be heard faintly tinkling on thin pebbles beneath their coverlet of ice
and snow. His slow steps conducted him far along this open course. Soon
after he had disappeared, around a curve in the distance there came the
panther, following stealthily upon his crimsoned trail. The crafty beast
was waiting till the bleeding and the hunger should do its work, and the
object of its inexorable pursuit should have no more heart left for
resistance.
This was late in the afternoon. The ox was now possessed with his
desire, and would not lie down for any rest. All night long, through the
gleaming silver of the open spaces, through the weird and checkered
gloom of the deep forest, heedless even of his hunger, or perhaps driven
the more by it as he thought of the wild clover bunches and tender
timothy awaiting him, the solitary ox strove on. And all night, lagging
far behind in his unabating caution, the panther followed him.
At sunrise the worn and stumbling animal came out upon the borders of
the great lake, stretching its leagues of unshadowed snow away to the
south before him. There was his path, and without hesitation he followed
it. The wide and frost-bound water here and there had been swept clear
of its snows by the wind, but for the most part its covering lay
unruffled; and the pale dove-colors, and saffrons, and rose-lilacs of
the dawn were sweetly reflected on its surface.
The doomed ox was now journeying very slowly, and with the greatest
labor. He staggered at every step, and his beautiful head drooped almost
to the snow. When he had got a great way out upon the lake, at the
forest's edge appeared the pursuing panther, emerging cautiously from
the coverts. The round tawny face and malignant green eyes were raised
to peer out across the expanse. The laboring progress of the ox was
promptly marked. Dropping its nose again to the ensanguined snow, the
beast resumed his pursuit, first at a slow trot, and then at a long,
elastic gallop. By this time the ox's quest was nearly done. He plunged
forward upon his knees, rose again with difficulty, stood still, and
looked around him. His eyes were clouding over, but he saw, dimly, the
tawny brute that was now hard upon his steps. Back came a flash of the
old courage, and he turned, horns lowered, to face the attack. With the
last of his strength he charged, and the panther paused irresolutely;
but the wanderer's knees gave way beneath his own impetus, and his horns
ploughed the snow. With a deep bellowing groan he rolled over on his
side, and the longing, and the dream of the pleasant pastures, faded
from his eyes. With a great spring the panther was upon him, and the
eager teeth were at his throat,--but he knew nought of it. No wild
beast, but his own desire, had conquered him.
When the panther had slaked his thirst for blood, he raised his head,
and stood with his fore-paws resting on the dead ox's side, and gazed
all about him.
To one watching from the lake shore, had there been any one to watch in
that solitude, the wild beast and his prey would have seemed but a speck
of black on the gleaming waste. At the same hour, league upon league
back in the depth of the ancient forest, a lonely ox was lowing in his
stanchions, restless, refusing to eat, grieving for the absence of his
yoke-fellow.
The Eye of Gluskâp.
I.
It was close upon high tide, and the creek that wound in through the
diked marshes was rapidly filling to the brim with the swirling, cold,
yellow-gray waters of Minas. The sun, but half risen, yet lingered on
the wooded crest of the Gaspereau hills; while above hung a dappled sky
of pink and pale amber and dove-color. A yellow light streamed sharply
down across the frost-whitened meadows, the smouldering ruins of Grand
Pré village, and out upon the glittering expanse of Minas Basin. The
beams tinged brightly the cordage and half-furled sails of two ships
that rode at anchor in the Basin, near the shore. With a pitilessly
revealing whiteness the rays descended on the mournful encampment at the
creek's mouth, where a throng of Acadian peasants were getting ready to
embark for exile.
"Late grew the year, and stormy was the sea."
Already had five ships sailed away with their sorrowful freight,
disappearing around the towering front of Blomidon, from the straining
eyes of friends and kinsfolk left behind. Another ship would sail out
with the next ebb, and all was sad confusion and unwilling haste till
the embarkation should be accomplished. The ship's boats were loaded
down with rude household stuff, and boxes full of homespun linens and
woollens.
Children were crying with the cold, and a few women were weeping
silently; but the partings which had succeeded each other at intervals
throughout the last few weeks had dulled the edge of anguish, and most
of the Acadians wore an air of heavy resignation. The New England
soldiers on guard gave what help they could, but sullenly; for they were
weary of the misery that they had so long been forced to watch.
The people were huddled on a little patch of marsh within a curve of the
dike. Beyond the dike there spread a stretch of reddish brown
salt-flats, covered with water only at the highest spring-tides, and now
meagrely sprinkled with sharp-edged blades and tufts of the gray
salt-grasses. The flats were soft between the bunches of the grass, and
a broad track was trampled into mire by the passing down of many feet
from the dike's edge to the boats.
In a work like this there are always a thousand unlooked-for delays, and
before half the embarkation was effected the tide had reached the full,
and paused and turned to ebb. As the strip of shining red mud began to
widen between the grasses and the water's edge, the bustle and confusion
increased. Sometimes a woman who had already stepped into the boat,
thinking that her people had preceded her, would spring over the side
into the shallow water, and rush, sobbing with anxious fear, back to the
encampment. Sometimes a child would lose sight of its father or mother
in the press, and lift its shrill voice in a wail of desolation which
found piteous echo in every Acadian heart.
Lower and lower fell the tide. The current was now thick and red with
the mud which it was dragging from the flats to re-deposit on some
crescent shoal at the mouth of the Canard or Piziquid. Over the dike and
down toward the waiting boats came an old man, bent with years,
supported by his son and his son's wife a middle-aged couple. The
decrepit figure in its quaint Acadian garb was one to be remembered. Old
Remi Corveau was a man of means among the Acadian peasants. His feet
were incased in high-top moccasins of vividly embroidered moose-hide,
and his legs in gaiters, or _mitasses_, of dark blue woollen homespun,
laced with strips of red cloth. His coat was a long and heavy garment of
homespun blanket, dyed to a yellowish brown with many decoctions of a
plant which the country-folk now know as "yaller-weed." A cap of coarse
sealskin covered his head, and was tied beneath his chin with a woollen
scarf of dull red. The old man clutched his stick in his mittened right
hand, muttering to himself, and seemed but half aware of what was going
on. When he came to the edge of the wet, red clay, however, he
straightened himself and looked about him. He gazed at the boats and at
the anchored ships beyond. A light of sudden intelligence flashed into
his feeble eyes. He turned half round and looked back upon the ruined
village, while his son and daughter paused respectfully.
"Hurry along there now," exclaimed one of the guards, impatiently; and
the Acadian couple, understanding the tone and gesture, pulled at their
father's arms to lead him into the boat. The old man's eyes flamed
wildly, and crying, "_J'ne veux pas! j'ne veux pas!_" he broke from them
and struggled back toward the dike. Instantly his son overtook him,
picked him up in his arms, and carried him, now sobbing feebly, down to
the boat, where he laid him on a pile of blankets. As the laden craft
moved slowly toward the ship the old man's complainings ceased. When
they went to hoist him over the ship's side they discovered that he was
dead.
And now the very last boatload was well-nigh ready to start. The parish
priest, who was staying behind to sail with the next and final ship, was
bidding his sad farewells. A young woman drew near the boat, but hardly
seemed to see the priest's kind face of greeting, so anxiously was she
fumbling in the depths of a small bag which she carried on her arm.
The bag was of yellow caribou-skin, worked by Indian fingers in
many-colored designs of dyed porcupine quills.
"What's the matter, Marie, my child?" inquired the priest, gently. "Hast
thou lost something more, besides thy country and thy father's house?"
As he spoke the girl, whose name was Marie Beaugrand, looked up with a
sigh of relief, and turned to him affectionately.
"I have found it, Father! _V'la!_" she exclaimed, holding up a gigantic
amethyst of marvellous brilliancy. "Pierrot gave it to me to keep for
him, you know," she added timidly, "because of the bad luck that goes
with it when a _man_ has it!"
This was no time to chide the girl for her belief in the superstition
which he knew was connected with the wondrous jewel. The priest merely
smiled and said: "Well, well, guard it carefully, my little one; and may
the Holy Saints enable it to mend the fortunes of thee and thy Pierrot!
Farewell; and God have thee ever in his keeping, my dear child!"
Hardly were the words well past his lips when the girl gave a scream of
dismay, and sprang forward down the slippery red incline. She had
dropped the amethyst, by some incomprehensible mischance. The priest
beheld the purple gleam as it flashed from between the girl's fingers.
Her high cap of coarse undyed French linen fell away from her black
locks as she stooped to grope passionately in the ooze which had
swallowed up her treasure. In a moment the comely picture of her dark
blue sleeves, gray petticoat, and trim red stockings was sadly
disfigured by the mud. The girl's despair was piercing; but the
impatient guards, who knew not what she had lost, were on the point of
taking her forcibly to the boat, when Colonel Winslow, who stood near
by, checked them peremptorily.
Seeing the priest gird up his cassock and step forward to help the
sobbing girl in her search; Colonel Winslow questioned of the
interpreter as to what the damsel had lost to cause such lament.
"A toy, a mere gaud, your Excellency," said the shrewd interpreter,
giving Winslow a title which he would not have employed had there been
any one present of higher rank than the New England Colonel. "A mere
gaud of a purple stone; but they do say it would be worth a thousand
pounds if one had it in London. These poor folk call it the 'Witch
Stone,' because, they say, it brings bad luck to the man that has it.
The more learned sort smile at such a superstition, and call the stone
'The Star' by reason of its surpassing beauty,--Pierrot Desbarat's star,
they call it now, since that youth picked it up last spring on Blomidon,
where it had once before been found and strangely lost again. They say
the youth gave the jewel to his betrothed yonder to keep for him, if so
she might ward off the evil fortune."
The New England colonel's high-arched eyebrows went up into his forehead
at this tale. His round and ruddy face softened with sympathy for the
poor girl's despair. Winslow was convinced of the wisdom and justice of
the orders which he was carrying out so firmly; but he wished the task
of removing the Acadians had been confided to any other hands than his.
"This affair is more grievous to me," he wrote to a friend about this
time, "than any service I was ever employed in."
Presently, remarking that the girl's efforts were fruitless, and the
tide ebbing rapidly, Winslow ordered several of his soldiers down into
the mud to assist her search. Veiling their reluctance the men obeyed,
and the ooze was explored to the very water's edge. At length, realizing
that the departure could not safely be longer delayed, Winslow ordered
the quest to cease.
As the girl turned back to the boat the colonel caught sight of the
despair upon her face; and reddening in the folds of his double chin he
slipped some gold pieces into the muddy hand of the priest.
"Be good enough, sir, to give the damsel these," he said, stiffly. "Tell
her I will have the search continued. If the stone is found she shall
have it. If any one steals it I will hang him."
As the priest, leaning over the boat-side, slipped the pieces into the
buckskin bag, Colonel Winslow turned away, and rather roughly ordered
the bespattered soldiers back to camp to clean themselves.
After the priest had bid farewell to the still weeping Marie and the
little company about her, he stood waiting to receive the other boat
which was now returning from the ship. He saw that something unexpected
had taken place. His old parishioner was lying back in the stern,
covered with a blanket, while his son and daughter lamented over him
with the unrestraint of children. On the following day, under the stern
guard of the Puritan soldiers, there was a funeral in the little
cemetery on the hillside, and the frozen sods were heaped upon the last
Acadian grave of Grand Pré village. Remi Corveau had chosen death rather
than exile.
And what was the jewel whose loss had caused such grief to Marie
Beaugrand? For generations the great amethyst had sparkled in the front
of Blomidon, visible at intervals in certain lights and from certain
standpoints, and again unseen for months or years together. The Indians
called it "The Eye of Gluskâp," and believed that to meddle with it at
all would bring down swiftly the vengeance of the demigod. Fixed high on
the steepest face of the cliff, the gem had long defied the search of
the most daring climbers. It lurked, probably, under some over-hanging
brow of ancient rock, as in a fit and inviolable setting. At length,
some years before the date of the events I have been describing, a
French sailor, fired by the far-off gleaming of the gem, had succeeded
in locating the spot of splendor. Alone, with a coil of rope, he made
his way to the top of the ancient cape. A few days later his bruised and
lifeless body was found among the rocks below the height, and taken for
burial to the little hillside cemetery by the Gaspereau. The fellow had
evidently succeeded in finding the amethyst and dislodging it from its
matrix, for when next the elfin light gleamed forth it was seen to come
from a point far down the cliff, not more than a hundred feet above the
tide.
Here it had been found by Pierrot Desbarats, who, laughing to scorn the
superstitious fears of his fellow-villagers, had brought it home in
triumph. It was his purpose to go, at some convenient season, to
Halifax, and there sell the matchless crystal, of whose value the priest
had been able to give him some idea. But that very spring ill luck had
crossed the threshold of Pierrot's cabin, a threshold over which he was
even then preparing to lead Marie Beaugrand as his bride. Two of his
oxen died mysteriously, his best cow slipped her calf, his horse got a
strain in the loins, and his apple blossoms were nipped by a frost which
passed by his neighbors' trees. Thereupon, heeding the words of an old
Micmac squaw, who had said that the spell of the stone had no power upon
a woman, Pierrot had placed his treasure in Marie's keeping till such
time as it could be transformed into English gold--and from that day the
shadow of ill-fate had seemed to pass from him, until the edict of
banishment came upon Grand Pré like a bolt out of a cloudless heaven.
From the ship, on whose deck he awaited her coming, Pierrot saw the
apparently causeless accident which had befallen the gem, and watched
with dry lips and burning eyes the vain endeavors of the search. His
hands trembled and his heart was bitter against the girl for a few
moments; but as the boat drew near, and he caught the misery and
fathomless self-reproach on her averted face, his anger melted away in
pity. He took Marie's hand as she came over the bulwarks, and whispered
to her: "Don't cry about it, '_Tite Chérie_, it would have brought us
bad luck anywhere we went. Let's thank the Holy Saints it's gone."
As the ship forged slowly across the Basin and came beneath the shadow
of the frown of Blomidon, Pierrot pointed out first the perilous ledge
to which he had climbed for the vanished "star," and then the
tide-washed hollow under the cliff, where they had picked up the body of
the luckless sailor from St. Malo. "Who knows, Marie," continued
Pierrot, "if thou hadst not lost that evil stone thou might'st one day
have seen _me_ in such a case as that sailor came unto!" And then, not
because she was at all convinced by such reasoning, but because her
lover's voice was kind, the girl looked up into Pierrot's face and made
shift to dry her tears.
II.
Late in December the last ship sailed away. Then the last roof-tree of
Grand Pré village went down in ashes; and Winslow's lieutenant, Osgood,
with a sense of heavy duty done, departed with his New England troops.
Winslow himself had gone some weeks before.
For five years after the great exile the Acadian lands lay deserted, and
the fogs that gathered morning by morning on the dark top of Blomidon
looked down on a waste where came and went no human footstep. All the
while the fated amethyst lay hidden, as far as tradition tells, beneath
the red ooze and changing tides of the creek.
Then settlers began to come in, and the empty fields were taken up by
men of English speech. Once more a village arose on Grand Pré, and
cider-presses creaked on the hills of Gaspereau. Of the Acadians, to
keep their memory green on the meadows they had captured from the sea,
there remained the interminable lines of mighty dike, the old apple
orchards and the wind-breaks of tall poplars, and some gaping cellars
full of ruins wherein the newcomers dug persistently for treasure.
By and by certain of the settlers, who occupied the higher grounds back
of the village, began to talk of a star which they had seen, gleaming
with a strange violet radiance from a patch of unreclaimed salt marsh by
the mouth of the creek. In early evening only could the elfin light be
discerned, and then it was visible to none but those who stood upon the
heights. Soon, from no one knew where, came tales of "The Eye of
Gluskâp," and "The Witch's Stone," and "_L'Etoile de Pierrot Desbarat_,"
and the death of the sailor of St. Malo, and the losing of the gem on
the day the ship sailed forth. Of the value of the amethyst the most
fabulous stories went abroad, and for a season the good wives of the
settlers had but a sorry time of it, cleansing their husbands' garments
from a daily defilement of mud.
While the vain search was going on, an old Scotchman, shrewder than his
fellows, was taking out his title-deeds to the whole expanse of
salt-flats, which covered perhaps a score of acres. Having quietly made
his position secure at Halifax, Dugald McIntyre came down on his
fellow-villagers with a firm celerity, and the digging and the defiling
of garments came suddenly to an end by Grand Pré Creek. Soon a line of
new dike encompassed the flats, the spring tides swept no more across
those sharp grasses which had bent beneath the unreturning feet of the
Acadians, and the prudent Scot found himself the richer by twenty acres
of exhaustlessly fertile meadow, worth a hundred dollars an acre any
day. Moreover, he felt that _he had the amethyst_. Could he not see it
almost any evening toward sundown by merely climbing the hillside back
of his snug homestead? How divinely it gleamed, with long, pale, steady
rays, just inside the lines of circumvallation which he had so cunningly
drawn about it! In its low lurking-place beside the hubbub of the
recurring ebb and flow, it seemed to watch, like an unwinking eye, for
the coming of curious and baleful fates.
But it never fell to the Scotchman's fortune to behold his treasure
close at hand. To the hill-top he had to go whenever he would gloat upon
its beauty. To the most diligent and tireless searching of every inch of
the marsh's surface it refused to yield up its implacably virginal
lustre. Sometimes, though rarely, it was visible as the moon drew near
her setting, and then it would glitter whitely and malignantly, like a
frosty spear-point.
At last the settlers began to whisper that the Star was not in the marsh
at all, but that Dugald McIntyre, after the fashion of these canny folk,
had o'er-reached himself, and run the lines of the dike right over it.
That it could continue to shine under such discouraging circumstances,
the settlement by this time scorned to doubt. To "The Eye of Gluskâp"
the people were ready to attribute any powers, divine or devilish.
Whether the degree of possession to which Dugald McIntyre had attained
could be considered to constitute a legal ownership of the jewel or not
is a question for lawyers, not for the mere teller of a plain tale, the
mere digger among the facts of a perishing history. Suffice it to say
that the finger of ill-fortune soon designated Dugald McIntyre as the
man whose claim to the "Eye" was acknowledged by the Fates.
From the time of the completion of the new dike dated the Scotchman's
troubles. His cattle one year, his crops another, seemed to find the
seasons set against them. Dugald's prudence, watchfulness, and untiring
industry minimized every stroke; nevertheless, things went steadily to
the worse.