Rose A Charlitte Part 2

I entered into a great swoon, in which I seemed to be a young man again,--a stout and hearty man, a high liver, a proud swearer. I had on my uniform; there was a sword in my hand. I trod the deck of my stout ship, the _Confidence_. I heard the plash of waves against the sides, and I lifted my haughty eyes to heaven; I was afraid of none, no not the ruler of the universe.

Down under the planks that my foot pressed were prisoners, to wit, the Acadiens, that we were carrying to the port of Boston. What mattered their sufferings to me? I did not think of them. I called for a bottle of wine, and looked again over the sea, and wished for a fair wind so that we might the sooner enter our prisoners at the port of Boston, and make merry with our friends.

My son, as I, in my swoon, contemplated my former self, it is not in the power of mortal man to convey to you my awful scorn of what I then was,--my gross desires, my carnal wishes. I was no better than the beasts of the fields.

After a time, as I trod the deck, a young Acadien was brought before me. My officers said that he had been endeavouring to stir up a mutiny among the prisoners, and had urged them to make themselves masters of the ship and to cast us into the sea.

I called him a Papist dog. I asked him whether he wished to be thrown to the fishes. I could speak no French, but he knew somewhat of English, and he answered me proudly. He stretched out his hand to the smoking village of Grand Pre that we were leaving. He called to heaven for a judgment to be sent down on the English for their cruelty.

I struck him to the deck. He could not rise. I thought he would not; but in a brief s.p.a.ce of time he was dead, the last words on his lips a curse on me and my children, and a wish that in our dying moments we might suffer some of the torments he was then enduring. I had his body rolled into the sea, and I forgot him, my son. In the unrighteous work to which I had put my hand in the persecution of the French, a death more or less was a circ.u.mstance to be forgotten.

I was then a young man, and in all the years that have intervened I have been oblivious of him. The hand of the Lord has been laid upon me; I have been despoiled of my goods; nothing that I have done has prospered; and yet I give you my solemn word I never, until now, in these days of dying, have reflected that a curse has been upon me and will descend to you, my son, and to your sons after you.

Therefore, I leave this solemn request. Methinks I shall not lie easy in my narrow bed until that some of my descendants have made rest.i.tution to the seed of the Frenchman. I bethink me that he was one Le Noir, called the Fiery Frenchman of Grand Pre, from a birthmark on his face, but of his baptismal name I am ignorant.

That he was a married man I well know, for one cause of his complaint was that he had been separated from his wife and child, which thing was not of my doing, but by the orders of Governor Lawrence, who commanded the men and the women to be embarked apart. But seek them not in the city of Boston, my son, nor in that of Philadelphia, where his young wife was carried, but come back to this old Acadien land, whither the refugees are now tending. Ah me! it seems that I am yet a young man, that he is still alive,--the man whom I killed. Alas! I am old and about to die, but, my son, by the love and compa.s.sion of G.o.d, let me entreat you to carry out the wishes of your father. Seek the family of the Frenchman; make rest.i.tution, even to the half of your goods, or you will have no prosperity in this world nor any happiness in the world to come. If you are unable to carry out this, my last wish, let this letter be handed to your children.

Eschew riotous living, and fold in your heart my saying, that the forcible dispossession of the Acadien people from their land and properties was an unrighteous and unholy act, brought about chiefly by the l.u.s.t of hatred and greed on the part of that iniquitous man, Governor Lawrence, of this province, and his counsellors.

May G.o.d have mercy on my soul. Your father, soon to be a clod of clay,

JOHN MATTHEW NIMMO.

HALIFAX, May 9, 1800.

With a slight shudder Vesper dropped the letter back in the box and wiped the dust from his fingers. "Unhappy old man,--there is not the slightest evidence that his callous son Thomas paid any heed to his exhortations. I can imagine the contempt with which he would throw this letter aside; he would probably remark that his father had lost his mind. And yet was it a superst.i.tion about altering the fortunes of the family that made him shortly after exchange his father's grant of land in Nova Scotia for one in this State?" and he picked up another faded doc.u.ment, this one of parchment and containing a record of the transfer of certain estates in the vicinity of the town of Boston to Thomas Nimmo, removing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the State of Ma.s.sachusetts.

"Then Thomas got burnt for despising the commands of his father; but my poor sire,--where does his guilt come in? He did not know of the existence of this letter,--that I could swear, for with his kind heart and streak of romance he would have looked up this Acadien ghost and laid it. If I were also romantic, I should say it killed him. As it is, I shall stick to my present opinion that he killed himself by overwork.

"Now, shall I be cynical and let this thing go, or shall I, like a knight of the Middle Ages, or an adventurous fool of the present, set out in quest of the seed of the Fiery Frenchman? _Ciel!_ I have already decided. It is a floating feather to pursue, an occupation just serious enough for my convalescent state. _En route_, then, for Acadie," and he closed his eyes and sank into a reverie, which was, after the lapse of an hour, interrupted by the entrance of the colored boy with a handful of papers.

"Good boy, Henry," said his master, approvingly.

"Mis' Nimmo, she tole me to hurry," said the boy, with a flash of his resplendent ivories, "'cause she never like you to wait for nothing. So I jus' run down to Washington Street."

Vesper smiled, and took up one of the folders. "H'm, Evangeline route.

The Nova Scotians are smart enough to make capital out of the poem--Henry, come rub my left ankle, there is some rheumatism in it.

What is this? 'The Dominion Atlantic Railway have now completed their magnificent system to the Hub of the Universe by placing on the route between it and Nova Scotia a steamship named after one of the heirs-presumptive of the British throne.' Henry, where is the Hub of the Universe?"

Henry looked up from the hearth-rug. "I dunno, sir; ain't it heaven?"

"It ought to be," said the young man; and he went on, "'This steamship is a dream of beauty, with the lines of an exquisite yacht. Her appointments are as perfect as taste and science can suggest, in music-room, dining-room, smoking-room, parlor, staterooms, bathrooms, and all other apartments. The cabinet work is in solid walnut and oak, the softened light falling through domes and panels of stained gla.s.s, the upholstery is in figured and other velvets, the tapestries are of silk. There is a perfect _cuisine_, and a union of comfort and luxury throughout.'"

The young man laid down the folder. "How would you like to go to sea in that royal craft, Henry?"

"It sounds fine," said the boy, smacking his lips.

"No mention is made of seasickness, nor of going to the bottom. A pity it would be to waste all that finery on the fishes--don't rub quite so hard. Let me see," and he took up the folder again. "What days does she leave? Go to-morrow to the office, Henry, and engage the most comfortable stateroom on this bit of magnificence for next Thursday."

CHAPTER III.

FROM BOSTON TO ACADIE.

"For this is in the land of Acadie, The fairest place of all the earth and sea."

J. F. H.

It is always amusing to be among a crowd of people on the Lewis Wharf, in Boston, when a steamer is about to leave for the neighboring province of Nova Scotia. The provincials are so slow, so deliberate, so determined not to be hurried. The Americans are so brisk, so expeditious, so bewildering in the mult.i.tude of things they will accomplish in the briefest possible s.p.a.ce of time. They surround the provincials, they attempt to hurry them, to infuse a little more life into their exercises of volition, to convince them that a busy wharf is not the place to weigh arguments for or against a proposed course of action, yet the provincials will not be hurried; they stop to plan, consider, deliberate, and decide, and in the end they arrive at satisfactory conclusions without one hundredth part of the worry and vexation of soul which shortens the lives of their more nervous cousins, the Americans.

At noon, on the Thursday following his decision to go to Nova Scotia, Vesper Nimmo stood on the deck of the _Royal Edward_, a smile on his handsome face,--a shrewd smile, that deepened and broadened whenever he looked towards the place where stood his mother, with a fluffy white shawl wrapped around her throat, and the faithful Henry for a bodyguard.

Express wagons, piled high with towers of Babel in the shape of trunks that shook and quivered and threatened to fall on unsuspecting heads, rattled down and discharged their contents on the already congested wharf, where intending pa.s.sengers, escorting friends, custom officials, and wharf men were talking, gesticulating, admonishing, and escaping death in varied forms, such as by crushing, falling, squeezing, deaths by exhaustion, by kicks from nervous horse legs, or by fright from being swept into the convenient black pool of the harbor.

However, scorning the danger, the crowd talked and jabbered on, until, finally, the last bit of freight, the last bit of luggage, was on board.

A signal was given, the ambulance drew back,--the dark and mournful wagon from which, alas, at nearly every steamer's trip, a long, light box is taken, in which one Canadian is going home quite still and mute.

A swarm of stewards from the steamer descended upon their quarry, the pa.s.sengers, and a separation was made between the sheep and the foolish goats, in the company's eyes, who would not be persuaded to seek the fair Canadian pastures. Carefully the stewards herded and guarded their giddy sheep to the steamer, often turning back to recover one skipping behind for a last parley with the goats. At last they were all up the gangway, the gorgeous ship swung her princely nose to the stream, and Vesper Nimmo felt himself really off for Nova Scotia.

He waved an adieu to his mother, then drew back to avoid an onset of stolid, red-cheeked Canadian sheep and lambs, who pressed towards the railing, some with damp handkerchiefs at their eyes, others cheerfully exhorting the goats to write soon.

His eye fell on a delicate slip of a girl, with consumption written all over her shaking form; and, swinging on his heel, he went to stroll about the decks, and watch, with proud and pa.s.sionate concealed emotion, the yellow receding dome of the State House. He had been brought up in the shadow of that aegis. It was almost as sacred to him as the blue sky above, and not until he could no longer see it did he allow his eyes to wander over other points of interest of the historic harbor. How many times his st.u.r.dy New England forefathers had dropped their hoes to man the ships that sailed over these blue waters, to hew down the Agag of Acadie! What a bloodthirsty set they were in those days! Indians, English, French,--how they harried, and worried, and bit, and tore at each other!

He thoughtfully smoothed the little silky mustache that adorned his upper lip, and murmured, "Thank heaven, I go on a more peaceful errand."

Once out of the harbor, and feeling the white deck beneath his feet gracefully dipping to meet the swell of the ocean, he found a seat and drew a guide-book from his pocket. Of ancient Acadie he knew something, but of this modern Acadie he had, strange to say, felt no curiosity, although it lay at his very doors, until he had discovered the letter of his great-grandfather.

The day was warm and sunshiny. It was the third of June, and for some time he sat quietly reading and bathed in golden light. Then across his calm, peaceful state of content, stole a feeling scarcely to be described, and so faint that it was barely perceptible. He was not quite happy. The balm had gone from the air; the spirit of the writer, who so eloquently described the lure of the Acadien land, no longer communed with his. He read on, knowing what was coming, yet resolved not to yield until he was absolutely forced to do so.

In half an hour he had flung down his book, and was in his stateroom, face downward, his window wide open, his body gently swaying to and fro with the motion of the steamer, the salt air deliciously lapping his ears, the back of his neck, and his hands, but unable to get at his face, obstinately buried in the pillow.

"Sick, sir?" inquired a brisk voice, with a delicate note of suggestion.

Vesper uncovered one eye, and growled, "No,--shut that door."

The steward disappeared, and did not return for some hours, while Vesper's whole sensitive system pa.s.sed into a painless agony, the only movement he made being to turn himself over on his back, where he lay, apparently calm and happy, and serenely staring at the white ceiling of his dainty cell.

"Can I do anything for you, sir?" asked the steward's voice once more.

Vesper, who would not have spoken if he had been offered the _Royal Edward_ full of gold pieces, did not even roll an eyeball at him, but kept on gravely staring upward.

"Your collar's choking you, sir," said the man, coming forward; and he deftly slipped a stud from its place and laid it on the wash-stand.

"Shall I take off your boots?"

Vesper submitted to having his boots withdrawn, and his feet covered, with as much indifference as if they belonged to some other man, and continued to spend the rest of the day and the night in the same state of pa.s.sivity. Towards morning he had a vague wish to know the time, but it did not occur to him, any more than it would have occurred to a stone image, to put up his hand to the watch in his breast pocket.

Daylight came, then sunlight streaming into his room, and cheery sounds of voices without, but he did not stir. Not until the thrill of contact with the land went through the steamer did he spring to his feet, like a man restored to consciousness by galvanic action. He was the first pa.s.senger to reach the wharf, and the steward, who watched him going, remarked sarcastically that he was glad to see "that 'ere dead man come to life."