble Frenchwoman had explained, "unless you go out to the lighthouse, for which we have not time to-day."

Priscilla lingered behind the others to copy the inscription on the monument. It was in honor of the Abbe Sigogne, to whom the Acadians of Clare owe more than to any other one person.