A Grand Pré Morning
When I stepped off the wide grounds of Monsieur de Lamourie I was at the
extreme eastern end of the village. How little did I dream that this
fairest of Acadian towns was lying even now beneath the shadow of doom!
I am never superstitious in the morning. Little did I dream how near was
the fulfilment of Grûl’s grim prophecy, or how, in that fulfilment,
Grand Pré was presently to fade like an exhalation from the face of this
wide green Acadian land! It pleases me, since no mortal eye shall ever
again see Grand Pré as she was, to find that now I recall with
clear-edged memory the picture which she made that June morning. Not
only do I see her, but I hear her pleasant sounds—the shallow rushing of
the Gaspereau at ebb; the mooing of the cattle on the uplands; the
mellow tangle of small bell-music from the bobolinks a-hover over the
dyke meadows; now and then a neighbour call from roadside to barn or
porch or window; and ever the cheery _cling-clank_, _cling-clank_ from
the forge far up the street. Not only do I hear the pleasant sounds, but
the clean smells of that fragrant country come back continually with
wholesome reminiscence. Oh, how the apple-blossoms breathed their souls
out upon that tender morning air! How the spring wind, soft with a vital
moisture, persuaded forth the obscure essences of grass and sod and
thicket! How good was the salty sea-tang from the uncovered flats, and
the emptied channels, and the still-dripping lines of tide-mark sedge!
There was a faint savour of tar, too, at intervals, evasively pungent;
for some three furlongs distant, at the end of a lane which ran at right
angles to the main street, a little creek fell into the Gaspereau, and
by the wharf at the creek-mouth were fishermen mending their boats for
the shad-fishing.
Oh, that unjustly ignored member, the nose! How subtle and
indestructible are its memories! They know the swiftest way to the
sources of joy and tears. The eye, the ear, the nice nerves of the
finger tip,—these have no such sway over the mysteries of remembrance.
They have never been quite so intimate, for a sweet smell duly
apprehended becomes a part of the very brain and blood. I have a little
cream-yellow kerchief of silk laid away in many folds of scentless
paper. Sometimes I untie it and look at it. How well I remember it as
once it clung about the fair hair of my young mother! I see myself, a
thin, dark, grave-faced little boy, leaning against her knee and looking
up with love into her face. The memory moves me—but as a picture. “Was
it I?” I am able to wonder. “And did I, that dark boy, have a mother
like that?” But when I bury my face in the kerchief, and inhale the
faint savour it still wonderfully holds, I know, I feel it all. Once
more I am in her arms, strained to her breast, my small face pressed
close to her smooth neck where the tiny ripples of silken gold began;
and I smell the delicate, intimate sweetness that seemed to be her very
self; and my eyes run over with hot tears of longing for her kiss. I
have a skirt of hers, too, laid away, and an apron; but these do not so
much move me, for as a child I spoiled them with weeping into them, I
think. The kerchief was not then large enough to attract the childish
vehemence of my sorrow, so it was spared, till by and by I came to know
and guard the priceless talisman of memory which it held.
For some minutes I stood at the street-foot, looking down the river-bank
to the wharf and the boats, steeping my brain in those pleasant smells
of Grand Pré. Then I turned up the street. It was all as I had left it
two years before, save that then the apple-trees were green like the
willows by the marsh edge; while now they were white and pink, a foam of
bee-thronged sweetness surging close about the village roofs. The
cottages on either side the street were low, and dazzling white with
lime-wash from the Piziquid quarries. Their wide-flaring gables were
presented with great regularity to the street. The roofs of the larger
cottages were broken by narrow dormer windows; and all, large and small
alike, were stained to a dark purplish-slate color with a wash which is
made, I understand, by mixing the lime with a quantity of slaked
hard-wood ash. The houses stood each with a little space before it, now
neatly tilled and deeply tufted with young green, but presently to
become a mass of colour when the scarlet lychnis, blue larkspur,
lavender, marigolds, and other summer-blooming plants should break into
flower. Far up the street, at the point where a crossroad led out over
the marshes to the low, dark-wooded ridge of the island, stood the
forge; and as I drew nearer the warm, friendly breath of the fire purred
under the anvil’s clinking. Back of the forge, along the brink of the
open green levels, stood a grove of rounded willow-trees. Further on, a
lane bordered with smaller cabins ran in a careless, winding fashion up
the hillside; and a little way from the corner, dwarfing the roofs,
loftily overpeering the most venerable apple-trees, and wearing a
conscious air of benignant supervision, rose the church of Grand Pré,
somewhat squatly capacious in the body, but with a spire that soared
very graciously. Just beyond, but hidden by the church, I could see in
my mind’s eye the curé’s cottage. My footsteps hastened at the thought
of Father Fafard and his greeting.
The men of the village were at that hour mostly away in the fields; but
there were enough at home about belated barnyard business to halt me
many times with their welcomes before I got to the forge. These
greetings, in the main, had the old-time heartiness, making me feel my
citizenship in Grand Pré. But there was much eager interrogation as to
the cause of my presence, and a something of suspicion, at times, in the
acceptance of my simple answer, which puzzled and vexed me. It was borne
in upon me that I was thought to be commissioned with great matters, and
my frankness but a mask for grave and dubious affairs.
Outside the forge, when at last I came to it, stood waiting two horses,
while another was inside being shod. The acrid smell of the searing iron
upon the hoof awoke in my breast a throng of boyish memories, which,
however, I had not time to note and discriminate between; for the owners
of the two horses hailed and stopped me. They were men of the
out-settlements, whom I knew but well enough to pass the weather with.
Yet I saw it in their eyes that they had heard something of my arrival.
Question hung upon their lips. I gave them no time for it, but with as
little patience as consisted with civility I hastened into the forge and
seized the hand of the smith, my old friend and my true friend, Nicole
Brun.
“Master Paul!” he cried, in a voice which meant a thousand welcomes; and
stood gripping my fingers, and searching me with his eyes, while the
iron in his other hand slowly faded from pink to purple.
“Well,” I laughed presently, “there is one man in Grand Pré, I perceive,
who is merely glad to greet me home, and not too deeply troubled over
the reasons for my coming.”
“Hein! You’ve seen it and heard it already,” said Nicole, releasing my
fingers from his knotty grasp, and throwing back his thick shoulders
with a significant shrug. “Mother Pêche told me last night of your
coming; and last night, too, the Black Abbé passed this way. The town is
all of a buzz with reasons, this way and that. And some there be that
are for you, but more that fear you, Master Paul.”
“Fear me?” I asked, incredulous.
“Along of the Black Abbé and Vaurin!” answered Nicole, as if explaining
everything.
“That Vaurin—curse him!” I exclaimed angrily. “But what say _you_,
Nicole? I give you my word, as I have told every one, I come to Grand
Pré on my own private business, and mix not at all with public matters.”
“So?” said he, lifting his shaggy eyebrows in plain surprise. “But in
any case it had been all the same to me. I’m a quiet man, and bide me
here, taking no part but to forge an honest shoe for the beast of friend
or foe; but I’m _your_ man, Master Paul, through thick and thin, as my
father was your father’s. ‘Tis a hard thing to decide, these days, what
with Halifax and the English governor pulling one way, Quebec and the
Black Abbé pulling the other, and his reverence’s red devils up to Lord
knows what! But I follow you, Master Paul, come what may! I’m ready.”
I laid my hand laughingly on his shoulder, and thanked him.
“I believe you, my friend,” said I. “And there’s no man I trust more.
But I’ve no lead to set you just now. Be true to France, in all
openness, and lend no ear to treachery, is all I say. I am the king’s
man, heart and soul; but the English are a fair foe, and to be fought
with fair weapons, say I, or not at all.”
“Right you are, Master Paul,” grunted Nicole in hearty approval. There
was a triumphant grin on his square and sooty face, which I marked with
a passing wonder.
“And as for this Vaurin,” I continued, “I spit on all such sneaking
fire-in-the-night, throat-slitting, scalp-lifting rabble, who bring a
good cause to bitter shame!”
I spoke with unwonted heat; for I was yet wroth at the commandant for
his misuse of my ignorance, and smarting raw at the notion of being
classed in with Vaurin.
I observed that at my words Nicole’s triumphant grin was shot across
with a sort of apprehension; and at the same moment I observed, too, a
sturdy stranger, apparently the owner of the horse now being shod. He
sat to the right of the forge fire, far back against the wall; but as I
finished he sprang to his feet and came briskly forward.
“Blood of God,” he snarled blasphemously, “but this is carrying the joke
too far! You play your part a trifle too well, young man. Let me counsel
you to keep a respectful tongue in your head when you speak of your
betters.”
“Faith, and I do that!” said I pleasantly, taking note of him with care.
From his speech I read him to be a Gascon of the lower sort; while from
his dress I judged that he played the gentleman adventurer. But I set
him down for a hardy rogue.
“But from whom do I receive in such ill language such excellent good
advice?” I went on.
“One who can enforce it!” he cried roughly, misled by my civil air. “I’m
a friend of Captain Vaurin, whom I have the honour to serve. It seems to
suit some purpose of yours just now to deny it, but you were with him
yesterday, in counsel with him, a messenger from Colonel Vergor to him;
and you came on here at his orders.”
“That is a lie!” said I very gently, smiling upon him. “The other
rascal, Vergor, tricked me with his letter; and he shall pay for it!”
Thus given the lie, but so softly, the fellow uttered a choking gurgle
betwixt astonishment and rage, and I calculated the chance of his
rushing upon me without warning. He was, as I think I said, a very
sturdy figure of a man, though not tall; and he gave sign of courage
enough in his angry little eyes and jutting chin. A side glance at
Nicole showed me that he was pleased with the turn of affairs, and had
small love for the stranger. I caught at the doorway the faces of the
two men from the out-settlements, with eyes and ears all agog.
The stranger gulped down his rage and set himself to ape my coolness.
“Whatever your business with my captain,” said he, “we are here now as
private gentlemen, and you must give me satisfaction. Be good enough to
draw, monsieur.”
Now, I was embarrassed and annoyed by this encounter, for I certainly
could not fight one of Vaurin’s crew, and I was in haste to see Father
Fafard. I cursed my folly in having been led into such an unworthy
altercation. How most quickly should I get out of it?
“I am a captain in the king’s service,” said I abruptly, “and I cannot
cross swords but with a gentleman.”
The fellow spluttered in a fine fury, more or less assumed, I must
believe. His oaths were of a sort which grated me, but having delivered
himself of them he said:
“I too serve the king. And I too, I’d have you know, am a gentleman.
None of your Canadian half-breed seigneurs, but a gentleman of Gascony.
Out with your sword, or I spit you!”
“I’m very sorry,” I answered smoothly, “that I cannot fight with one of
Vaurin’s cut-throats, for I perceive you to be a stout-hearted rascal
who might give me a good bout. But as for the gentleman of Gascony,
faith, my credulity will not stand so great a tax. From your accents,
Monsieur, I could almost name the particular sty by the Bordeaux
waterside which must claim the distinction of your birth.”
As I had calculated, this insult brought it. My prod had struck the raw.
With a choking curse the fellow sprang at me, naked handed, blind in his
bull strength.
I dropped one foot to the rear, met and stopped the rush by planting my
left fist in his face, then gave him my right under his jaw, with the
full thrust of my body, from the foot up. It was a beautiful trick,
learned of an English prisoner at Montreal, who had trained me all one
winter in the fistic art of his countrymen. My impetuous antagonist went
backward over the anvil, and seemed in small haste to pick himself up.
The spectators gaped at the strange tactics; and Nicole, as I bade him
good-by, chuckled:
“There’ll be trouble for this somewhere, Master Paul! Watch out
sharp—and don’t go ‘round o’ nights without taking me along. Le Fûret is
not nicknamed ‘The Ferret’ for nothing!”
“All right, my friend,” said I; “when I want a guard I’ll send for you.”
I went off toward Father Fafard’s, pleased with myself, pleased with the
English captain who had taught me such a useful accomplishment, and
pleased, I confess, with Vaurin’s minion for having afforded me such a
fair chance to display it.