PIERRE AND POINT A L'EGLISE
"Ah, why should she wish to see you, the American young lady? You have
much conceit, Pierre."
The words were French, the voice was Madame Bourque's, and Amy, quickly
translating what she overheard, perceived that Madame Bourque was
throwing obstacles in the way of the little boy's seeing her.
"Madame Bourque," she cried, stepping out into the hall, "I asked him to
come to see me. It is as he says."
"Oh, then excuse me, Mademoiselle. I did not understand. I did not know
that you had seen Pierre."
"Ah, yes, he helped me find my way last evening. He may come in, may he
not?"
"Ah, surely, since you wish it. Pierre talks much, and I have known
those whom he tired. But enter, Pierre, since you have been invited."
Then Pierre followed Amy into the little sitting-room, where Priscilla
and Martine were already seated near an open fire; for the gray and damp
early morning had introduced a foggy day, and at present sightseeing was
out of the question. Priscilla had been writing letters, Amy had been
reading a history of the Acadians, and Martine, before Pierre's arrival,
had been looking through "Evangeline."
"Pierre," Amy asked, not knowing just what to say to the old-fashioned
boy, "do you care for 'Evangeline'?"
"Surely, yes," he replied, his face lighting up. "Your Longfellow has
sympathy for the Acadians. A lady who stayed here last summer lent me
his poems, but best I understand the 'Evangeline.'
"'Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers.
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the
wayside,
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her
tresses!'"
Pierre recited with much expression.
"Ah," he continued, "I can say much of that beautiful poem, and indeed
it makes me weep to think how they were treated, those poor Acadians, my
ancestors. The English were most cruel."
"Amy," half-whispered Martine, "my history is a little rusty, so please
tell me if the Acadians were driven out from Little Brook."
"No, my dear, Little Brook was founded by some who made their way back
from exile. Pierre," she added in a louder tone, "you are so interested
in your people, can you tell us about those who founded Little Brook?"
"Yes, Pierre can tell you all the story," interposed Madame Bourque, who
had entered the room to put wood on the fire. "He knows it all from his
grandmother, and he remembers."
Pierre, thus commended, flushed even more deeply than he had when Amy
made her request; but he remained silent until she spoke again.
"Perhaps it is not everything that you would wish to hear," he said,
"that I shall tell; but my grandmother told me that it was all forest in
Clare when the Acadians were driven from their homes by the cruel
English. There were no farms here then, and so Petit Ruisseau has no sad
memories of poor people driven from their homes. But you know that
Acadians from Annapolis and Grand Pre and other places farther north
were carried off to the English settlements that are now the States, and
were treated like beggars; for they had no money, and spoke but a
strange tongue. Fathers were separated from children, and brothers and
sisters were not often in the same ship. But all were strong in their
hearts, and determined to come back to their beautiful Acadia. Some
began to come back before the Peace, and walked all the way--hundreds
and hundreds of miles--from Boston and New York, until they reached the
coast of the Bay. When the war was over, and there was a great Peace,
many, many more came, and walked all the way around from New Brunswick
to Nova Scotia to find their homes again."
"But I thought that all their houses were burned and that they had no
homes to return to."
"That is true; but some knew not this, and even those who had seen the
fires from the ships did not believe that everything of theirs was
destroyed. So they were very sad when they could find no signs of their
old homes, and saw that everything belonged to the English settlers. It
was a great crime, sending them away, oh, so many; I am proud my
great-great-grandparents were exiles and my great-grandmother was born
in Salem; so perhaps I am half Yankee; that's why I speak some English."
At that moment Madame Bourque took part in the conversation. "Ah, it is
terrible to think of their sufferings, people of such worth,--it is the
crime of history. Just think of Belliveau; you tell about him, Pierre."
"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 shore that you can see from the window. They
had a terrible passage--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 associated 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 nobility."
"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 nobility 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 assured 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.
Priscilla, reading the inscription, wondered why she had never before
heard of this man, who evidently had been so much to his own people.
Acadia is not far from Massachusetts, and yet already she realized that
this was a corner of the world of which she knew far too little. Amy,
however, could tell her what she wished to know, and she hurried on to
join the others, who were now far ahead.
"Amy," she cried, overtaking her friend, "tell me something about the
Abbe Sigogne; I am ashamed to say that I never heard of him before."
Pierre glanced at the American girl with an expression of absolute
amazement at her ignorance.
"There is so much to tell," said Amy, "that it would be too long a story
for the time that we have now; yet as we walk along I can give you a
little idea of his work. He was a French priest of good family, who
barely escaped losing his head during the French Revolution. After
fleeing from France he lived a few years in England. When he heard that
the poor Acadians of Clare were without a clergyman, he decided to go to
them, and from that time he made their lot his. This was in 1799, about
thirty years after their return from exile, and though they had cleared
the forest and built houses, they had made little progress in other
ways; they were without schools and almost without religion, but the
good Abbe built them a church, established schools, and made frequent
visits to all the little settlements along St. Mary's Bay, often
travelling along the coast in a small, open boat. He taught them many
things besides religion. He made them firm in their allegiance to Great
Britain, and when he died, in 1844, he was bitterly mourned by all who
knew him, whether English or French."
When Amy and Priscilla and Pierre caught up with the others, they were
in a large field, looking at a spot of ground on which Madame Bourque
said had stood the very first house at Point a l'Eglise, built after the
exile. Near by was a little old graveyard, where the first generation of
returning exiles had been buried. Only a few graves were marked, and
these with rough stones without inscriptions. A rude arch of whalebone
formed the entrance to this little enclosure. It was not very far from
the point of land on which stood the lighthouse, near which, along the
edge of the sea, a file of black-coated priests was walking. Though they
were indistinctly seen in the distance, their large caps and flapping
surtouts gave them a picturesque appearance.
A strange structure like a shrine of open slats decorated with spruce
boughs attracted Martine's attention, and she insisted on making a
sketch of it.
"It is a repository," explained Pierre, politely, "where the priest
stands, as a station for the procession, on festival days."
When they returned to the College of St. Anne, Madame Bourque grew more
and more eloquent.
"Is it not wonderful," she said, "that all this great building is
restored since the fire of two years ago? You will come inside, ladies,
and see how pleasant the rooms are."
"I will stay outside," replied Priscilla, "and watch the horses," she
concluded rather lamely.
"Nonsense," began Amy, but looking at Priscilla, she saw that the young
girl was in earnest, and so insisted no further.
"Amy," whispered Priscilla, as her friend drew near her, "I was sorry
afterwards that I went into the convent yesterday, and so I would much
rather not go into a priest's house."
"I had no idea that you would be so narrow," rejoined Amy.
"I don't mean to be narrow," responded Priscilla, "but I really don't
feel like going inside."
So Priscilla sat down on the grass near the monument and all the others
went inside the main building of the College of St. Anne. Not very long
afterwards Mrs. Redmond came out again, with her sketch-book in her
hand. "I thought it a good time now to make a sketch of the church. I
have seen many other schools like this one, for, after all, it's only a
boys' boarding-school. The girls enjoy practising their French with the
Eudist Father, who is taking them about, and it will probably be some
time before they are ready to leave. I think you make a mistake,
Priscilla, in not joining them."
"It isn't a very old building," said Priscilla, implying that this was
sufficient reason for her staying away from the party.
"It is certainly not very old," rejoined Mrs. Redmond; "the college has
been established less than ten years. It is a great thing to have
founded it here in the midst of the Acadians, and it has made the boys
of Clare much more ambitious."
"What good is a college education to them?" asked Priscilla; "fishing
and farming seem to be their chief occupations."
"This is really only a preparatory school," replied Mrs. Redmond, "and
the boys who are going into the Church or into the professions enter
other colleges in Canada or in France. The Father told us with pride of
the high standing of some of the graduates in their work in other
colleges."
"If I do not care for the college," said Priscilla, "I love this church
of Abbe Sigogne's; it makes me think of a New England meeting-house,
with its white walls and steeple."
Mrs. Redmond's sketch was hardly finished when the others came out from
the college. Madame Bourque was in her most talkative mood, as she led
them across the road into the white church. This time Priscilla went
with them and looked with some interest at the paintings on the wall,
and the sacred emblems, and the tablet inscribed to the memory of Abbe
Sigogne.
Martine, it must be admitted, found something amusing even in this
church, for inside the gallery where the choir boys sat were many
pictures of little boats, and even of full-rigged ships scratched in
deeply with a penknife, presumably by the fingers of mischievous young
singers.
Pierre, who happened to be with Martine when she made this discovery,
did not laugh with her, but shaking his head solemnly, said, "Ah, those
pictures show what really fills the heart of the Acadian boy."
Madame Bourque was disappointed that her party of Americans did not care
to visit the girls' school near by, but the hour was late, and the
tired-looking horses were not likely to make speed on the way home.
"We have really seen so much," said Mrs. Redmond, "that we shall need to
think it all over before seeing more, and you have been so good a guide
that in our one visit to Church Point we have learned as much as most
persons do in two."
"We have learned a great deal," murmured Priscilla to Amy, "but I always
feel that Madame Bourque paints the Acadians as much more remarkable
than they are. But I should like to have seen Father Sigogne baptizing
Indian pappooses; they say that he used to wipe their faces with his
gown to find a spot where he could kiss them."
"Yes, and Madame Bourque says that there are people still living who can
remember great crowds of Indians filing through the woods to Church
Point that they might receive Abbe Sigogne's blessing on St Anne's Day."