Rose A Charlitte Part 17

"I have heard of him often, often. The old ones spoke of it to me. His heart was broken,--the captain, who was more cruel than Winslow, called him a papist dog, and struck him down, and the sailors threw him into the sea. He laid a curse on the wicked captain, but I cannot remember his name."

"Did you ever hear anything of the wife and child of Etex LeNoir?"

"No," she said, absently, "there was only the husband Etex that I had heard of. Would not his wife come back to the Bay? I do not know," and she relapsed into the dullness from which her temporary excitement had roused her.

"He was called the Fiery Frenchman," she muttered, presently, but so low that Vesper had to lean forward to hear her. "The old ones said that there was a mark like flame on his forehead, and he was like fire himself."

"Agapit, is it not time that we embark?" said Rose, gliding from an inner room. "It will soon be dark."

Agapit sprang up. Vesper shook hands with Madame Kessy and her daughter, and politely a.s.sured them, in answer to their urgent request, that he would be sure to call again, then took his seat in the dog-cart, where in company with his new friends he was soon bowling quickly over a bit of smooth and newly repaired road.

Away ahead, under the trees, they soon heard s.n.a.t.c.hes of a lively song, and presently two young men staggered into view supporting each other, and having much difficulty in keeping to their side of the road.

Agapit, with angry mutterings, drove furiously by the young men, with his head well in the air, although they saluted him as their dear cousin from the Bay.

Rose did not speak, but she hung her head, and Vesper knew that she was blushing to the tips of the white ears inside her black handkerchief.

No one ventured a remark until they reached a place where four roads met, when Agapit e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, desperately, "The devil is also here!"

Vesper turned around. The sun had gone down, the twilight was nearly over, but he possessed keen sight and could plainly discover against the dull blue evening sky the figures of a number of men and boys, some of whom were balancing themselves on the top of a zigzag fence, while others stood with hands in their pockets,--all vociferously laughing and jeering at a man who staggered to and fro in their midst with clenched fists, and light shirt-sleeves spotted with red.

"This is abominable," said Agapit, in a rage, and he was about to lay his whip on Toochune's back when Vesper suggested mildly that he was in danger of running down some of his countrymen.

Agapit pulled up the horse with a jerk, and Rose immediately sprang to the road and ran up to the young man, who had plainly been fighting and was about to fight again.

Vesper slipped from his seat and stood by the wheel.

"Do not follow her," exclaimed Agapit; "they will not hurt her. They would beat you."

"I know it."

"She is my cousin, thou impatient one," pursued Agapit, irritably. "I would not allow her to be insulted."

"I know that, too," said Vesper, calmly, and he watched the young men springing off the fences and hurrying up to Rose, who had taken the pugilist by the hand.

"Isidore," she said, sorrowfully, and as unaffectedly as if they had been alone, "hast thou been fighting again?"

"It is her second cousin," growled Agapit; "that is why she interferes."

"_ecoute-moi, ecoute-moi_, Rose" (listen to me), stammered the young man in the blood-stained shirt. "They all set upon me. I was about to be ma.s.sacred. I struck out but a little, and I got some taps here and there. I was drunk at first, but I am not very drunk now."

"Poor Isidore, I will take thee home; come with me."

The crowd of men and boys set up a roar. They were quarrelsome and mischievous, and had not yet got their fill of rowdyism.

"_Va-t'ang, va-t'ang_" (go away), "Rose a Charlitte. We want no women here. Go home about thy business. If Big Fists wishes to fight, we will fight."

Among all the noisy, discordant voices this was the only insulting one, and Rose turned and fixed her mild gaze on the offender, who was one of the oldest men present, and the chief mischief-maker of the neighborhood. "But it is not well for all to fight one man," she said, gently.

"We fight one by one. Isidore is big,--he has never enough. Go away, or there will yet be a bigger row," and he added a sentence of gross abuse.

Vesper made a step forward, but Isidore, the young bully, who was of immense height and breadth, and a son of the old Acadienne that they had just quitted, was before him.

"You wish to fight, my friends," he said, jocularly; "here, take this,"

and, lifting his big foot, he quickly upset the offender, and kicked him towards some men in the crowd who were also relatives of Rose.

One of them sprang forward, and, with his dark face alight with glee at the chance to avenge the affront offered to his kinswoman, at once proceeded to beat the offender calmly and systematically, and to roll him under the fence.

Rose, in great distress, attempted to go to his rescue, but the young giant threw his arm around her. "This is only fun, my cousin. Thou must not spoil everything. Come, I will return with thee."

"_Nani_" (no), cried Agapit, furiously, "thou wilt not. Fit company art thou for strangers!"

Isidore stared confusedly at him, while Vesper settled the question by inviting him in the back seat and installing Rose beside him. Then he held out his arms to Narcisse, who had been watching the disturbance with drowsy interest, fearful only that the Englishman from Boston might leave him to take a hand in it.

As soon as Vesper mounted the seat beside him, Agapit jerked the reins, and set off at a rapid pace; so rapid that Vesper at first caught only s.n.a.t.c.hes of the dialogue carried on behind him, that was tearful on the part of Rose, and meek on that of Isidore.

Soon Agapit sobered down, and Rose's words could be distinguished. "My cousin, how canst thou? Think only of thy mother and thy wife; and the good priest,--suppose he had come!"

"Then thou wouldst have seen running like that of foxes," replied Isidore, in good-natured, semi-interested tones.

"Thou wast not born a drunkard. When sober thou art good, but there could not be a worse man when drunk. Such a pile of cursing words to go up to the sky,--and such a volley of fisting. Ah, how thou wast wounding Christ!"

Isidore held on tightly, for Agapit was still driving fast, and uttered an inaudible reply.

"Tell me where thou didst get that liquor," said Rose.

"It was a stolen cask, my cousin."

"Isidore!"

"But I did not steal it. It came from thy charming Bay. Thou didst not know that, shortly ago, a captain sailed to Sleeping Water with five casks of rum. He hired a man from the Concession to help him hide them, but the man stole one cask. Imagine the rage of the captain, but he could not prosecute, for it was smuggled. Since then we have fun occasionally."

"Who is that bad man? If I knew where was his cask, I would take a little nail and make a hole in it."

"Rose, couldst thou expect me to tell thee?"

"Yes," she said, warmly. Then, remembering that she had been talking English to his French, she suddenly relapsed into low, swift sentences in her own tongue, which Vesper could not understand. He caught their import, however. She was still inveighing against the sin of drunkenness and was begging him to reform, and her voice did not flag until they reached his home, where his wife--a young woman with magnificent eyes and a straight, queenly figure--stood by the gate.

"_Bon soir_ (good evening), Claudine," called out Agapit. "We have brought home Isidore, who, hearing that a distinguished stranger was about to pa.s.s through the Concession, thoughtfully put himself on exhibition at the four roads. You had better keep him at home until _La Guerriere_ goes back to Saint Pierre."

"It was _La Guerriere_ that brought the liquor," said Rose, suddenly, to Isidore.

He did not contradict her, and she said, firmly, "Never shall that captain darken my doors again."

The young Acadien beauty gave Vesper a fleeting glance, then she said, bitterly, "It should rather be Saint Judas, for from there the evil one sends stuff to torture us women--Here enter," and half scornfully, half affectionately, she extended a hand to her huge husband, who was making a wavering effort to reach the gateway.

He clung to her as if she had been an anchor, and when she asked him what had happened to his shirt he stuttered, regretfully, "Torn, Claudine,--torn again."

"How many times should one mend a shirt?" she asked, turning her big blazing eyes on Rose.