"Lo! the young Baron of St. Castine,
Swift as the wind is, and as wild,
Has married a dusky Tarratine,
Has married Madocawando's child!"
This marriage made him one of the tribe, and he soon became their
leader. The restless and warlike Indians almost worshipped the
chivalrous young Frenchman; he was their apostle, and led them in
repeated raids against their English and Indian foes. But ultimately
tiring of this roving life in the forests, he returned to "his château
in the Pyrenees," taking his Indian bride along. They were welcomed
with surprise and admiration:
"Down in the village day by day
The people gossip in their way,
And stare to see the Baroness pass
On Sunday morning to early mass;
And when she kneeleth down to pray,
They wonder, and whisper together, and say,
'Surely this is no heathen lass!'
And in course of time they learn to bless
The Baron and the Baroness.
"And in course of time the curate learns
A secret so dreadful, that by turns
He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns.
The Baron at confession hath said,
That though this woman be his wife,
He hath wed her as the Indians wed,
He hath bought her for a gun and a knife!"
Then there was trouble, but it seems to have been soon cured by a
Christian wedding:
"The choir is singing the matin song,
The doors of the church are opened wide,
The people crowd, and press and throng,
To see the bridegroom and the bride.
They enter and pass along the nave;
They stand upon the father's grave;
The bells are ringing soft and slow;
The living above and the dead below
Give their blessing on one and twain;
The warm wind blows from the hills of Spain,
The birds are building, the leaves are green,
And Baron Castine of St. Castine
Hath come at last to his own again."
In course of time the son of the Baron by his Tarratine princess
became chief of the tribe and ruled it until in a raid in 1721 he was
captured by the English and taken to Boston. When brought before the
Council there for trial he wore his French uniform, and was accused of
attending an Abenaqui council-fire. He sturdily replied, "I am an
Abenaqui by my mother; all my life has been passed among the nation
that has made me chief and commander over it. I could not be absent
from a council where the interests of my brethren were to be
discussed. The dress I now wear is one becoming my rank and birth as
an officer of the Most Christian King of France, my master." After
being held prisoner several months, he was released, and finally also
returned to the ancestral château in the Pyrenees. His lineal
descendants are still at the head of the tribe, which has dwindled to
almost nothing. Pentagoet honoring the memory, afterwards became
Castine. Remains of the old fort and batteries are preserved, and a
miniature earthwork commands the harbor. The Tarratines and all the
Abenaqui tribes were firm friends of the Americans in the Revolution;
there are remnants of them in Canada, but the best preserved is the
Indian settlement on Indian Island, in the Penobscot River, above
Bangor. For fealty in the Revolution they were given a reservation,
where a few hundred descendants now live in a village around their
church, having a town hall and schools, with books printed in their
own Abenaqui language, and ruled by their tribal officials. This last
remnant of a warlike nation with such an interesting history gets a
modest subsistence by catching fish and lobsters, and rafting logs on
their great river of Norumbega.