EVANGELINE'S COUNTRY
"I will admit that what he is saying is perfectly true."
"And absolutely necessary, Martine, to our understanding properly this
land of Evangeline."
"But he needn't talk so conceitedly, as if he were the only one in the
world who knows that there was no real Basil, nor Gabriel, and that
Evangeline herself was somebody else. Why, even in Chicago, where we are
farther away from Acadia than you are in Massachusetts, we know that.
But just listen,"--and as Martine and Amy stood there in silence a few
feet from the willows, they heard Mr. Knight's rather shrill voice
saying:
"I am aware that you Americans have mapped out almost every inch of
Grand Pre, and that you can point out the site of Basil's smithy, and
Gabriel's house, and the old church, although as a matter of fact only
the last is at all certain. It is quite natural that you should accept
your Longfellow as real history, but--"
Here Martine could restrain herself no longer. Stepping forward she
faced Mr. Knight, who stopped talking in his surprise at her sudden
appearance from the background; and in a clear voice she began to
recite:
"'with a summons sonorous
Sounded the bell from its tower, and over the meadows a drum beat.
Thronged erelong was the church with men. Without, in the churchyard,
Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung on the headstones
Garlands of autumn-leaves and evergreens fresh from the forest.
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them
Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant clangor
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling and casement.'
Isn't that history," she asked gravely, "as well as Longfellow?"
"Why, yes, in a general way," responded Mr. Knight, with an amused
smile. "As to details, why, I am not quite so sure, though I can assure
you I have no intention of questioning Mr. Longfellow's accuracy. Far
from it. His picture of the deportation is wonderfully complete."
"Yet you were criticising him."
"Oh, no, only the tendency of some tourists to connect everything in the
neighborhood of Grand Pre with something mentioned by Longfellow."
"But if it makes the place more interesting," began Martine.
"Oh, certainly, that is one of the uses of poetry, and really, Miss
Stratford, I intended no criticism of 'Evangeline,' only--" and again
that smile of amusement--"you will pardon me when I say that these are
not Evangeline's willows, as some call them, except in the poetic
sense."
"They are very picturesque," said Amy, in an effort to turn the
conversation. "Until I came to Nova Scotia I had never thought of
willows as so strong and sturdy. In fact, I had in mind only the weeping
variety."
The line of willows, a dozen or so beside the rail fence, with two or
three cows grazing in their shade, formed a picture so tempting that
Priscilla turned her camera upon it, and with a wave of her hand pointed
to something beyond. In a minute or two Mrs. Redmond and Amy were beside
her, with Mr. Knight and Martine but a step behind.
"Shall you object if we call this Evangeline's well?" asked Martine,
with a touch of scorn in her voice.
"Ah, call it what you please, Miss Stratford. It is certainly an old
French well. Evangeline may have drunk from it."
"Is it quite safe to drink from an old well?"
"Oh, mamma, you are not usually so anxious."
"I can assure you, Mrs. Redmond, that this is pure water. The wall was
built a few years ago, and you will find the water deliciously cold.
This well, by the way, is probably near the site of the priest's house;"
and involuntarily he glanced toward Martine.
"Oh," she rejoined, as if in answer to his glance, "I thought that there
was no priest--except in the poem."
"Ah, surely there had been a priest, though not Father Felician; and
indeed at the time of the deportation the priest was away from Grand
Pre, a prisoner at Halifax, and so he could not exhort the people. But
these are mere matters of detail. Undoubtedly we are now standing very
near the site of the church."
"I wonder if the bells are hidden in the earth like those we heard of at
Annapolis," and Amy turned to Martine with a smile, hoping to divert her
from quizzing Mr. Knight.
"Ah, the bells!" exclaimed the offending young man. "There is a
story--if you should care for it."
"By all means," replied Mrs. Redmond; and under the embarrassing gaze of
four pairs of eyes Mr. Knight told his tale.
"It isn't a remarkable story in any way, only they say that when the
Acadians saw that they were prisoners, some of them managed to take down
the bell and wall it up in one of the vaults under the church, while the
church treasure was put in the other. Years afterwards, in the days of
the English settlers, a strange vessel was seen in the Basin one night.
People who passed this way thought they heard queer noises during the
night, and in the morning the ground near the site of the old church was
disturbed. Some people said that in the night they had heard a bell
ringing. That night there came a terrible storm, and soon bits of
wreckage drifted in that must have come from the strange vessel. In this
way every one believed that the theft had been avenged--if the strangers
stole the bell and the treasure. It is only fair to say," continued Mr.
Knight, "that some believe that the bell was taken by returning Acadians
who wished to set it up in an Acadian chapel on the Gaspe coast. At any
rate, there are people still living who have heard their parents say
that at certain times they can hear the distant ringing of this Grand
Pre bell."
"How weird!" cried Martine. "Are there any more stories like that? I
love them."
"Oh, there are some others connected with buried treasures, but an evil
fate was usually supposed to attend those who grew suddenly rich by
unearthing Acadian treasure; and there are tales of ghostly fires on St.
John's eve; and other stories used to trouble me very much when I was
small and had to pass lonely places in the night."
"Oho," thought Martine, though she said nothing, "then it is as I
thought; he is easily scared."
"At the time of the deportation," said Mr. Knight, as they took their
places again in the carriage, "the water came much nearer the village.
Since the days of the Acadians thousands of acres of dyke-lands have
been reclaimed. When the Connecticut settlers came they found many dykes
broken, through which the sea was rolling in, and they might have had a
hard time repairing them if they had not found a few Acadians still left
in the country, who had managed to escape the English and were lurking
in the neighborhood of their old homes."
"That reminds me," said Priscilla; "who were the Acadians, that is,
where did they come from in the first place? I have never thought of
this before."
"Why, Priscilla, they were--" then Amy stopped, not feeling quite sure
of her ground.
"Oh, they were French, from--" and Martine could get no farther.
"Of course they were French, but why did they know so much about dykes
and such things?"
When no one else seemed inclined to answer the question, Mr. Knight
undertook to reply.
"The Acadians of Grand Pre, like the Acadians of Annapolis, were nearly
all descended from a group of peasants from Rochelle, Pictou, and
Saintonge, who came out with D'Aunay and Razilly about 1630. They came
from a region of marshes, and they brought with them the art of building
dykes. The _aboiteaux_ that they built were marvels, and before you go
we must try to show you one of the dykes at low tide, when all the
wonderful method of building will be displayed. Pierre Terriau, by the
way, was the name of the first Acadian to settle in the Grand Pre
region. He came to the shores of the Habitant in 1671. Others soon
joined him. The people at Minas were so shut off from Port Royal that
they grew very independent. Indeed, this desire to escape the close
observation of those at the Fort was what sent Acadians from Port Royal
to this new region. In time there were three parishes in Minas,--St.
Joseph, St. Charles, and Grand Pre,--and the people were like one great
family, constantly inter-marrying, and always ready to help one another.
"'Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their windows;
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of the owners;
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abundance,'
as your Longfellow says;" and Martine, had she been inclined, might have
taken this as an apology for the disrespect she had imagined cast on her
poet a little earlier.
But there was no time now to discuss either Longfellow or the Acadians.
Before the party stretched the broad dyke-lands, where already many
farmers were cutting hay, while here and there were mammoth haystacks.
Priscilla snapped her camera at a hay wagon with a larger load than any
she had ever seen, drawn by two of the heaviest, sleekest oxen; Amy made
a few notes in her diary; Mrs. Redmond sighed for her palette and
sketch-book; and Martine exclaimed loudly on the richness of color, the
vivid green of the marshes, the unclouded blue of the sky, and the
richer blue of the water, with a glimpse here and there of reddish
shores, and above all Blomidon, the magnificent, showing up in the
distance, like a veritable giant.
"Have you seen all that you care to see at Grand Pre?" asked Mr. Knight,
politely, with a "Here, driver, draw up for a last look at Blomidon
before we turn toward Avonport."
"How dark it looks now!" exclaimed Amy, pointing to the promontory.
"That is because the sun no longer shines on it," replied Mr. Knight
"Listen to one of our poets:
"'This is that black bastion, based in surge,
Pregnant with agate and with amethyst,
Whose foot the tides of storied Minas scourge,
Whose top austere withdraws into its mist.
* * * * *
"'Yonder, across these reeling fields of foam,
Came the sad threat of the avenging ships.
What profit now to know if just the doom,
Though harsh. The streaming eyes, the praying lips,
The shadow of inextinguishable pain,
The poet's deathless music, these remain.'"
"Have we seen all that we can see?" interrupted Martine, untouched by
the poetical tribute to her Acadians. She was determined to show no
appreciation of anything said by Mr. Knight.
"Have we seen all that we can see?" repeated Martine, adding with some
sharpness, "I thought that there would be much more."
"Well, I am sure--" and Mr. Knight hesitated, "I am sorry--but there
isn't so very much--you know all the Acadian houses were burnt, and it's
just a modern village--the old Covenanter Church is perhaps the oldest
thing--and you've seen the old well and the willows and the things that
we point out to Americans."
"There it is!" thought Martine, "that same patronizing tone when he
speaks of Americans."
"Oh, there is one thing," continued the unhappy young man, conscious
now, as at all times, of Martine's disapproval, "I should have shown you
the little ridge near the station where Colonel Noble and one of his
soldiers were buried, after that terrible fight in 1747. You remember
the French had only seven killed to the one hundred English who were
slaughtered."
"That was a cowardly attack," said Amy, warmly.
"But it was the real French, and not the Acadians, who were
responsible," interposed Martine.
"Yet the Acadians helped--at least as guides."
"This pleasant country has certainly witnessed a great deal of tragedy."
Mrs. Redmond's voice was that of the peacemaker.
"Yet through it all Blomidon has remained there calm and placid." Up to
this time Priscilla had had little to say.
"But Glooscap, the deity of the Micmacs," responded Mrs. Redmond,--"you
remember that after the white men came to Minas, displeased with their
teachings, he fled away, and has never been seen since.
"'You can see yourself Five Islands Glooscap flung at him that day,
When from Blomidon to Sharp he tore the Beaver's dam away.
Cleared the channel, and the waters thundered out into the Bay.
Here he left us--see the orchards, red and gold in every tree!
All the land from Gaspereau to Portapique and Cheverie,
All the garden lands of Minas and a passage out to sea.'"
"Why, mamma, I never heard you quote poetry--at such length."
"Perhaps you thought that I couldn't, but this is a Canadian poet, and
later you must read more of the myths grouped around Glooscap."
"Oh, I know that Blomidon was his home, and Minas his beaver-pond, and
Spencer Island used to be his kettle that he tipped upside down when he
deserted Acadia, and two rocks there in the Bay were once his dogs that
he turned to stone at the same time. He never was cruel, never grew old,
and was never to die, and so I suppose that the Indians are looking
constantly for him to come back and restore their own to them."
"As to that," said the serious Mr. Knight, "the Indians in Nova Scotia
are much better off than in the days of Glooscap. They may sit side by
side with white children in almost all the schools of the country. Many
of them live on land of their own, and raise live stock--though
unluckily they prefer ponies to heifers, and in every way the government
is fitting them for the full responsibilities of citizenship."
"Oh, dear," sighed Martine, laying her hand on Amy's and leaning forward
so that those on the back seat might not hear. "What a regular
schoolmaster he is! He is more improving even than you, Miss Amy
Redmond. But listen--how much more appreciative is our dear Priscilla."
In spite of herself Amy could but smile as Priscilla's gentle voice came
to her. "Thank you, Mr. Knight; the present condition of the Indians
interests me very much, and I have made a note of what you have said to
report at one of our Indian Aid Association meetings when I return
home," whereat the driver of their vehicle laughed, chuckled, and shook
his head.
"I'd like to show her some specimen Micmacs," he said to Martine, "that
come round here oftener than once in a while, and have some distance to
travel before they are fully fitted for the responsibilities of
citizenship."
"Now, ladies, a last look at Blomidon," cried Mr. Knight, as the
carriage took a sharp turn, and then, after one long, backward look,
they pressed on and drove westward toward Avonport.
"Dear Prissie," said Martine, when at last they stood on the broad
beach, "you have been a very good girl to-day." Priscilla, reddening at
her words, made no reply.
"Yes, you have been very good," continued Martine, "and when Mr. Knight
recalls this afternoon he will remember with pleasure the close
attention that you have given to his every word."
"Oh, Martine, how absurd you are; I never heard you talk so pompously
before."
"This is the effect of a few hours spent with an eloquent guide,
philosopher, and friend. Poor Amy is under the spell now; he seems to be
teaching her geology."
Looking in the direction of the spot where they had left Mrs. Redmond
and Amy, Priscilla saw that Mr. Knight was pointing at the stones with
his walking-stick, as if they were diagrams on a blackboard.
"He is probably explaining the rock formation," said Priscilla,
solemnly. "My guidebook says that the region has great geological
interest."
"Then let us go off by ourselves somewhere, for if he gets the chance he
will try to teach us all he knows, and really, I could not stand any
more instruction to-day. Come, Prissie."
At first Priscilla hesitated.
"Do come; we'll have such a good chance to study those rocks and crags
by ourselves."
"I'd rather wait for the others, but still--"
"That's a good girl;" and, half dragging Priscilla by the arm, Martine
set off rapidly toward the bold cliffs that promised them more
entertainment than they had had that afternoon.
"There are sure to be shells," said Martine, "and perhaps curious
seaweeds in some of the little pools. The tide is so high that
undoubtedly there are many strange things washed up here."
Martine was correct in her surmises, and for half an hour the two felt
like explorers as they picked their way from stone to stone, filling
their hands with trophies.
"Isn't it fun?" cried Martine. "I feel as if we were quite alone in the
world. We can just enjoy ourselves without thinking of history or
geology, or anything else."
"I wonder if the others will be worried," said Priscilla, who herself
was not quite sure that she enjoyed this sensation of being quite alone
in the world, with nobody near but Martine.
"Of course they won't be worried. We shall be back before they even miss
us. Besides, I'd like to worry Mr. Knight."
Priscilla looked at her watch. "I think that we ought to return now; we
have been gone more than half an hour."
"Oh, not yet--but listen; some one is calling. It is Mr. Knight. 'Young
ladies, young ladies,'" and Martine mimicked the tones that now were
borne quite clearly to their ears. "I just won't have him find us, and
lead us back as if we were two children who had done something that we
shouldn't; let us hide behind these rocks until he passes."
Somewhat against her will Priscilla allowed herself to be led into a
rocky nook where a jutting ledge hid them effectually from any
passer-by.
So Mr. Knight, walking along the cliffs above them, even had he peered
down to the lower level, could hardly have seen them. His "Young ladies,
young ladies, we're starting home now," grew feebler and feebler, and
when Martine had assured herself that he was really a safe distance
away, she came out from her hiding-place with a cry of "Danger past."
"We mustn't stay here too long," remonstrated Priscilla; "Mrs. Redmond
will be worried."
"I am perfectly willing to go now," replied Martine, "since Mr. Knight
won't lead me by the nose. We had a hard climb to this grotto, but it
will be much easier going down."
Hardly had Martine spoken when Priscilla, who was a few steps ahead of
her, turned back with a cry of alarm.
"Look, Martine; what shall we do?"
Stepping up beside her friend, Martine too exclaimed in surprise.
"Do you suppose it will come any higher? I have heard of the rapid rise
of the tide, but this has just rushed in."
Even in that first quick glance both girls realized that they were in a
critical position. In going up to the "grotto," as Martine called it,
they had taken no notice of tide-water marks, such as both of them might
have observed. The rocky arms by which they had ascended were now
covered by water, and an incoming wave dashed over Priscilla's feet as
they stood there, uncertain what to do.
"Will it come all the way in? We shall be drenched if it does."
"No," said Martine, turning about and inspecting the nook where they had
been standing when they heard Mr. Knight's voice.
"You can see that if the last high tide had come in lately as far as
that little hollow, there would be some water there now. Instead, it is
perfectly dry. You can prove that for yourself."
"Yes, yes, you are right; by standing back here we can at least keep
dry, but oh, dear, when shall we get out?"
"Probably not until Mr. Knight rescues us," replied Martine, cheerfully,
"and even he will hardly come to our relief until low tide, which is
probably some hours away."
Whatever the real danger, Priscilla and Martine saw at once that they
were in a very disagreeable predicament. The little niche in which alone
they could have a dry footing on three sides had steep walls, whose
height at the lowest was surely twenty feet. Martine scanned the sides
carefully, but the stone surface was perfectly smooth. Nowhere was there
a projection that offered the least foothold. It was in no way possible
for either girl to climb to the top. Toward them flowed the advancing
tide. It had entirely cut them off from the path by which they had
reached the grotto, and though it might not be dangerously deep at every
point of the beach and rocks that it now covered, neither girl had
courage to venture into the water.
Martine indeed had proposed to wade as far as it seemed safe, and then,
if necessary, swim to some point where she might get a footing.
"No, no," Priscilla had remonstrated, "you might in some way miss the
others, and if you had to wait around for some time in your wet clothes
you would be really worse off than you are now--and besides, I should
hate to be left here all alone."
"It might be a waste of energy," replied Martine, "for surely the tide
cannot come up to this little hollow; so it is only a question of time
when we shall get out of this. But it does seem to me that so unusually
clever a person as that Mr. Knight thinks himself might have found us
before this."
"You aren't quite fair, Martine, for he certainly was just above us
here, calling with all his might. I dare say that he even looked over
the edge. You hid yourself so completely, and made me hide too, so that
when he looked he could not see us. He must think that we went in
exactly the opposite direction, and he and the others are probably a
mile away now, searching for us."
"I do not care how much bother Mr. Knight has, but I do regret putting
Mrs. Redmond and Amy to such trouble. Why did you come with me,
Priscilla? If you had refused we shouldn't have got into this scrape."
"Oh, Martine, when you fairly dragged me here! Surely you are unjust."
Martine knew that she was unjust but like many persons who realize their
own foolishness, she experienced a certain relief for the present in
blaming some one else.
"It will be hours," she grumbled, "before the tide will be low enough to
let us out for it is still coming in, and we shall be kept here for some
time after it turns."
"If we get out before dark I shall be thankful. It will be terribly
disagreeable to find ourselves alone here in the dark."
"Oh, it won't be as bad as that!" Martine's voice became suddenly
cheerful. Self-reproach had taken hold of her. What if Priscilla should
really suffer from this escapade? As if in answer to her thoughts,
Priscilla coughed once or twice.
"There it is," thought Martine; "Priscilla is away for her health, and I
may undo all the good of the summer. It will be a great disappointment
to Mrs. Redmond, as well as to Priscilla's mother. They both expected so
much from this trip." Which reflections showed that Martine was
certainly not a villain of the deepest dye. Had she been hardened in
perversity she could not so soon have reached a state of repentance.
But repentance without works avails little, and when Priscilla coughed
for a fourth time Martine became quite feverish with anxiety.
Two large clouds in the distance seemed to her to indicate a coming
storm. Wretched enough would their condition be if they should be caught
by a heavy rain while they were in this exposed position.