Charms and Counter-charms
Never may I forget that walking down from the Gaspereau Ridge to Grand
Pré village. The very air seemed charged with mystery. Every sight and
every sound bore the significance of an omen, to which I lacked
interpreter. The roofs of the village itself, and the marshes, the sea,
and the far-off bulk of Blomidon, appeared like the tissue of a dream,
ready to vanish upon a turn of thought, and leave behind I knew not what
of terrible reality.
I am not by nature superstitious at all beyond the point of convenience.
Such superstitions as please me I have ever been wont to cherish for the
interest to be had out of them. I have often been strengthened in a
doubtful intention by omens that looked my way, and auspicious signs
have many a time cheered me astonishingly when affairs have seemed to be
going ill. But the most menacing of omens have ever had small weight
when opposing themselves to my set purpose. When a superstition is on my
side I show it much civility: when it is against me it seems of small
account.
But that night I was more superstitious than usual. Of the new moon, a
pallid bow just sinking, I caught first sight over my left shoulder, and
I felt vaguely troubled thereat. One crow, croaking from a willow stump
upon my right hand, got up heavily and flew across my path. I misliked
the omen, and felt straightway well assured of some approaching rebuff.
When, a few moments later, _two_ crows upon my left hand flew over to my
right I was not greatly comforted, for they were far ahead and I was
forced to conclude that the felicity which they prophesied was remote.
Thus it came that presently I was in a waking and walking dream, not
knowing well the substance from the shadow. Yet my senses did so
continue to serve me that I went not down into the village, where I knew
I should find many a handclasp, but followed discreetly along the back
of the orchards, that I might reach the De Lamourie place as swiftly as
possible.
By this hour a sweet-smelling mist, such as, I think, falls nowhere else
as it does in the Acadian fields, lay heavy on the grasses. I bethought
me that it was the dew of the new moon, and therefore endowed with many
virtues; and I persuaded myself to believe that my feet, which were by
now well drenched with it, must needs be set upon a fortunate errand.
As I came to this comforting conclusion I reached a little thicket at an
orchard corner, where grew a deep tangle of early flowering herbs.
There, gathering the wet and perfumed blooms, stooped an old woman with
a red shawl wrapped over her head and shoulders. She straightened
herself briskly as I came beside her, and I saw the haggard, high-boned,
hawk-nosed face of old Mother Pêche, whose tales of wizardry I had often
listened to in the years long gone by. She turned upon me her strange
eyes, black points of piercing intelligence encircled by a startling
glitter of wide white, and at once she stretched out to me a crooked
hand of greeting.
“It is good for these old eyes, Master Paul, to see thee back in the
village!” she exclaimed.
Now, any one will tell you that it is not well to be crossed in one’s
path by an old woman, when on an errand of moment. I hurried past,
therefore; and it shames me to say it. But then, remembering that one
had better defy any omen than leave a kindness undone, I stopped, turned
back, and hastily grasped the old dame’s wizened hand, slipping into it
a silver piece as I did so.
It was a broad piece, and full as much as I could wisely spare; but an
old woman or a small boy is ever welcome to share my last penny. Her
strange eyes gleamed for a moment, but as she looked up to bless me her
face changed. After gazing earnestly into my eyes she muttered something
which I could not catch, and to my huge amazement flung the silver
behind her with a violence which left no doubt of her intentions. She
flung it toward a little swampy pool; but as luck would have it the coin
struck a willow sapling by the pool’s edge, bounded back, and fell with
a clink upon a flat stone, where I marked it as it lay whitely
glittering.
I was too amazed to protest for a moment, but the old woman hastened to
appease me.
“There was sorrow on it, dearie,—thy sorrow,” she exclaimed coaxingly;
“and I wouldn’t have it. The devil take all thy bad luck, and Mary give
thee new fortune!”
To me it seemed that throwing away the silver piece was taking
superstition quite too seriously. I laughed and said:
“But, mother, if there be bad luck ahead of me, so much the more do I
want your blessing, and truly I cannot spare you another silver crown.
Faith, this one’s not gone yet, after all!” And picking it up I handed
it back to her. “Let the devil fly away with my ill luck, if he may, but
don’t let him fly away with your little savings,” I added.
The old dame shook her head doubtfully, and then with a sigh of
resignation, as who should say, “The gifts of destiny are not to be
thrust aside,” slipped the silver into some deep-hidden pocket. But her
loving concern for my prosperity was not to be balked. After a little
fumbling she brought out a small pebble, which she gave me with an air
that showed it to be, in her eyes, some very great thing.
I took it with an answering concern, looked at it very closely, and
turned it over in my hand, waiting for some clue to its significance
before I should begin to thank her for the gift, if gift it were. The
stone was assuredly beautiful, about the size of a hazel-nut, and of a
clouded, watery green in color, but the curious quality of it was that
as you held it up a moving loop of light seemed to gather at its heart,
taking somewhat the semblance of a palely luminous eye. My interest
deepened at once, and I bethought me of a stone of rarity and price
which was sometimes to be found under Blomidon. It went by the name of
“Le Veilleur,” or “The Watcher,” among our Acadian peasants; but the
Indians called it “The Eye of Manitou,” and many mystic virtues were
ascribed to it.
“Why, mother,” I said presently, “this is a thing of great price! I
cannot take it. ‘Tis a ‘Watcher,’ is it not?” And I gazed intently into
its elusive loop of light.
“I have another,” she answered eagerly, thrusting her hands under her
red cloak as if to prevent me giving back the stone. “That is for thee,
and thou’lt need it, _chéri_ Master Paul.”
“Well,” said I, staring at the beautiful jewel with a growing affection,
“I will take it with much thanks, mother, but I must pay you what it is
worth; and that I will find out in Quebec, from one who knows the worth
of jewels.”
“Thou shalt _not_ pay me, Master Paul,” said the old dame, with a
distinct note of resentment in her voice. “It is my gift to thee,
because I have loved thee since thou wert a little lad; and because
thou’lt need the stone. Promise me thou’lt wear it always about thee;”
and plucking it from my hand with a swift insinuation of her long
fingers she slipped it into a tiny pouch of dressed deerskin and
proceeded to affix a leathern thong whereby I might, as I inferred, hang
the talisman about my neck.
“While this you wear,” she went on in a low, singing voice, “what most
you fear will never come to pass.”
“But I am not greatly given to fear, mother,” said I, with a little
vainglorious laugh.
“Then thou hast not known love,” she retorted sharply.
At these words the fear of which she had spoken came about me—vague,
formless, terrible, and I trembled.
“Give it to me!” I cried in haste. “Give it to me! I will repay you,
mother, with”—and here I laughed again—“with love, which you say I have
never known.”
“_That_ kind of love, Master Paul, thou hast known since thou wert a
very little lad. Thou’st given it freely, out of a kind heart. But,
dearie, thou hast but played at the great love—or more would’st thou
know of fear.” And the old woman looked at me with shrewd question in
her startling eyes.
But I did know fear—and I knew that I knew love. My face turned
anxiously toward De Lamourie’s, and I grudged every instant of further
delay.
“Good-by, mother, and the saints keep you!” I cried hastily, swinging
off through the wet grass. But the old dame called after me gently:
“Stop a minute, Master Paul. She will be at her supper by now; an’ in a
little she’ll be walking in the garden path.”
I stopped, filled with wonder, and my veins leaping in wild confusion at
the sound of that little word “she.” It was as if the old woman had
shouted “Yvonne” at the top of her voice.
“What is it?” I stammered.
“I want to look at thy hand, dearie,” she said, grasping it and turning
it so as to catch the last of the fading light.
“Your heart’s desire is nigh your death of hope,” said she presently,
speaking like an oracle. Then she dropped my hand with a little dry
chuckle, and turned away to her gathering of herbs as if I were of no
further account.
“What do you mean?” I asked eagerly.
But she would not answer me. I scorned to appear too deeply concerned in
such old woman’s foolery; so I asked no more, but went my way, carrying
the word in my heart with a strange comfort—which, had I but known it,
was right soon to turn into despair.