But Winslow was in error. The wife of Marin came alone, and Gabriel’s
yearning eyes traveled in vain beyond the sturdy figure of the Acadian
peasant woman for the slight one of his cousin.
The meeting took place in the general’s private parlor.
“Ah, you expected _la petite_!” began Julie volubly, “but that may not
be—not yet.”
“Where is she, friend Julie?” interrupted the young man impatiently.
“How did she escape from the priest? Is she well? Is she happy? Does she
think of me? Only tell me.”
“But that is much to tell, my brave boy,” laughed Julie. “Listen now to
me, who am indeed thy friend. Thou shalt see her, and she shall answer
those many questions with her own lips, but on one condition: the
marriage must be at once—on the instant. Otherwise, Marin——” she
shrugged her shoulders expressively. “It is not well, seest thou, to
fall out with a husband. Now, Marin is a prisoner, therefore am I a weak
woman left alone to deal with a young man of violence, seest thou? Thou
dost seize thy bride, thou dost carry her to thy priest, who am I? But
shouldst thou delay, and I bring _la petite_ to visit thee once, twice,
many times, Marin, he will say, ‘Thou, _bonne femme_, wast the guardian
of this child, and thou didst take her to visit a heretic, allowing her
also to neglect the duties she owes thee.’ But once thy wife, _M. le
Capitain_, and all is over.”
Gabriel listened to this harangue with eyes upon the ground and the red
color slowly flushing to his fair face. He continued silent so long that
the woman lost patience.
“_Mon Dieu!_” she ejaculated under her breath, “is it the English blood
that makes him so dull?”
At last he spoke hesitatingly:
“Good friend, thou sayest, ‘Seest thou?’ I reply, ‘Seest thou not also?’
There has been no talk of marriage betwixt Margot and myself. Truly do I
desire it,” his eyes flashed, and he raised his head. “I desire it with
all the strength that is in me, but with Margot, the maiden, it may be
otherwise.”
Again the wife of Marin laughed. So loudly did she laugh that the
general, pacing the vicarage garden, paused at the open window to
acquaint himself with the cause of her mirth.
“It is the brave _garçon_, my general. He knows nothing. Let him but
arrange for the marriage, and I, even I, Julie, will answer for the
maiden.”
Then, on being questioned by Winslow, she went over her tale once more,
and the two gossips would have promptly settled the whole affair out of
hand had not one of the principals interposed.
“Let me but see her once—only once—first,” implored Gabriel.
The general, promptly won over to the side of Julie, hesitated, in such
haste was he for the pleasurable excitement of a wedding; but finally it
was resolved that the young lover should go the following morning to
Julie’s little cabin, and there win his fair young bride for himself.
As Julie drew on her hood preparatory to departure, Winslow inquired of
her how it fared with the women, remarking that she herself seemed to
bear her fate with much cheer.
“For the others—well, while many lament, all do not. For myself I care
not. I weary of the French rule and the fighting and wandering and the
savage Indians. Anywhere I go willingly where there is peace, and the
soil is fruitful—_v’ là tout!_”
So she went; and the early sun was glistening on meadows yet dewy when
Gabriel, forgetful for the moment of the sorrows around him and his own
distasteful duties, strode along the same dusty road he had traversed
the previous day, arriving in the course of an hour or so at the small
hut inhabited by the Marins. Julie, hastening forth to milk, greeted him
with a broad smile, and waved to him to enter.
Enter he did, and in a second, neither knew how, he held Margot close to
his heart.
It was long before a word was spoken. It was enough that they were
together; and when at length Gabriel found voice, it was at first only
for expressions of pity and endearment for the frail little creature who
seemed lost within his large embrace.
[Illustration: “They sat down side by side . . . before the empty
hearth.”]
“But I am not so frail, _mon cousin_,” she protested. “I can work and
endure, ah, thou knowest not how much!”
“But never again, _chérie_!” was Gabriel’s reply; and grown strangely
and suddenly bold, he added: “and remember, it must be ‘_mon cousin_’ no
longer, for from this very day there shall be an end of ‘_cousin_’—it
will be ‘wife’ and ‘husband.’ Hearest thou?”
Yes, Margot heard, but had nothing to say. Finally she remarked in a low
voice:
“I would be baptized into thy faith first.”
“What?” cried Gabriel joyfully. “Is that really so, my Margot? What glad
news! Now is all indeed well with us! There is a chaplain at Fort
Edward; he will baptize thee, and marry us.”
They sat down side by side upon the rude bench before the empty hearth,
and talked and made plans as lovers have done since lovers first began.
Gabriel’s mind, as we know, worked quickly, and he soon had beautiful
schemes mapped out for being transferred to Washington’s command in
Virginia, that rising young general having been recently appointed
commander-in-chief of the army there.
“My noble captain is now stationed at Winchester,” he concluded, “and
with him is that grand old soldier Fairfax, the lord lieutenant of the
county. They are engaged in subduing the Indians. At Winchester we will
live, and then shall I be ever at hand to protect my wife.”
News traveled slowly in those days, and Gabriel had heard nothing of the
panic at Winchester, and with the confidence and faith of youth believed
that his hero, George Washington, could accomplish even the impossible.
But duty called, and Julie returned, and Gabriel had to depart; yet not
before it was arranged that, with Winslow’s permission, assured in
advance, Julie should bring Margot that evening to the church, there to
meet the chaplain from Fort Edward, who would perform the two sacraments
of baptism and marriage.
Winslow, naturally of a cheerful disposition, rejoiced in this break in
the monotony of misery, hastily dispatched a messenger to Fort Edward,
and but for Gabriel’s entreaties would have made the marriage as jovial
an affair as Puritanical principles admitted of. Discipline forbade that
a woman could be received as an inmate of a fortified camp, neither
could Gabriel be spared often from duties destined to become daily more
onerous and troublesome; but to the two, scarcely more than boy and
girl, who stood that evening with bowed heads before the chaplain, there
was more than common comfort in the solemn words: “Those whom God hath
joined together let no man put asunder.”
Joy and thankfulness, deep and unutterable, swelled the heart of the
young husband as, from the gate in the stockade, he watched the slight
form of his girl-wife disappear into the gathering shades of night. She
was his now—his to claim, to protect, to have and to hold till death
did them part.
In the excitement and rapture of meeting, Gabriel had hardly bethought
him to ask her how she had escaped from Le Loutre. The fact that she had
escaped, that she was alive and well and with him, filled his mental
horizon. The tale, however, was short. The priest, hard pressed, had
been compelled to give her up to a party of fugitives hastening to
Halifax to take the oath. This party had come upon the Marins, and
thinking they also were bound for Halifax, Margot had willingly joined
them, finding out when it was too late Marin’s change of view.
In those last sad days for her country-people Margot showed of what
stuff she was made. Consoling, upholding, encouraging, she seemed to
have arrived suddenly at a noble womanhood. This, however, was not the
case. She had been growing toward it slowly but surely through years of
adversity.
The continued delay in the coming of the transports bred trouble betwixt
the soldiers and the Acadians. “The soldiers,” we are told, “disliked
and despised them,” the Acadians, and the general found it necessary not
only to enforce discipline more sternly among his troops, but to
administer the lash also on occasion.
At last, one October day, Winslow had four transports at his disposal.
Orders and counter-orders, lamentation and weeping, disturbed the clear,
still air. Villages had to be arranged to go together in the same
transport as well as families; and this, with so few troops at his
command, was no easy task for the general, who naturally was possessed
of very little experience as regarded organization. Gabriel, who while
under Washington had received of necessity some training, was his right
hand man. The male prisoners were removed from the ships to land while
the mustering went forward.
As the women filed past the spot where for a moment the harassed general
and his subordinate had come together, and the pair gazed upon the
melancholy confusion of young and old, and household belongings in
carts, Winslow groaned: “I know they deserve all and more than they
feel; yet it hurts me to hear their weeping and wailing and gnashing of
teeth!”
At Fort Edward, as well as at many other places in the province, the
same terrible scenes were being enacted—those in command, without one
single authentic exception, carrying out the stern decree as mercifully
as possible. Beside the long train of women walked the priest of each
village, encouraging and upholding his flock. A few of these priests
accompanied the exiles, but most of them returned to Canada.
Not all the women, however, were “weeping and wailing.” Some, as has
been remarked, appeared to be wholly undisturbed. Among these latter was
Julie, in the cart with whom was Margot, bound to see the last of her
benefactress. As they passed, both women waved their hands to the two
officers, Julie calling gayly to Gabriel:
“It is well, _M. le mari_! Our ship goes to Virginia, where we shall
again meet. Is it not so?”
For weary weeks the misery was prolonged, and it was the close of the
year before Winslow’s and Murray’s bitter task about the Basin of the
Mines was completed. But improved organization rendered even difficult
things easier, and by the last of October the general was able to part,
though with extreme reluctance, with his most efficient subordinate.
Gabriel, promoted to a captaincy, set sail with his wife on one of the
transports for Virginia.
The poor exiles, with comparatively few exceptions, were scattered
around in the various States from Massachusetts southward, meeting with
no cruelty certainly, but also with no welcome from the struggling
colonials, and only in Louisiana thriving and becoming a permanent
colony. Canada, and even France and England, were also forced to receive
them, and in Canada, among the people of their own faith, their lot was
the hardest. Help in their own church they found none, and indeed in
many instances implored to be taken back to the English Colonies, where
at least they were not treated with actual inhumanity. The war at last
at an end, many, the Herbes amongst the number, found their way back to
their own country. A large portion of the fertile province lay waste,
however, for years, the New England soldier-farmers refusing either part
or lot in it, and English settlers finally being brought from over sea.
It is doubtful if the Acadians ever learned the fate of their leader and
tyrant. Captured on the ocean by the English, Le Loutre died in prison,
after having been nearly assassinated by one of the soldiers of the
guard, who swore that the holy father had once in Acadie tried to take
his scalp!
And Gabriel and Margot? Their lives were happy, although the pain of
separation was sometimes theirs, and they were often exposed to perils
and dangers. As an officer under Washington through stirring times, both
in the Indian wars and the war of the Revolution, Gabriel’s could not be
other than the life of sacrifice and self-devotion demanded by the life
of a true patriot. Margot seconded him bravely, cheering him on at the
trumpet-call of duty and never restraining him by selfish fears and
interests. She kept around her a few of her country people; and there in
Virginia she reared a family of brave boys to follow in their father’s
steps.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
List of Illustrations for _Gabriel the Acadian_ was moved from the front
of the book to the start of the novel.
A few obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected
without note.
A cover has been created for this ebook and is placed in the public
domain.
[End of _The Angel of His Presence_ by G.L. Hill and _Gabriel the
Acadian_ by E.M.N. Bowyer]