CHAPTER I
“It is the name my mother called me by,” quoth Gabriel sturdily.
For a moment there was silence, save for a murmur of horror that ran through the assembled Acadians at the daring of a boy who thus defied the fierce priest; yet his bearing was perfectly respectful.
“It is a heretic name!” exclaimed Le Loutre.
“Pardon, M. l’Abbé, but it is said not. My father also bare it, and his father before him. Never willingly will I be called by any other. Did not my mother swear on the crucifix to my dying sire that his child should bear his name? And to break a holy vow—is not that of all things the most sinful, O mon père?”
“Thy father died unshriven.”
“My father was of the Protestant faith,” rejoined the boy quickly. “He died faithful to his own, though far from the land of his birth. He would have carried my mother to join the colonists in Virginia, where abide many of his kindred, but the prospect of leaving our Acadian land did not please her, and he loved her more than kin or country. My father was a good soldier and brave, monsieur; he was but true to the flag he served, and to which all we of Acadia have sworn allegiance, and daily break our vows!”
He raised his eyes of English blue, and looked straight into those of the Abbé Le Loutre, black and angry as a thundercloud.
A fine figure of a seventeen-year-old lad he was. At his age many an Acadian youth was beginning to dream of wife and home all his own. Tall and strongly built, his light curls tossed back from a brow whose tell-tale fairness showed through the ruddy bronze left by the suns and storms of Acadia.
This time the exclamations of horror rose louder than before, and above them was heard the piteous remonstrance of the village curé, “Ah, mon fils, submit thyself to the good abbé.”
Gabriel’s fearless glance swept the rows of dull Acadian faces. It seemed to him as if in actual bodily fear the villagers crouched before the enraged priest, who drove, rather than led, his timid, ignorant flock, and the gentle curé, his subordinate. And the whip with which he goaded them was none other than the ferocious band of Micmac Indians, to whom he had been sent by the French government, nominally as missionary, but in reality that he might keep the Acadians, by fair means or foul, in a continual state of rebellion to their easy-going English rulers.
The murmurs died away into awed silence. Then, with a scornful lift of the hand, Le Loutre turned from the boy and faced the trembling villagers. His address at first was in the usual strain, only, if possible, more intolerant and fanatic than at his last visit, and Gabriel soon pushed impatiently out of the crowd, and flung himself down upon the river’s bank. Presently, however, he found himself listening intently. Here were threats more terrible, even, than of old. Gabriel was brave; his father’s blood did not run in his veins for naught; but for once he wondered not that his countrymen cowered beneath the lash of that fierce tongue.
“The people of Acadia are the people of my mother,” he often said, “and I love them. But they are cowards.”
And when he looked forth from the harbor mouth of Chebucto and swept with his eyes the wide Atlantic, there burned in his young bosom a fire that would have amazed his placid kinsmen had they known of it, content, as they were, with the daily round of humble submission to the priests, petty legal quarrels or equally petty gossip with the neighbors, and daily tilling of the soil—a fire that was kindled a hundred years before in one who sailed the seas with Raleigh, and which burned anew in this young scion of an ancient race.
“I want to go, to see, to do!” he would cry, flinging wide his arms.
But now, as he gave unwilling ear to Le Loutre, his boyish heart sank. Could the abbé in truth fulfill these threats of driving the people to French soil, whether they would or no? Could he force them, in the name of God and the king, to forsake their pleasant homes in which the English, whatever might be their crimes against the French, at least allowed the Acadians to live in peace, unpunished too during all these years for their want of loyalty to sworn allegiance? Gabriel’s eyes traveled beyond that dominant figure, and dwelt upon the savage band of “converts” gathered behind the priest. Yes, he could, and would!
Wrapt in his own thoughts, Gabriel noticed neither the dispersion of the people nor the ominous fact that his grandfather, Pierre Grétin, was accompanied on his homeward way by Le Loutre himself. His eyes were upon the flowing river, and the light step of his Cousin Margot failed to arouse him. Her sweet face was close to his, and her small hand on his shoulder ere he stirred.
“Gabriel, I have somewhat to say to thee.”
“What is it, ma mie?”
“Wilt thou not depart to-night to thy friends whom thou dost sometimes visit without the walls of the new Halifax, by the harbor called of us Chebucto? There lives that English priest who taught thee discontent with our blessed religion and with our beloved curé.”
“Not with our curé, Margot. He is good; he makes all religion beautiful and true. But wouldst thou blame me because my heart turns to the faith of my father? That in which my mother might have found courage to rear me had she lived?”
“No, mon cousin, no, not blame. But grievous danger threatens all who defy the abbé, and thee more than others, because of thy hated English blood. But listen, Gabriel; dost thou indeed love Margot as though she were thine own sister?”
The boy was silent a moment, then he answered simply:
“That I cannot tell thee, Margot, seeing that I never had a sister. But I love thee as I love none other besides.”
“That is well,” she said with equal simplicity, “because to save thy life for my sake thou must act contrary to thy nature.”
He sprang to his feet, his blue eyes flashing so that for a moment Margot quailed before him.
“You would not have me play the coward and liar?” he cried. “That I cannot do, even for thee. I am an Acadian—yes. Yet neither of these things will I be!”
“I too am an Acadian,” replied the young girl with quiet dignity, “yet am I not false. Timid I may be, for such is the wont of my sex.”
“Pardon, ma cousine, pardon,” exclaimed Gabriel remorsefully. “Thou knowest how it is with me; my heart beats, and the words rush, and it is all over.”
“Wilt thou never learn prudence?” she retorted, smiling. “We Acadians have learned it in nigh forty years of lying helpless like a lamb betwixt two snapping wolves.”
“Prudence, dost thou call it, Margot? My father called it by a harsher name; and even my mother said that was a poor thing we did, to live, a free people, under one flag; untaxed, ministered to by our own priests, the very necessaries of life supplied to us, and yet intriguing, forever intriguing, with those of the other flag.”
“The flag under which we live is an alien flag,” said gentle Margot.
“That may be; but have we ever been called upon to fight for it? And now that we are summoned to swear the full oath of allegiance, we have richly deserved this mild rebuke. The French are cruel; we go with them only through fear of the Indians.”
“The gran’-père, he goes with none,” interposed the girl with a flash of spirit. “He tills the soil in peace, meddling not with French or English.”
“Ah, but even he will have to choose ere many days are past; the abbé does not bring here his flock for naught. And,” cried the lad, clenching his fists, “who would be a neutral? Not I!” Then more quietly: “Hast thou not heard them tell, Margot, how when France yielded Acadia to England we were free, all of us, to move within the year to French soil if we would? But we would neither go nor remain and take the oath of fealty; nevertheless we were permitted to stay unsworn for seventeen years, intriguing then even as we do now. At last the oath was won from us, and more than twenty years since then have come and gone, and once again, because of our untruth and the cruelties practised upon English settlers, the word has gone forth that we must swear anew. What kind of a people, then are we, Margot, to be thus double-faced? Thirteen thousand souls, and withal afraid of priests and Indians! Not daring, not one of us, to play the man and come out boldly for the one flag or the other. Oh, we are cowards—cowards all!”
He flung himself upon the ground and covered his face with his hands.
To simple, yet wise little Margot these bursts of passion on the part of her cousin were almost incomprehensible. Her nature was a still, clear pool, whilst his was as the young torrent leaping down the rocks, unconscious of its own power, but eager to join the strong and swelling stream beneath, upon whose bosom the great ships float down to the deep sea. But although she did not understand, love gave her sympathy. She kneeled beside him, and once more laid her hand upon his shoulder; but the words she would have uttered died in her throat, and instead she exclaimed in accents of terror:
“O Gabriel, Gabriel, arise. It is the gran’-père who calls, and with him is still the abbé.”
In an instant the lad was on his feet.
“Gabriel, mon fils!”
The thin, cracked voice floated across the meadows from the door of the small hut, which was considered by even prosperous Acadians like Grétin all-sufficient for the family needs. Without a moment’s hesitation Gabriel took his cousin’s hand, and led her, half crying now, toward their home, where the tall form of the priest was plainly visible, towering over that of the grandfather.
These were stirring times for Acadie. Lord Cornwallis was governor of the province—the Cornwallis described by Walpole as “a brave, sensible young man, of great temper and good nature.” He needed to be all this and more, for the Acadians were a difficult people to deal with. Vacillating, ignorant, and priest-ridden, it was the easiest thing in the world for the French to hold them in actual fact, while by treaty ceding them to England, an alien power and race. Fear, however, played a large part in French influence; and this was invariably the case throughout the long dissensions betwixt France and England. Indian savagery was winked at, even encouraged, by French authorities in their dealings both with English and Acadians; and the fair escutcheon of France was defaced by many a stain of blood cruelly, wantonly, treacherously shed. That the Acadians should be in sympathy with France rather than with England was natural; their wrong-doing consisted not in that, but in their readiness to accept English protection while plotting steadily with the French against the flag to which they had sworn fealty rather than move to French soil. They were now in a somewhat sorry plight.
The long-patient English government, through Cornwallis, was requiring of them a fresh oath, and better faith in keeping it, if they continued to reside in the province, whilst the governor of those French possessions, now called Cape Breton and Prince Edward’s Island, was using every means in his power, hideous threats included, to induce them to come definitely under the French flag. What those means might eventually be even such young creatures as Margot and Gabriel knew only too well.
The cousins found their grandfather looking troubled and distressed, and the priest still wearing the menacing air which had all that day awed his village audience.
“It is full time you of Port Royal bethought you of your duty to your religion and your king instead of forever quarreling among yourselves, and enriching pettifogging men of law. But for thee, Grétin, though special indulgence has ever been shown thee, it will be well that thou shouldst take thought for thy family before it is too late. Thou knowest my flock of old,” alluding to his savage converts, “and the kind of lambs they are. Homes await the loyal subjects of God and the king on the Isle of St. Jean and Isle Royale, and if they see not what is best for their own souls’ good I have the means to make them see it!”
Grétin was both morally and intellectually the superior of those among whom he lived, and he was also braver than his neighbors, but of what avail is superiority when a man stands alone? It was for this reason, combined with the habit of subjection to priestly authority, that he replied hastily:
“Yes, M. l’Abbé, it is even as you say.
“This boy must be disciplined,” continued the priest sternly.
“Yes, M. l’Abbé, so it must be.”
It was at this moment that “the boy” presented himself, his head erect, his face pale, and holding the hand of his cousin.
“Drop the maiden’s hand and follow me!” was the abbé’s harsh salutation. “I have that to say which is not for feminine ears.”
Gabriel obeyed, but there was something in his air which, though promising submission, meant submission within definite limits.
Le Loutre entered the hut and closed the door on the peaceful, pastoral scene without, lit up by the rays of the declining sun. Then seating himself on a bench, rude and plain as were the furnishings of all the homes of the frugal and industrious Acadians, however rich in land and stock, he addressed Gabriel standing respectfully before him.
“What is thine age?”
“I shall be eighteen at the Christmastide.”
“Humph! a well-grown youth! Dost thou call thyself boy or man?”
An irrepressible smile curled Gabriel’s fresh lips, but he answered demurely:
“Neither, mon père.”
“Dare not to trifle with me, son of a heretic!” broke out the priest, his imperious temper rising. Accustomed to see all men cringe before him, this lad’s fearless demeanor was particularly galling to Le Loutre. He controlled himself again, however, and proceeded with that persuasiveness of which when it suited him he was master:
“It is as man, not boy, I call upon thee this day to serve God and the king, and to prove thyself worthy of the confidence I would repose in thee. I give thee thy just due, thou hast a good courage, and it is men of such mettle that Louis requires, men, hearest thou?”
Gabriel’s frank, yet searching, gaze was riveted on the priest’s face; and so keen were those blue eyes that Le Loutre shifted his, momentarily disconcerted. For perhaps the first time in his remarkable career he was conscious of difficulty in explaining the righteousness, according to his creed, of “doing evil that good may come.” Not that he himself doubted; he was too honest a zealot for that; but in this case explanation was somehow not easy.
“Thou knowest,” he said at length, “of this new oath that the heretics would extort from God’s people. To keep them in the fold and preserve their souls alive at any cost is my priestly duty; but in order to accomplish this I must have loyal aid. My Micmacs waver, they have even made a treaty with the English. This cannot be permitted to endure. It is therefore the king’s wish that they be secretly encouraged to break it, and to this end loyal Acadians in disguise must accompany them when they go to Halifax. Later these same faithful subjects will continue their work for the holy cause in the old way.”
Le Loutre paused and regarded Gabriel fixedly. The boy’s face was alight with sudden comprehension. It was not the priest’s custom to speak openly of his plans, but he was fully aware that he was now dealing with no ordinary dull-witted Acadian peasant. What an invaluable ally this half-heretic lad would be could he only mold him to his will.
Gabriel had not lived his brief span of life in Port Royal for nothing. He already knew that Le Loutre was quite capable of using force to drive the Acadians from their thriving farms to make new homes for themselves on French soil, rather than that they should pledge their word to the English again, even though that pledge might be broken as before. And there was evidently some scheme more serious in process of hatching than the well-worn one of painting and disguising Acadians and sending them out with the Micmacs to plunder and slay English settlers. The ancient farce of “Indian warfare” was to wear a new face. The existence of peace between the two countries had never been any hindrance to French scheming. Gabriel had only too vivid recollections of the fate of certain Acadians, who had been cajoled or frightened into joining those Indian war-parties, and who, when taken prisoner by the English, had been disowned by the French and declared to have “acted of their own accord.”
The lad’s heart was heavy within him. If he defied the priest and refused to stoop to that which in his eyes was baseness and treachery, his life would be made a torment, nay, perhaps forfeited, none could foretell where Le Loutre would stop. And worse, far worse than this, the gran’-père, hitherto well regarded by the bigoted priest and granted many indulgences, would be ruthlessly hunted from the dear home to the bleak, uncleared shores of Isle Royale, or, as the English named it, Cape Breton. The gran’-père—he was old—he would certainly die without the strong grandson to help him. And Margot? Ah, it was too bitter! In spite of himself Gabriel covered his eyes with his hand as if to shut out the frightful vision.
The face of Le Loutre glowed with triumph. He had not expected so easy a victory. To his present scheme this youth, with his knowledge of the English tongue and the customs of the fort, was well-nigh indispensable; moreover, his intelligence and his sense of honor were alike keen, and once pledged to him, the priest knew that he would never turn traitor. Under pretense of trading in furs a French vessel had brought to Acadie guns and ammunition enough to arm both Acadians and Indians, and the latter were already being secretly bribed by the Intendant at Louisburg through Le Loutre; for a signal act of treachery was now required of them.
But the priest had triumphed too soon. When at length Gabriel raised his head, though his young face looked almost ghostly in the dying light, his eyes were shining with high resolve. Not that the path of duty was as yet perfectly clear before him, or that he knew whither it might lead, but he was resolute to take no other. Nevertheless he understood that mere defiance would not help either himself or those far dearer than self. Therefore he controlled himself and said quietly:
“M. l’Abbé has without doubt heard of that prêtre from the New England who instructs a flock outside the walls of Halifax?”
Le Loutre scowled darkly.
“Art thou a heretic already? I feared as much.”
“No, M. l’Abbé,” replied the boy in the same restrained tones; “yet I confess that the faith of my fathers holds much of interest for me. And he is good, monsieur, oh, good! like our own beloved curé.”
Here he hesitated; then took courage, and went on rapidly:
“He bade me always to remember, even if I should not in the end turn to my father’s faith, that one of its noblest commands is: Never do evil that good may come. Also that my father obeyed that command. O mon père, choose some one else for thy purpose; one who is not divided in heart as I, but who hates the English as my blood will not let me do, and to whom the Holy Catholic Church is the only church!”
For a moment it seemed as though the priest would strike the pleading face upturned to his, so fierce a flame of wrath swept over him, but instead he said with a sneer:
“And thou wouldst thrust the words of a heretic down the throat of a priest of God and the king? There is but one explanation, boy, thou art a coward!”
The hot blood surged into Gabriel’s cheeks. All his prudence was tossed aside beneath the lash of that tongue. Flinging back his head he confronted Le Loutre with an air which compelled, as it never had failed to do, the reluctant admiration of the man to whom courage seemed the best of God’s gifts to mortals.
“M. l’Abbé,” said the boy, in the low tones of an unbending resolve, “I am no coward; but I should be both coward and liar were I to do your bidding.”
For a breathing space the two pairs of eyes held one another like wrestlers. Then:
“As thou wilt,” rejoined the priest coldly. “But forget not that no traitors to God and the king can dwell at ease in Acadie. Mine are no empty threats.”
He flung wide the door and called to the waiting Micmacs. As they stepped out of the surrounding gloom, the pine torches carried by them illuminated their ferocious countenances. Margot sprang forward and cast herself upon her knees before the priest.
“O mon père, mon père, do with me what you will, inflict on me any penance that seems unto you good; but spare, oh, spare my cousin, if only for the sake of the gran’-père!”
The girl’s agonized pleading rang out into the night. Then, in a voice rendered tremulous by years and infirmity, but still not devoid of dignity, Grétin himself spoke.
“M. l’Abbé,” he said, “the boy is of heretic blood—yes. But also is he of my blood—mine, who am a faithful servant of the true church. If he has been led astray, I myself will see to it that he returns to the fold. For he is a good lad, and the prop and staff of my old age.”
Le Loutre turned on the gran’-père his piercing eyes.
“Thou hast reason, Grétin. Thou hast indeed been a faithful servant of the church, but art thou that now? Do not thy religion and thy king demand of thee that thou shouldst leave, with all that is thine, the air breathed by pestilential heretics, and dost thou not still linger, battening in their green pastures, yea, feeding from their hand? Art thou, therefore, fit to be the guide of erring youth? It may be too, that thou wilt have to suffer for his sin if he repent not.”
The old man bowed his head, and a low moan escaped him.
“Hurt not the lad,” he murmured. “He is as the very apple of my eye.”
“My Micmacs will look to his repentance,” retorted the priest grimly. “In the saving of the soul the body may have to endure somewhat, but holy church is merciful to the penitent.”
As he spoke Gabriel sprang from the detaining hands, of the Indians, and kneeling at the feet of the old man, lifted the shriveled fingers and laid them upon his own fair head.
“Bless me, even me, O mon père,” he cried.
But the gran’-père fell upon his neck and wept.
“Oh, Gabriel, my son, my son!”
Before he could so much as speak to Margot, the Indians, at a sign from Le Loutre, relentless always in the performance of what he believed to be his duty and now enraged by defeat, seized the youth and disappeared with him into the forest. Lingering only to make the sign of the cross over the helpless and bereaved pair, Le Loutre himself followed.