Grûl’s Warning
“These ten years,” I exclaimed to myself angrily (for I love not to have
a dream rudely broken), “has Grûl been prophesying woe; and I see not
that aught comes of it save greater strength to his lungs.”
I turned my back upon the valley and watched the singular figure that
drew near. It was a shrewd and mysterious madman whom all Acadie had
known for the past ten years as “Grûl.” Whether that was his real name
or a pseudonym of his own adoption no one knew. Whence he had come no
one knew. Wherefore he stayed in Acadie, and so faithfully prophesied
evil to our fair land, no one knew. The reason of his madness—and the
method which sometimes seemed to lurk beneath it—no one could
confidently guess. At least, such ignorance in regard to this fantastic
fool seemed general throughout the country. But there lay here and there
a suspicion that the Black Abbé, the indomitable La Garne, Bigot’s tool
and the people’s dread, knew more of Grûl’s madness than other folk
might dream. It was whispered that La Garne, who seemingly feared no man
else, feared Grûl. It was certain that whenever any scheme of the Black
Abbé’s came to naught Grûl’s hand would appear somewhere in the wreck of
it.
Now, as he came down from the maple grove, he looked and was dressed
just as I had seen him years before. The vicissitudes of time and of the
weather seemed to have as little effect upon the staring black and
yellow of his woollen cloak as upon his iron frame, his piercing
light-blue eyes, the snowy tangle of his hair and beard. Only his
pointed cap betrayed that its wearer dwelt not altogether beyond the
pale of mutability. Its adornments seemed to recognize the seasons. I
had seen it stuck with cornflowers in the summer, with golden-rod and
asters in the autumn, with feathers and strange wisps of straw in
winter; and now it bore a spray of apple-blossom, with some dandelions,
those northern sun-worshippers, whose closing petals now declared that
even in death they took note of the passing of their lord.
In his hand Grûl carried the same quaint wand of white wood, with its
grotesque carven head dyed scarlet, which had caught my eye with an
uneasy fascination the first time I met its possessor. That little
stick, which Grûl wielded with authority as if it were a sceptre, still
caused me some superstitious qualms. I remembered how at my first sight
of it I had looked to see a living spark leap from that scarlet head.
“It has been a long time coming,” said I, as Grûl paused before me,
searching my face curiously with his gleaming eyes. “And meanwhile I
have come. I think, monsieur, I should esteem a welcome somewhat more
cordial than your words of dolorous omen.”
Whether he were displeased or not at my forwardness in addressing him I
cannot tell. He was without doubt accustomed to choose his own time for
speech. His eyes danced with a shifting, sharp light, and after
thrusting his little wand at me till, in spite of myself, I felt the
easy smile upon my lips grow something mechanical, he said with
withering slowness:
“To the boy and the fool how small a handful of years may seem a
lifetime! You think it is long coming? It is even now come. The shadow
of the smoke of her burning even now lies upon Acadie. The ships of her
exile are near.”
He stopped; and I had no word of mocking wherewith to answer him. Then
his eyes and his voice softened a little, and he continued:
“And _you_ have come back—poor boy, poor fool!—with joy in your heart;
and your joy even now is crumbling to ashes in your mouth.”
He turned away, leaving me still speechless; but in an instant he was
back and his wand thrust at me with a suddenness that made me recoil in
childish apprehension. In a voice indescribably dry and biting he cried
swiftly:
“But look you, boy. Whether she be yours or another’s, there is an evil
hand uplifted against her this night. See you to it!”
“What do you mean?” I cried, my heart sinking with a sudden fear. “Nay,
you _shall_ tell me!” I went on fiercely, making as if to restrain him
by force as he turned away. But he bent upon me one look of such scorn
that I felt at once convicted of folly; and striding off, with something
of a dignity in his carriage which all his grotesquerie of garb could
not conceal, he left me to chew upon his words. As for the warning, that
was surely plain enough. I was to go to Yvonne, and be by her in case of
any need. The business thus laid upon me was altogether to my liking.
But that pitying word—of joy that should turn to ashes in my mouth! It
filled me with black foreboding. As I stepped down briskly toward Grand
Pré my joy was already dead, withered at a madman’s whisper. And that
great-growing cloud from over Blomidon had swallowed up all the village
in a chill shadow.