EXPLORATIONS
"How very gay your attire, Martine! Do you think of paying afternoon
visits?"
"No, my dear Amy, I do not, because I know no one to visit; but I'm
tired of cloth skirts and a shirt-waist, and I thought I would like to
see how it would feel to wear something decent."
Martine's gown was a pale blue voile, made up over a bright blue lining,
with a delicate white insertion on the waist; her hat, a blue chip,
trimmed with white flowers, and she carried a parasol to match.
"Is your gown quite suitable for a walk on a dusty road?"
"Perhaps it isn't," responded Martine, "but sometimes one must live up
to her feelings, and this is how I feel to-day,--like wearing my very
best; besides, this is nothing remarkable, this dress, but it happens to
be the best I have with me."
"Very well," and Amy sighed; "it's no use to argue with you, and as soon
as Priscilla comes downstairs we'll set off."
When Priscilla appeared, she, like Amy, had a short cloth skirt and
shirt-waist, but she made no comment on the elegance of Martine's
appearance.
There was one thing rather incongruous in Martine's aspect,--she carried
a small shovel, which looked as if it had never been used; such, indeed,
was the case, and as she brandished it she said cheerfully, "I hope we
shall go somewhere where we can dig. I hear there's any amount of hidden
treasure around Annapolis, and I am anxious to get some of it for
myself."
The girls walked a good while before they saw anything likely to reward
an amateur antiquarian. Then, in a field quite outside the town,
Martine's sharp eyes saw something that interested her. In a moment she
was over the fence, with the others following.
"There," she said excitedly, "you see these very old, gnarled
apple-trees and this clump of willows; I'm perfectly sure that this used
to be an Acadian farm."
"That's a safe guess," rejoined Amy, "for all the land about here was
once in the hands of the Acadians."
"Yes, but I think from this little mound and that hollow beside it that
there was a house on this very spot. I noticed what Dr. Gray said when
he was talking to your mother last evening, and that was what decided me
to do some digging for myself."
"In a blue voile dress," responded Amy, in a tone of disapproval. "Ah,
Martine, you are so absurd!"
Even while Amy was speaking Martine had begun to dig,--aimlessly, of
course, although in a few minutes she had made a fairly large hole. When
her shovel struck something hard she was delighted, but, digging deeper,
she brought up only a piece of broken brick. Undiscouraged, she dug one
side of the first hole, and presently she held out to Amy what at first
puzzled them both. It looked like a mere bit of rusty iron, but later
they decided that it was probably part of an old lock.
"Which I shall label 'Exhibit No. 1' in my museum of curiosities," said
Martine.
"Let me see what I can do," cried Amy; "you must be tired."
So Martine surrendered her shovel, and in a quarter of an hour Amy
brought up an old bottle, not at all remarkable in shape, but very
valuable from Martine's point of view, because it was undoubtedly an
Acadian trophy.
Priscilla contented herself with some slips from an ancient willow-tree.
"It is not the best time of year for making cuttings," she said, "but
these French willows cling to life as closely as the proverbial cat. I
heard of a man who had a walking-stick cut from a willow-tree. It looked
as hard and dry as a bone, but one day he happened to stick it in the
ground near a spring and forgot all about it. Some time afterwards, when
he passed, the walking-stick was sending out little shoots, and in time
it became a full-fledged willow-tree."
"That's a very good story," commented Martine, "and as we know you never
tell anything but the exact truth, Priscilla, neither Amy nor I would
think of doubting it."
As the trio were walking back toward town they met Mrs. Redmond,
driving.
"Come," she cried, "which two of you will drive with me? You slipped off
this afternoon without my realizing that you were going away, and now I
want company."
"I would rather stroll along," replied Amy, "but I am sure that Martine
and Priscilla would enjoy the drive. Martine is turning antiquarian, and
if your driver can take you to some old grave or Indian mound, she will
be delighted to use her shovel."
"I don't know what I can promise in the way of graves and mounds, but if
Martine comes with me I can offer her a lovely view."
"If you please, Mrs. Redmond," said Priscilla, "I would rather walk back
home than drive."
Although Amy tried to make her change her mind, Priscilla was firm, and
the discussion ended by Amy's getting into the carriage with Martine and
Mrs. Redmond.
As she walked along the main street, where the houses were still rather
far apart, Priscilla noticed a little graveyard in a corner of a garden.
As the gate was open, she felt at liberty to walk inside. The stones at
which she glanced were of marble, and the inscriptions were well cut.
The names on two or three of them were French, and the men who bore them
had evidently been officers in the English army. This interested her,
and when she saw a girl of about her own age standing at the door of a
cottage near by, she felt emboldened to speak to her.
"They were not really French," said the girl, in answer to her question,
"but of Huguenot family, who fought for the King in the Revolution. I've
heard my mother say that one of them was a cousin of her grandmother's,
and they all came here together at the close of the war."
Priscilla was delighted. Here, perhaps, was a person who would tell her
something about the Loyalists of the Revolution.
"Were your people Loyalists?" she asked.
"Why, of course," was the reply, as if anything else were unsupposable.
"Oh, I'm so glad!" responded Priscilla. "I've been waiting to hear more
about the Loyalists."
"You are an American?" questioned the girl. "Americans are not apt to
care about Loyalists; they seem to think only about the Acadians; but my
ancestors were all Loyalists, and if you will just come into the house
my mother would love to talk to you."
So Priscilla followed her new acquaintance indoors. Outside, the house
looked small, but within she found many rooms opening one into another,
none of them very large, and all of them with low ceilings.
"My mother's great-grandfather built this house when he first came from
New York. He was an officer in the Loyal American Regiment. There is his
commission; we framed it to hang on the wall."
"By His Excellency Sir Henry Clinton, K. B., General and
Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's Forces within the Colonies lying
on the Atlantic Ocean, from Nova Scotia to West Florida inclusive, etc.,
etc., etc.
"By Virtue of the Power and Authority in Me vested, I DO hereby
constitute and appoint You to be Captain of a Company in the Loyal
American Regiment commanded by Colonel Beverly Robinson."
Priscilla read the whole commission in which the duties of the newly
made captain were defined, to the very end where the signature of Sir
Henry Clinton still stood out clearly.
While the new acquaintance went to call her mother, Priscilla looked
around the pleasant sitting-room. There was a high, old-fashioned
bookcase filled with books, many of them in dingy calf bindings. The
young girl returned while she was looking at them, expressing her regret
that her mother was not at home.
"My grandfather brought many of these books from New York," she said;
"he was a nephew of the rector of Trinity Church, and was himself a
graduate of King's College, New York."
"I don't see how they had the courage to give up everything and come
down here so far away. Even if they did not like the new government, I
should think they would rather have stayed where most of their friends
and relatives were."
"Oh, it wasn't always a matter of choice," rejoined Eunice, for this,
Priscilla discovered, was her new friend's name; "some had to come,
because they had been too active in the King's cause and the other side
would not forgive them. Even after the Peace many were in danger of
imprisonment; and then a great many had had all their property
confiscated, and thought it would be easier to start over again down
here than to live in poverty among their old friends and neighbors."
Priscilla looked in amazement at Eunice. She expressed herself so much
more carefully than most girls of her age.
"Martine would call her quaint," thought Priscilla, looking at her, "and
if she knows as much about other things as she does about history, she
must be a wonder."
"I wish my mother were here," said Eunice, politely. "She gets quite
worked up when she talks about the Loyalists."
"I should think she would," responded Priscilla. "They certainly had a
hard time."
"She thinks that we have been cut off from things that really are our
own, and now, when we have so little money that I can't even afford to
go away to college, she feels more and more indignant at the injustice
of it all."
Priscilla did not know exactly what to say. In her mind there was a
struggle between her feeling of patriotism and her sense of justice. As
Eunice had put it, it did not seem fair that the Loyalists should have
lost everything, simply because they had had the courage to hold out for
the King. But a phrase came into her mind that she had often heard, and
for the moment it seemed the only sentiment that she could express.
"After all," she said gently, "I suppose it was the 'fortune of war'
that your people suffered so much."
"Oh, yes," responded Eunice, "that is what I often say to my mother; and
then I tell her too, that in one hundred and twenty-five years the
family probably would have lost all the property they had before the
Revolution."
Finding that the subject was getting a little beyond her, Priscilla
ventured a more general remark.
"There must be many interesting historical incidents connected with
Annapolis; I mean, incidents that are not French," she concluded
hastily. "I am just a little tired, myself, of the Acadians."
"I don't know of many very entertaining things," responded Eunice, "but
I remember one story that might amuse you. During the Revolution, the
people of Annapolis were awfully afraid of attacks from Privateers. You
see, after the Acadians were driven out a large colony from New England
came down here. They received grants of land from the government, and
were very prosperous when the war began. Many were on the side of the
Yankees, but in the end England was able to hold Nova Scotia. However,
the small privateering vessels were constantly coming into Nova Scotia
ports, and even Annapolis wasn't perfectly safe. One night two rebel
schooners came up to the mouth of the river; they had about eighty men,
and landed them safely, because the sentry at the fort was asleep. They
entered the houses and stirred people up immensely; they seemed more
bent on making mischief than in doing any real violence. There were not
many citizens here in the town then, but one of them, looking from the
window when he heard a noise in the street, saw two of the rebels
disputing over something they had stolen; when they saw him at the
window, they dashed into his house, and a minute or two afterwards
another Annapolis man, only half dressed, rushed excitedly into the room
to tell his friend that the Yankees were plundering the town; this was
unnecessary information, because, as I have said, two rebels were
already in the house. He discovered them with their bayonets pointed at
him just as he had finished telling his story, and he was so surprised
that he fell backward over a cradle, with his feet in the air. His
comical appearance made the rebels laugh so, that he afterwards said
that this saved his life, for before they had recovered he had jumped to
his feet and run away. But later he and all the other able-bodied
citizens were shut up in the fort, while the men from the schooners went
through the houses and carried away everything movable. They allowed the
ladies to keep their shoes, though they first removed the silver
buckles. The schooners disappeared in the morning, when the report was
spread around that the militia of the county were gathering and coming
to Annapolis. That, I believe, was the only attack on Annapolis during
the Revolution. It happened two or three years before the arrival of the
refugees, and the accounts of it that have been handed down always
represented it as a very comical affair."
"Did you say 'Yankees'?" asked Priscilla. "Did you mean--"
"Oh, I meant schooners from New England; I've heard they were from Cape
Cod," replied Eunice.
"It was pretty small business," said Priscilla, almost apologetically.
"I don't believe that the men on the schooners were either soldiers or
sailors. I am sure that Washington wouldn't have approved if he had
known."
"You don't think that all on your side were good, do you," asked Eunice,
"and that all on ours were bad?"
Priscilla hardly knew what to reply. She was getting again into deep
water, for she saw that although the war was long over, Eunice was still
a strong partisan. So, as a kind of peace-offering, she asked Eunice if
she would not walk back home with her.
"I should like to have you meet my friends whom I am travelling with,"
she said. "We are going to stay in Annapolis a week or more. Mrs.
Redmond is making some beautiful sketches, and her daughter Amy is just
dear; she is older than Martine and I, but she never makes us feel the
difference in our ages, and she knows more than almost anybody I ever
saw."
"I should love to walk back with you," said Eunice, "though I cannot
stay very long. What is Martine like?" she asked abruptly.
"Oh, Martine,--well, Martine is different. She always sees the funny
side of things, and she doesn't care what anything costs if she happens
to want it. She's perfectly devoted to the French, and I'm so terribly
tired of her Acadians that I want to find out what the English did in
Annapolis."
"I will be glad to do what I can to help you," responded Eunice, "only
you mustn't be too touchy about things; for you see we're still all
English down here."
As Priscilla walked back to the boarding-house she congratulated herself
on her new friend; for although she had known Eunice so short a time,
she already regarded her as much more than an ordinary acquaintance.
"I can always tell," she said to herself, "whether any one is going to
wear well. Mother says that that is the only test for real friends, and
I can see that Eunice and I are likely to be more than acquaintances. I
feel as if I had known her a long time. Now it wasn't so with Martine,
and even though we have been together so much this summer, some way I
don't feel perfectly comfortable with her. I'd like to be fair, but
still--"
Yes, Priscilla meant to be fair, but still--what was the trouble? It is
to be feared that she had not yet learned the real meaning of tolerance.
Martine's point of view was often so unlike hers that Priscilla did not
make enough effort to put herself in her friend's place. While believing
herself just, she certainly permitted herself to be biassed little in
her judgments. Nor did she realize that Martine herself often spoke in
an exaggerated tone, chiefly for the purpose of seeing to what extent
she could impose on Priscilla; for Martine, discovering Priscilla's
attitude toward her, liked to say things to surprise her,--"Puritan
Prissie," as she called her at these times.
It would not be quite true, perhaps, to say that Priscilla distrusted
Martine's interest in Yvonne, although she had a strong conviction that
it was merely impulse that had led her to promise so much.
"For the day that we spent at Meteghan, Yvonne was like a new plaything
to her. Had Martine been with Yvonne a week, it would have been the
same; she would have lavished things on her, and would have been ready
to promise her anything. But 'out of sight, out of mind;' I believe that
that is always the way with her. I am not even sure that she is as fond
of Mrs. Redmond and Amy as she seems to be."
Poor Priscilla! she was really borrowing trouble needlessly, and yet in
more senses than one it was real trouble to her, because she was never
sure just how she ought to respond to the more flippant remarks made by
Martine. They were often so witty that she could not help laughing, even
when she felt the greatest need of preserving her own dignity.
Another grievance was Martine's way of addressing Amy. Priscilla herself
had begun by trying to say "Miss Redmond;" occasionally she slipped into
"Amy," but more usually "Miss Amy" was her form of address. Martine had
laughed loudly at this, and one day she said, "It is what I call too
servile. Amy is not greatly our superior, but still I'd rather call her
Miss Redmond. I notice that Fritz Tomkins in some of his letters says
'Miss Amy Redmond.' I wonder if that would do for us?"
"Oh, Amy--that is, Miss Redmond--explained that it was just his way of
making fun of her when he says 'Miss Amy Redmond.'"
"Probably, but when I can't think of anything else I will say that,
though generally Amy is good enough for me, and here she is, looking as
sweet as a rose." Whereupon, without the slightest regard for the
dignity with which Priscilla would have liked to hedge Amy, Martine had
thrown herself upon the older girl's neck, to the destruction of
something less ideal than her dignity; to wit, the freshness of her
muslin stock.
Thinking of this scene, Priscilla sighed. "Eunice would never do or say
anything silly." This goes to show that she did indeed regard Eunice as
a kindred spirit.