_THE HEIR TO GRAND-PRÉ._
"Along my father's dykes I roam again,
Among the willows by the river side,
These miles of green I know from hill to tide,
And every creek and river's ruddy stain.
Neglected long and shunned, our dead have lain,
Here where a people's dearest hope had died."
Frank Winslow was more and more drawn to Pierre as he continued the
history of the Gotros and his connection with them. He looked at him now
as he stood thoughtfully gazing about him upon the scene which would
change its character when he died, and which had been unchanged for over
a century. He must have felt that to him were entrusted the traditions
of a family and a name. His was the duty to be fulfilled in the
accomplishment of a purpose that had come to him through four
generations. In him was the death of this aim, and the end of the name
associated with that purpose. In not complying with the conditions of
the trust imposed upon him, was he really to blame for the final failure
of that great ambitious purpose transmitted through so many of his
ancestors and conditioned with so many difficulties? Winslow felt that a
strange fatality had followed upon the actions of Pierre, and a cruel
punishment had come on him for the violation of the Gotro traditions.
His case had been a most remarkable one. As he thought of the years of
sorrow the old man had had to endure, and had borne so faithfully and
without murmur, he saw in Pierre a complete expiation for any blame that
might stand against him. The spell was broken. The punishment for the
broken family law was fully meted out in Pierre's life. He yet suffered
for his act, but he had sacrificed himself to relieve others. If he did
wrong, or made a mistake, he bore the penalty of it in himself that
nobody else might suffer.
While Winslow mused thus, and felt the sorrow that must be moving the
heart of his aged friend, he could not give voice to his sympathy, for
he realized that such a grief was beyond his range of expression in
condolence. Words would have been out of place. He could but wait. He
felt his feelings pledged to support the old man in his deep grief.
While they were silent, each guided by his peculiar emotions, Pierre's
beautiful daughter appeared at the door of the stone house. Seeing the
two men, she approached quickly, and before her father was aware of her
presence she had placed her hand upon his arm and laughingly called him
from his reverie.
"Père!"
Pierre turned to her, and with a smile placed his hand upon her
shoulder, saying to Winslow as he did so:
"To this girl have the generations of the Pierres come. What remains of
their proud ambitions and lifelong desires dies with me. In her may
begin the better life, free from those stern traditions, that may make
the blood of the Gotros pure again, even though the name be never
revived again in us."
"You have been kept apart from your own people even, by the purpose your
ancestors imposed. It has isolated you," said Winslow.
He did not say what was in his mind concerning Marie. He did not express
the desire he experienced to take upon himself the guardianship of this
maiden, should occasion require it. He determined that she would not be
entirely alone or without protection if the care of the father were
taken from her. He noted the love of the old man for this girl. He
realized the anxiety of the father, who had been almost a mother as
well, for the lovely charge which had been left to his care. This fixed
Winslow's resolve to take the old man's place whenever it should be
necessary. He did not feel that he could disclose the feelings that
moved him on the subject, although he knew that Pierre reciprocated the
friendship Winslow had for him. He desired to tell Pierre that he need
have no fear. Yet he could not do so, certainly not before the young
woman. The situation was delicate, and only time could show how they
stood to each other. Pierre, though an old man, looked so strong and
hale that he knew in all probability he would add two decades to his
life, and by that time his daughter would be of sufficient age to be no
longer a cause of anxiety.
Winslow looked upon his self-imposed task as a matter of course. He was
a young man, but the work of his life had matured him early, and the
peculiar character of his experiences had thrown him in contact with
older men rather than with the things of youth. He looked upon Marie as
a child. She did not impress him in any other way. And as a child he
dealt with her, and gave her such a place in his mind as made him now
resolve to become, as it were, a father to her should she be left in the
world without a protector. He found another condition in his life from
that moment. He was no longer alone and with but himself to consider
henceforth. He deemed it a sacred trust placed upon him by the
friendship that had sprung up between the last Pierre and himself.
The old man again turned to Winslow, and holding his daughter's hand,
said:
"To this girl, after I am gone, belongs Grand-Pré. Long ago the Pierres
learned of the death of all who had land there, and by the marriage of
the second Pierre he united in his family all title and claim to
Grand-Pré. From this you may believe sprung the desire to maintain and
perpetuate the ownership that they vainly hoped might eventually be
enjoyed in the possession of land that had been taken from them. This
desire and hope led to a care that the interests should not be lost or
divided, and hence arose the traditions of the Pierre Gotros, and the
penalty of any infringement of the family law. That there could be but
one male heir was an imperative condition. The fate of the family was
cast upon one son. If there should be a daughter she should not marry.
There has been but one son, and no daughter married till my sister broke
the established law.
"That I am heir to Grand-Pré gives me no concern. What was once our land
is never to return to us. We have waited for a century. The persons who
now claim it and who dwell upon it recognize no claim made by any
Acadian for the land of his fathers. The government has at no time
considered the right or wrong of returning it to the heirs of the
original owners. It has all passed out of our hands, and I see no hope,
no possibility of chance, remote or otherwise, of the land of the
Gotros, the home of the Pierres, the Grand-Pré of our desire and
ambition, ever being put back into our hands again. We can but point to
that beautiful country and say that it was once ours. Not a trace of our
occupation remains, and it is never to see us more. At my time of life I
cannot feel regret at this. What I may have once thought of it does not
concern me now. My daughter is heir to all my claims upon Grand-Pré. But
the penalties shall never fall to her. I feel that the purpose of our
family dies with me. Indeed it is now dead. Marie enters upon a new
lease of life not embarrassed by the traditions of a family, and not
restrained by the conditions placed upon the Pierres. It has cost our
family much to free her, if there is any meaning in what has been
experienced. But that is done.
"It has always seemed strange to me that the hope of the Gotros lived so
long. It must have grown out of the great love our people have always
had for their homes. It must have been this love that brought them back
after the deportation. It certainly bound several generations of them to
a hopeless purpose of one day being able to return to Grand-Pré.
Grand-Pré village, you must understand, was, in comparison with the
country usually called Grand-Pré, but a small part. Less than twenty
families were included in the village, yet it was a rich village, the
choicest of all Minas. It gave its name to almost the whole section. It
had the church, in which the people were kept prisoners. Near it on the
east is the burying ground, to-day without a mark to tell where our
people sleep.
"Your writers and historians for years have been justifying the act of
that people who removed the Acadians. Simple statement of the case was
not deemed sufficient, and all kinds of reasons have been stated to give
foundation for the deportation. Perhaps you do not know that facts have
come to light within a few years which prove beyond a doubt that the
governor of the province of Nova Scotia, Lawrence, was the chief
instrument in bringing about the removal of the Acadians. The country
under his administration had a large French population. Lawrence hated
the Acadians, and by harsh treatment, arbitrary manner, and irritating
restrictions put upon their movements he drove them to the extreme of
fear and unhappiness. He compelled them to look upon him as an enemy,
and to expect any violence at his hands. He had determined to get rid of
them, and drove them to desperation to do something that would give a
reason for removing them. He kept up the agitation against them in New
England by false statements as to their behaviour and attitude towards
the English. At the last, in spite of his efforts, he had to make
accusations that were without foundation to give a show of reason for
removing them. Yet all this effort against the people, and the
deportation itself, were contrary to the expressed wishes of the
government of England, and orders came, but too late, to stay any
attempt at removing the Acadian people out of the country. As may be
expected, the records of Lawrence's administration stand against the
people. The genius that could develop the scheme of removing a people
from their homes, and leave them to the mercy of such cruel
circumstances and unfavorable conditions, could well be expected to make
the record of his term of office seem to stand against this people.
According to the reports and documents of his administration the
Acadians are condemned, that is, in the records that have been
preserved. But strange to say, many records of certain important periods
have been altogether lost or destroyed. This silence of history is
construed against our people.
"Many of your people who visit here, and come to the island," continued
Pierre, "send me books and histories that are printed from time to time
dealing with the question of the deportation."
"Yes," said Winslow, "I have just read a book by one, a well-known
Canadian writer, who most unfairly and slightingly deals with your
people, and ignores utterly the latest accepted statements of history."
"Our families bear witness to the hatred of the New England people to
the unfortunate and homeless race when they were thrown helpless among
them. Many tales of cruelty are told of those days."
"It is a sad story," said Winslow. "My own kinsman, I am sorry to say,
when he wrote his journal, was filled with apprehension that your
Grand-Pré people were likely to rise, unarmed as they were, against his
soldiers, and he dealt with them in a way only excused by the stern
demands of discipline and a soldier's duty. He had to restrain his men
from acts of brutality and oppression they were too apt to practise. It
is too evident that to have been an Acadian was to be liable to almost
any outrage at the hands of the rude soldiery. But the otherwise worthy
colonel was somewhat vain, and made history for himself. He made the
statement in his journal, and permits the belief, that all the Acadians
were captured and removed. Among his private papers are statements to
the contrary, however, and he regretted his connection with the
deportation to his dying day. He was under orders. He fulfilled his most
unpleasant duty, but one may read his protest upon every page of his
journal. His pride was that of a soldier in the strict performance of
his duty."
"There was no desire on the part of Governor Lawrence," continued
Winslow, warmly, "to have the people treated kindly. They were of no
further use in Nova Scotia. Indeed, they were on land that he desired to
get from them for other people, and they had large stocks of cattle that
would become confiscate when they were removed. Their return to their
homes was contrary to his desire and against the success of his scheme.
He endeavored in every way to prevent this. He made little attempt to
arrange that they should find homes in New England, and, indeed, he
found that they would not be permitted to land in many places. Yet he
worked out his devilish plan to get rid of them at any cost, and he
threw them upon the charity of the other provinces. If many died on the
way to our country, packed as they were like animals in the holds of the
small vessels, and without help or hope when they were landed at various
points down our coast, and if disease thinned their ranks and hunger and
fatigue killed, these were agents he was glad to have the aid of to
lessen the possibility of any great number ever returning to the lands
that they had been taken from. He was a most brutal man, with strength
of purpose to accomplish anything and to bend others to his desires."
Winslow ceased speaking with the flush of manly scorn and indignation
upon his face and the warmth of sincere enthusiasm glancing from his
eyes.
Father and daughter looked upon him in silence. Marie felt the contagion
of his feeling, while his presence and the force of his words moved
strongly, absorbing her every thought and feeling.
"Salmon! Salmon!" came a loud and excited voice from the shore below.
Pierre was roused to action by the words. He explained to Winslow that
the first salmon had come up the Basin, and that there were fish in the
weir.