Gabriel, hurried along through “brake, bush, and brier,” each arm
grasped by a brawny Micmac, had no time for thought. A grown man of
settled convictions might have found his situation a very labyrinth of
difficulty. How much more, then, a growing lad, unavoidably halting
betwixt two nationalities and two forms of religion?
After what seemed endless hours, but which in reality was but a short
time, the party arrived at the settlement of wigwams on the bank of the
Shubenacadie. The priest was no longer to be seen. “Am I then to be left
to the mercy of these savages?” thought Gabriel. Yet close on the heels
of the thought flashed the consciousness that the Indians’ violence had
considerably slackened since the disappearance of Le Loutre. The bonds
with which they had tied their prisoner were so loose that he easily
slipped out of them, and approaching the squaws who were gathering wood
for the fires, he addressed them in their own language and proceeded to
help them. The braves merely turned their heads and glanced at him
indifferently. “Not enough gold!” he heard one mutter to another. He had
already heard that the Micmacs had grown shrewd enough to put their own
price on the harassing of recalcitrant or timid Acadians, and the taking
of English scalps; and like all ignorant or savage races had quickly
learned to overestimate their services and become insatiate in their
demands. Gabriel’s chances, therefore, depended to some extent on the
condition of the priest’s treasury; also on the fact that he was
personally acquainted with certain members of the band, to whom by
reason of his skill in woodcraft and familiarity with the habits of the
forest game he had not only occasionally been of service, but whose
respect he had won.
“This is the white boy who knows even as does the red man the lair of
the wild deer and where in the noonday heat they turn their steps to
drink,” observed one to the other, as Gabriel, restraining every symptom
of fear, quietly joined the group around the now blazing fire and helped
himself out of the common pot.
“Yes,” he put in coolly, “and I can tell you more than that if you
will.”
There are natures, those of women as well as of men, whose vitality
quickens in the face of actual danger. They may be even cowardly in the
mere anticipation, but the trumpet-call of duty, honor, or sacrifice, or
the less high-sounding clarion of self-preservation, sets them on their
feet, face forward to the coming foe. In Gabriel all these forces were
at work, though Margot’s sweet, pale face and the _gran’-père’s_ bowed
gray head, were the strongest influences. And behind all these was that
irrepressible spirit of adventure, never wholly absent from the normally
healthy young mind.
Drawing on his store of woodland stories, and occasionally pausing to
give ear to those furnished by the now interested Micmacs, an hour
passed in total oblivion by the captors of the commands laid on them
concerning their prisoner; and when at last a tall dark form suddenly
appeared within the circle of light, and a well-known terrible voice
broke forth in objurgation; it was plain that the owner of both was
scarcely more welcome to his “lambs” than to the prisoner.
“What is that I behold?” exclaimed Le Loutre. “Where is your Christian
service, vowed to God and the king? Instead, I find feasting and foolish
gabbling, with a traitorous captive in the midst!”
The faces of the Indians clouded in sullen silence. The lash of the
priest’s tongue went unsparingly on. At length the leader growled out,
“The pale faces from over the sea bring no more gifts. The red men grow
weary of taking the scalps of friendly white men who are at war with
your people but who do the Indian no wrong. They at the new fort have
treated us well. And as for this boy, you give us not enough to take the
scalp of so mighty a hunter and true a tracker.”
Le Loutre’s face paled with baffled rage. True it was that owing to some
at present unexplained delay the customary large remittances from France
for the bribing of Indians who were friendly to the English were not
forthcoming, and with a heart-leap of joy Gabriel saw the truth written
in his eyes.
“Fools! Did I bid you take his scalp? Did I not bid you rather to
chasten him for his faithlessness and force him back to his duty? This
you know well enough how to do without my guiding presence. Yet I come
to find——”
With a gesture of unutterable scorn he waved his black-robed arm.
But his personal influence was on the wane, and he knew it. It was
money, gifts, that were needed, and for these he must wait. Yet were
there still a few whose greed was of the kind that will take anything
rather than nothing, and on these he depended, and not in vain.
Stealthily, like dark spirits, two or three Indians glided from behind
their companions, and took up their station beside the priest.
Strengthened by these mute allies he once more faced the group at the
fire, and proceeded to pour forth in fervid eloquence alternate
persuasion, threat, and glowing promise of future reward. Gabriel soon
discovered that he was not the central figure in this tirade—that
larger projects than the fate of one boy were being held before the now
attentive Indians, who uttered guttural notes of assent or dissent.
“A hundred _livres_ for each scalp—a hundred _livres_, mark you! This
boy knows, as you cannot do, the plan of the fort at Halifax, and the
number of its defenders. If he be so mighty a tracker, let him track
these English dogs to their lair and fire them out of it, or in it, it
matters not which, so that to God and the king are restored what is
rightly theirs. But remember, a hundred _livres_ is yours for every
English scalp! My people may not do this thing, for they have signed a
peace with their enemies, but for your people it is otherwise.”
“Have we too, not set our totems to a solemn treaty?” growled one
dissenting voice.
Once more from the priest that gesture of contempt.
“And what is that for such as you?” he said. “What is a broken treaty to
the Indian?”
Gabriel, unable longer to contain himself, sprang to his feet.
“_Mon père!_” he cried, his heart in a flame, a blaze of sudden
illumination in his soul. “Nay, never more _mon père! M. l’Abbé_, is
this, then, the Christianity, the fealty to God and the king, to which
you would have me faithful? Then, God willing, faithless will I be.”
For a long minute there was dead silence, broken only by the quick
breathing of the excited boy. The Indians, though not fully
understanding the words, realized their daring, and gazed upon him with
all the admiration of which their anger was capable.
“Do your work,” said Le Loutre at last coldly, signing to the Micmacs at
his side.
In a moment Gabriel was thrown to the ground, his arms bound to his
side, his feet tied. A hole was dug in the ground, a post placed in it,
and around the post fresh logs were heaped.
Such scenes, alas! were not uncommon under the despotic rule of Abbé Le
Loutre, and though no instance is recorded of actual sacrifice of life,
owing perhaps almost as much to Acadian timidity as to priestly
forbearance, much terror and temporary suffering were caused by his
blind fanaticism. But in this boy of mixed race there was stouter stuff
to deal with, and his English blood was to the priest as a thing
accursed.
* * * * *
Days passed, and Pierre Grétin and his granddaughter could obtain no
news of Gabriel. Tossed and torn by conflicting emotions, communal as
well as personal, the old man’s strength seemed to be ebbing from him.
Yet never did he need it more. The village of Port Royal (now
Annapolis), nay, all Acadie, was in the confusion of helpless distress.
What should they do, these poor ignorant habitans? To whom should they
listen? In their hearts they knew that every word of Cornwallis’
proclamation was true, that under English rule they had enjoyed freedom,
both secular and religious. On the other hand, Le Loutre swept down upon
them continually with the firebrand of his eloquence. “Come to French
soil,” he cried, “seek new homes under the old flag! For three years _le
bon roi_ will support you. You are French at heart—what have you to do
with these English? Refuse, and the consolations of religion will be
denied you and your property shall be given over to the savages.”
True, they were French at heart, the most of them, but not all; and
their tranquil, sluggish lives had drifted so peacefully on the broad
river of the English governor’s indulgence. It was almost worth while to
renew the oath of allegiance to these foreigners and sleep quietly once
more under their own rooftrees. But would they sleep quietly? Ah, there
was the rub! Le Loutre had ever been a man of his word.
Therefore it came to pass that French ships passing to Isle St. Jean,
now called Prince Edward Island, and Isle Royale, now Cape Breton, had
for two years many hundred Acadians for passengers, some willing, more
reluctant, destined to semi-starvation and unutterable misery in the new
and desolate country in which their small stock of courage was to be so
grievously tried, and in which few of them plucked up spirit sufficient
to clear new land for their subsistence, but existed, or ceased to
exist, on such meagre supplies as the French government furnished them.
“_Gran’-père_,” said Margot one evening, as bereft of most of their near
neighbors they clung almost alone to their humble home, “_mon
gran’-père_, what think you, has become of our Gabriel?” Her eyes were
heavy with weeping, her round cheeks pale.
Grétin, in yet worse case, had scarce strength to take his turn with her
behind their yoke of oxen at the plow. He sat on a bench at the door of
the hut, both hands leaning heavily on his staff. For a while he
answered nothing, but his sunken gaze wandered along the banks of the
river, from one desolated home to another. In scarcely more than two or
three still burned the sweet fires of home, and those that were forsaken
had been plundered by the Indians, fresh traces of whose presence were
daily visible. The good village _curé_, beloved of all, and the
influence of whose noble life and teachings represented all that was
best in the Catholic church, was gone too. Torn by contending duties he
had decided that the forlorn exiles needed his ministrations more than
those still remaining in their homes, and had followed them to French
soil.
“_Le bon Dieu_ knows, my child!” Grétin answered at last, in the dull
tones of hopeless old age.
“Surely _M. l’Abbé_ would not permit that—that——” her voice broke.
“That his fair young life should be destroyed by those savages? No, my
child, no—that can I not believe. Moreover, Jean Jacques, Paul
Pierre—they were his friends among the Micmacs. And _M. l’Abbé_—no, he
would bend but not break the boy.”
There was a long silence. The evening dews, tears of the soil for the
banishment of her children, sparkled on the wide meadows beneath the now
rising moon.
“Margot, we can no longer resist the priest’s will,” he said again, “and
alone we are not able to till the land, so that it may bring forth crops
for our sustenance.”
But a burst of tears from the girl interrupted him. Flinging herself at
his feet, she threw her arms around him and hid her face in his breast.
“_Gran’-père, mon gran’-père!_” she cried, “I will work! I can plow—I
can dig! I am young it is true, and small, but we women of Acadie are
strong. You shall care for the house—it is I who will till the land.
Let us not leave Acadie. Gabriel may return—sick, wounded, who knows?
and we gone, the house desolate! If _M. l’Abbé_ sets his Micmacs on us
to drive us forth, I will plead with them. They have hearkened to me
before now, they will again. If not, then we must go forth indeed, but
not yet, not yet!”
[Illustration: “Suddenly the girl raised her head.”]
Weeping they clung together. Suddenly the girl raised her head. A moment
more she was on her feet, gazing intently into the black depths of the
forest.
“_Gran’-père_,” she whispered, “do you hear?”
“Only the night-hawk, my daughter.”
“Ah, but the night-hawk! Many a time have I heard my cousin call thus in
the woods in our happy play times. There, again!”
Like an arrow from a bow she was gone, speeding through the long grass,
but keeping well in the shadows.
The old man rose with difficulty. He was weary and cramped with the long
day’s work, of which since his grandson began to grow toward manhood his
share had until these evil days been slight. As the minutes crawled by
and Margot did not return, anxiety swelled to terror. The Indians—they
did not all know her. With shaking hand he took his ancient-fowling
piece from the peg where it hung.
His vision was dim, and as he started blindly on his way, he found
himself arrested, gently pushed back into the hut, the door barred, the
small windows shuttered. All was done quickly and quietly, as by an
accustomed hand. Pine cones were thrown upon the half-dead fire, there
was a blaze of light, and Pierre Grétin fell into the arms of his
grandson.
But joy sobered as Grétin and Margot surveyed their recovered treasure
by the additional illumination of home-made tallow dips. Gabriel,
indeed, was but the ghost of his former buoyant, radiant self. Only the
blue, brave light in his eyes betrayed the old Gabriel. His cheeks were
hollow, his frame gaunt, his home-spun clothing torn to rags.
“That I can soon remedy,” said the little housewife to herself, as she
thought of the new suit in the oaken chest, set aside for his first
communion.
Strange scars were on his legs and hands, and these Margot soon fell to
examining, a growing dread in her face, though he strove to draw his
fingers from her clasp.
“Heed them not, _ma cousine_,” he said tenderly. “I have weightier
matters to speak of with thee and with the _gran’-père_.”
“Speak on, my son.”
“Nay,” said the girl quickly, “let him rest and eat first.”
Glancing into the pot, which hung, French fashion, over the fire, she
added to it shredded meat and vegetables until the whole was a savory
mess. While she prepared it, the boy sat with his head in his hands, a
man before his time.
The meal ended and the kitchen restored to its wonted order, Margot, in
whom, as in all Acadians, the frugal spirit of the French peasant
prevailed, extinguished the tallow dips; then, taking her seat on a
cricket at her grandfather’s knee, she eagerly awaited Gabriel’s story.
This story of Gabriel’s was no easy one to tell; this he felt himself.
In the brief time that he had been absent from his home, brief in actual
duration, but to himself and to his loved ones so long, life had
acquired for him a wholly different meaning. Hitherto his nature had
been as plastic material prepared for some mold, the selection of which
had not as yet been made known. He knew now for what he was destined,
and was conscious that the boy was rapidly hardening into the man he was
intended to be. The fanaticism permitted in one of its most potent
instruments had upset his faith in the form of religion in which he had
been reared, and he was too young for the tolerance that is often the
fruit of a larger experience. Moreover, strange as it may seem, there
was in this generous, tender-hearted youth elements not unlike those in
the relentless and vindictive priest. The fanatic and the enthusiast not
seldom spring from the same root. But how to explain to these two, who,
dear to him as they were, could not be expected to share his
convictions? At last he roused himself.
“First, dear _gran’-père_,” he said, “I must learn how it fares with you
and with _ma cousine_. God grant that you be left here in peace!”
There was a pause. They too had their difficulties. How could they tell
him that Le Loutre might even yet have spared them their home had it not
been for what he called “the contumacy of that young heretic”? Margot’s
woman’s wit, however, came to the rescue and she told simply and
truthfully the tale of the gradual banishment of their people. “We still
are spared,” she concluded, “but it cannot be for long.”
“Then my sins were not visited on your head,” said Gabriel eagerly.
“As others fare, so must we in the end,” was the somewhat evasive reply.
“But come, my cousin, to thy tale.”
So Gabriel began, but when he came to the scene of the torture,
hesitated. Margot’s indignant sympathy, however, divined what he would
not tell.
“Was it very bad, dear cousin?” she cried, the tears in her dark eyes,
as she pressed his hand.
“No, not so very bad,” he replied with forced lightness. “The friendly
Micmacs rebelled, and I do not believe _M. l’Abbé_ ever pushes things to
extremes at first. He strove only to scare me into submission to his
will, and I have got a bit of tough English oak somewhere in me that
doesn’t bend as do tender Acadian saplings.” He smiled down into his
cousin’s wet eyes. “Don’t weep, little cousin. See, I am well; none has
hurt me.”
“Oh, but thou art thin, thou art pale, thou art changed,” she cried,
breaking down completely. “Oh, _mon gran’-père_, is it that we must love
and obey so cruel a priest?”
The old man’s trembling hand smoothed her hair; he could not speak yet.
“_Mon gran’-père_, Margot,” Gabriel said bravely, “I have that to tell
you which may grieve your hearts; but my mind is made up. I have,
indeed, changed since we parted. I am no longer a Christian as your
church holds such.”
“Your church!” This could mean but one thing—their Gabriel was then, in
truth, a heretic! But the low-breathed “Helas, _mon fils_,” which
escaped the old man was not echoed by his granddaughter. She raised her
head and looked at her cousin, who had sprung to his feet and was pacing
the floor like a young lion.
“No,” he cried. “If to do such in the name of the Father and the gentle
mother of a gentle Saviour is to be a Christian, then am I none! If to
be a missionary of the church is to spur poor savages on to be more
cruel, more treacherous, than in their ignorance they were, then heaven
grant that no holy church may ever receive them! If to be false to every
given vow, to strike the enemy in the back, to hate even as do the
devils in hell, is to be a Christian, then no Christian am I!”
He returned to the fireside, and sinking upon the high-backed settle,
relapsed into reverie so profound as to become oblivious of his
surroundings.
“And if thou dost proclaim thyself a heretic, _mon fils_,” observed
Grétin at length fearfully, “what is to become of us?”
“Alas, at best what can I do for you, honored _gran’-père_? Is not even
now that vindictive priest on my track? And may it not be that he may
yet take my life because I will not aid him in his treacherous plot? I
have escaped him once, but only by the aid of Jean Jacques, and now that
gold has come from France, Jean Jacques will love French crowns better
than my life.”
“_M. l’Abbé_ never takes lives, my son,” said the old man rebukingly.
“And why not, _mon gran’-père_? May it not have been because none dared
oppose him?”
Grétin sighed heavily, but made no reply, and Gabriel continued:
“All here are his tools, the Acadians from fear, the Indians for gold. I
am no tool, and for that, if needs be, I must suffer. But you—ah, my
beloved and dear!” He sank impulsively upon his knees, and throwing his
arm around his cousin and leaning his head on his grandsire’s knees,
yielded himself to an abandonment of grief.
Finally Margot spoke, quietly and decisively.
“Dear Gabriel, thou canst indeed do nothing for us and thou art in peril
here. Thou must make thy way with all speed to thy friend, the New
England _prêtre_; he will succor and aid thee. Thou art like the
Huguenots and the Puritans; thou wilt have to suffer for conscience’
sake.”
She smiled bravely, but her lips trembled.
“But you,” Gabriel groaned, “you!”
The poor boy was passing through that bitterest trial of all,
experiencing what to all martyrs is worse than any fiery stake, the
helpless, incomparable anguish of bringing suffering on those dearer to
him than life. What if in the saving of his own soul alive he should
have to trample over the bodies of the beloved? Might not his course be
the very acme of self-seeking? What recompense could the martyr’s crown
confer for this mortal agony of vicarious suffering?
But Margot’s steady, quiet voice went on; her soft touch was on his
head. Timid she might be, but ah, brave, brave too!
“He will not hurt us, the _abbé_,” she said. “Do not fear, my cousin. If
thou dost stay with us, thou wilt have to act a lie every day. Even
should he refrain from pressing thee into his schemes, he will watch
thee, and not one single ordinance of our church wilt thou be permitted
to elude. He can be very hard, our _abbé_. No, dear Gabriel, vain is it
to strive to serve two masters; if of our faith, thou must remain here
and profess it; if of the other, thou must go.”
She averted her head and further speech failed her.
At that moment there was a violent knocking on the door. Gabriel was on
his feet at once, alert, resolute once more.
“I knew he would track me,” he said, “but I had hoped not to be found
here, and neither will I. Adieu, _mon gran’-père_. God in very truth
keep you! Margot, the small door into the cowpen.”
At a word from the girl, Grétin crept into his covered bed in the wall,
while she and Gabriel slipped noiselessly away through a back entrance.
“Let us go with thee, dear cousin,” implored Margot, as they paused for
an instant among the cows, her fears for him making her once more timid.
“_Ma chérie_, no! Ah, my best beloved!”
He clasped her to his breast, kissed her passionately, as never before,
on brow, cheek, and lips, and was gone.
On the house door the knocking continued, and the _gran’-père’s_ voice
was heard in the accents of one aroused from sleep. Margot, hastily
composing her features and trusting that the traces of tears would not
be visible in the light of the dying fire, re-entered the kitchen and,
after much fumbling and delay, opened the door. Without stood Le Loutre,
accompanied as usual by his “lambs.” Without deigning to address her, he
snatched a torch from one of the Indians and, striding into the small
house, explored every corner. Even the cowpen was not left unsearched.
On pretense of arranging the bed-covering, Margot bent over her
grandfather.
“Delay him if you can,” she breathed; “every moment is precious.”
But the priest was already at her side.
“Where is the malicious heretic, at last avowed?” he thundered.
“Ah, where is he, _M. l’Abbé_?” exclaimed Grétin, raising himself on his
elbow, endued with a sudden excess of courage at the thought of Gabriel
wandering alone through the perils of the forest. “Where is the boy, the
son of my loved and only daughter, my heart’s treasure? Where is he,
Gabriel, staff of my old age?”
For a moment the furious priest was confounded. The color mounted to his
dark cheeks and he hesitated. The old man’s aspect was almost
threatening, and if fanaticism had left Le Loutre a conscience, it
surely spoke then. But the momentary weakness passed.
“And thou wouldst shelter a heretic,” he said sternly, “recusant son of
Mother Church that thou art! But she chastens, if in love, yet she
chastens. Hope not for further grace. As for the boy, he must be brought
back into the fold. This I have ere now told thee, and I repeat it. Me,
the chosen instrument of God and the king, he cannot escape. Faithless
as thou mayst be, thou canst not keep him from me. This very night he
shall be forced back to his duty. As for thyself and the girl——”
He paused, the terrible look in his eyes. But it was enough. Further
words were unnecessary. And as the torches danced away like fireflies
into the forest shades, Margot, now completely exhausted, flung herself
down beside the old man and, with an arm about his neck, wailed:
“_Gran’-père_, my _gran’-père_, they will find him!”
And the hopeless response came: “_Ma fille_, they cannot fail to do it.
Let us pray.”
Feebly he arose, and hand in hand the helpless pair kneeled before the
image of the sorrowing Christ.