Rose A Charlitte Part 3

Vesper was himself again when his feet touched the sh.o.r.e. He looked about him, saw the bright little town of Yarmouth, black rocks, a blue harbor, and a glorious sky. His contemplation of the landscape over, he reflected that he was faint from hunger. He turned his back on the steamer, where his fellow pa.s.sengers had recently breakfasted at fine tables spread under a ceiling of milky white and gold, and hurried to a modest eating-house near by from which a savory smell of broiled steak and fried potatoes floated out on the morning air.

He entered it, and after a hasty wash and brush-up ate his breakfast with frantic appet.i.te. He now felt that he had received a new lease of life, and b.u.t.toning his collar up around his neck, for the temperature was some degrees lower than that of his native city, he hurried back to the wharf, where the pa.s.sengers and the customs men were quarrelling as if they had been enemies for life.

With ingratiating and politic calmness he pointed out his trunk and bicycle, a.s.sured the suspicious official that although he was an American he was honest and had nothing to sell and nothing dutiable in the former, and that he had not the slightest objection to paying the thirty per cent deposit required on the latter; then, a prey to inward laughter at the enlivening spectacle of open trunks and red faces, he proceeded to the railway station, looking about him for other signs that he was in a foreign country.

Nova Scotia was very like Maine so far. Here were the Maine houses, the Maine trees and rocks, even the Maine wild flowers by the side of the road. He thoughtfully boarded the train, scrutinized the comfortable parlor-car, and, after the lapse of half an hour, decided that he was not in Maine, for, if he had been, the train would certainly have started.

As he was making this reflection, a dapper individual, in light trousers, a shiny hat, and with the indescribable air of being a travelling salesman, entered the car where Vesper sat in solitary grandeur.

Vesper slightly inclined his head, and the stranger, dropping a neat leather bag in the seat next him, observed, "We had a good pa.s.sage."

"Very good," replied Vesper.

"n.o.body sick," pursued the dapper individual, taking off his hat, brushing it, and carefully replacing it on his head.

"I should think not," returned Vesper; then he consulted his watch. "We are late in starting."

"We're always late," observed the newcomer, tartly. "This is your first trip down here?"

Vesper, with the reluctance of his countrymen to admit that they have done or are doing something for the first time, did not contradict his statement.

"I've been coming to this province for ten years," said his companion.

"I represent Stone and Warrior."

Vesper knew Stone and Warrior's huge dry-goods establishment, and had due respect for the opinion of one of their travellers.

"And when we start we don't go," said the dry-goods man. "This train doesn't dare show its nose in Halifax before six o'clock, so she's just got to put in the time somewhere. Later in the season they'll clap on the Flying Bluenose, which makes them think they're flying through the air, because she spurts and gets in two hours earlier. How far are you going?"

"I don't know; possibly to Grand Pre."

"A pretty country there, but no big farms,--kitchen-gardening compared with ours."

"That is where the French used to be."

"Yes, but there ain't one there now. The most of the French in the province are down here."

Vesper let his surprised eyes wander out through the car window.

"Pretty soon we'll begin to run through the woods. There'll be a shanty or two, a few decent houses and a station here and there, and you'd think we were miles from nowhere, but at the same time we're running abreast of a village thirty-five miles long."

"That is a good length."

"The houses are strung along the sh.o.r.es of this Bay," continued the salesman, leaning over and tapping the map spread on Vesper's knee. "The Bay is forty miles long."

"Why didn't they build the railway where the village is?"

"That's Nova Scotia," said the salesman, drily. "Because the people were there, they put the railroad through the woods. They beat the Dutch."

"Can't they make money?"

"Like the mischief, if they want to," and the salesman settled back in his seat and put his hands in his pockets. "It makes me smile to hear people talking about these green Nova Scotians. They'll jump ahead of you in a bargain as quick as a New Yorker when they give their minds to it. But I'll add 'em up in one word,--they don't care."

Vesper did not reply, and, after a minute's pause his companion went on, with waxing indignation. "They ought to have been born in the cannibal isles, every man Jack of 'em, where they could sit outdoors all day and pick up cocoanuts or eat each other. Upon my life, you can stand in the middle of Halifax, which is their capital city, and shy a stone at half a dozen banks and the post-office, and look down and see gra.s.s growing between the bricks at your feet."

"Very unprogressive," murmured Vesper.

The salesman relented. "But I've got some good chums there, and I must say they've got a lot of soft soap,--more than we have."

"That is, better manners?"

"Exactly; but"--and he once more hardened his heart against the Nova Scotians,--"they've got more time than we have. There ain't so many of 'em. Look at our Boston women at a bargain-counter,--you've got a lot of curtains at four dollars a pair. You can't sell 'em. You run 'em up to six dollars and advertise, 'Great drop on ten-dollar curtains.' The women rush to get 'em. How much time have they to be polite? About as much as a pack of wolves."

"What is the population of Halifax?" asked Vesper.

"About forty thousand," said the salesman, lolling his head on the back of the seat, and running his sentences as glibly from his lips as if he were reciting a lesson, "and a sly, sleepy old place it is, with lots of money in it, and people pretending they are poor. Suburbs fine, but the city dirty from the soft coal they burn. A board fence around every lot you could spread a handkerchief on,--so afraid neighbors will see into their back yards. If they'd knock down their fences, pick up a little of the trash in the streets, and limit the size of their hotel keys, they'd get on."

"Are there any French people there?"

The salesman was not interested in the French. "No," he said, "not that I ever heard of. They could make lots of money there," he went on, with enthusiasm, "if they'd wake up. You know there's an English garrison, and our girls like the military; but these blamed provincials, though they've got a big pot of jam, won't do anything to draw our rich flies, not even as much as to put up a bathing-house. They don't care a continental.

"There's a hotel beyond Halifax where a big excursion from New York used to go every year. Last year the manager said, 'If you don't clean up your old hotel, and put a decent boat on the lake, you'll never see me again.' The hotel proprietor said, 'I guess this house is clean enough for us, and we haven't been spilt out of the boat yet, and you and your excursion can go to Jericho.' So the excursion goes to Jericho now, and the hotel man gets more time for sleep."

"Have you ever been in this French village?" asked Vesper.

"No," and the salesman stifled a yawn. "I only call at the princ.i.p.al towns, where the big stores are. Good Lord! I wish those stick-in-the-muds would come up from the wharf. If I knew how to run an engine I'd be off without 'em," and he strolled to the car door. "It's as quiet as death down there. The pa.s.sengers must have chopped up the train-hands and thrown 'em in the water. If my wife made up her mind to move to this province, I'd die in ten days, for I'd have so much time to think over my sins. Glory hallelujah, here they come!" and he returned to his seat. "The whole tribe of 'em, edging along as if they were a funeral procession and we were the corpses on ahead. We're off," he said, jocularly, to Vesper, and he kicked out his little dapper legs, stuck his ticket in the front of his shiny hat, and sank into a seat, where he was soon asleep.

Vesper was rather out of his reckoning. It had not occurred to him, in spite of Longfellow's a.s.surance about naught but tradition remaining of the beautiful village of Grand Pre, that no French were really to be found there. Now, according to the salesman, he should look for the Acadiens in this part of the province. However, if the French village was thirty-five miles long there was no hurry about leaving the train, and he settled back and watched his fellow pa.s.sengers leisurely climbing the steps. Among those who entered the parlor-car was a stout, gentlemanly man, gesticulating earnestly, although his hands were full of parcels, and turning every instant to look with a quick, bright eye into the face of his companion, who was a priest.

The priest left him shortly after they entered the car, and the stout man sat down and unfolded a newspaper on which the name and place of publication--_L'evangeline, Journal Hebdomadaire, Weymouth_--met Vesper's eye with grateful familiarity. The t.i.tle was, of course, a pathetic reminder of the poem. Weymouth, and he glanced at his map, was in the line of villages along the bay.

The gentleman for a time read the paper intently. Then his nervous hands flung it down, and Vesper, leaning over, politely asked if he would lend it to him.

It was handed to him with a bow, and the young American was soon deep in its contents. It had been founded in the interests of the Acadiens of the Maritime Provinces, he read in fluent modern French, which greatly surprised him, as he had expected to be confronted by some curious _patois_ concocted by this remnant of a foreign race isolated so long among the English. He read every word of the paper,--the cards of professional men, the advertis.e.m.e.nts of shopkeepers, the remarks on agriculture, the editorials on Canadian politics, the local news, and the story by a Parisian novelist. Finally he returned _L'evangeline_ to its owner, whose quick eyes were looking him all over in mingled curiosity and gratification, which at last culminated in the remark that it was a fine morning.

Vesper, with slow, quiet emphasis, which always imparted weight and importance to his words, a.s.sented to this, with the qualification that it was chilly.

"It is never very warm here until the end of June," said the stout gentleman, with a courteous gesture, "but I find this weather most agreeable for wheeling. I am shortly to leave the train and take to my bicycle for the remainder of my journey."

Vesper asked him whether there was a good road along the sh.o.r.es of the Bay.

"The best in the province, but I regret to say that the roads to it from the stations are cut up by heavy teaming."

"And the hotels,--are they good?"

"According to the guide-books there are none in Frenchtown," said the gentleman, with lively sarcasm. "I know of one or two where one can be comfortable. Here, for instance," and one of his facile hands indicated a modest advertis.e.m.e.nt in _L'evangeline_.

Sleeping Water Inn. This inn, well patronized in the past, is still the rendezvous for tourists, bicyclists, etc. The house is airy, and the table is good. A trustworthy teamster is always at the train to carry trunks and valises to the inn. Rose de Foret, Proprietress.

Vesper looked up, to find his neighbor smiling involuntarily. "Pardon me," he said, with contrition, "I am thinking that you would find the house satisfactory."