CHAPTER VI
The last sad scenes in the sad story of the Acadians in Acadie are now drawing near. Possibly had those two patient gentlemen, Cornwallis and Hopson, continued in command of the country, such scenes might never have come to pass, or at least might have been long delayed. But, as we know, Governor Lawrence was soon worn out by what he described as “the obstinacy, treachery, and ingratitude” of the Acadians, and he and Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, determined to settle this troublesome affair once and for all. The two governors knew, moreover, that the French were merely waiting for a good excuse to attack the English, whose defenses in Acadie were of the feeblest, and that if they hoped to be successful they themselves must strike the first blow.
The result of their decision was an act which has been well described as being “too harsh and indiscriminate to be wholly justified,” but which is explained by the fact that the Acadians “while calling themselves neutrals, were an enemy encamped in the heart of the province.”[[1]]
| [1] | “Montcalm and Wolfe.” Francis Parkman. |
The first step was to lay siege to Beauséjour; and to the aid of the regulars flocked volunteers under the command of that warlike farmer, John Winslow. These men enrolled themselves under the orders of General Monckton, having responded to the call of the New England governor.
It was the afternoon of a June day when the two deputies wearied, cowed, and helpless returned home. Their passage through the settlements had been greatly delayed by the questions showered upon them by anxious habitans, and it was late ere they arrived. Then again the tale of failure had to be told, and listened to with tears and lamentations.
“If the Acadians are miserable, remember that the priests are the cause of it,” wrote a French officer to a French missionary.
News had quite recently come to Chipody, the adjacent settlement, that many of the Acadians banished by Le Loutre to Isle St. Jean had found their way to Halifax, had taken the oath of allegiance to the British, were reinstated in their former homes, and were being provided temporarily with supplies by the English government. Yet it was not love for the English that had drawn them back again—simply the love of home and peace. The returned deputies had scarcely finished their tale when the women began to try and persuade them to remove to Halifax, immediately if possible.
Margot alone neither wept nor argued. There was a hope within her breast that would not die, a hope aroused by Gabriel’s letter. She stole away from the clatter of tongues down to the edge of the marsh-grass. The sun was near its setting, as it had been when she had waited in vain for Gabriel so long, so very long, as it seemed to her, ago. Where was he now? When would he—— Then suddenly her heart stood still, to beat again with mingled dread and expectation.
“Far away, at the mouth of the inlet . . . lay three small ships.”
Far away, at the mouth of the inlet, where it broadens into Chignecto Bay, lay three small ships, English beyond a doubt.
For a minute Margot lingered, giving herself up to speculation. Then like a bird she flew back to one of the rude and simple dwellings of the kind which even in happier days fulfilled the frugal Acadian’s highest idea of home. Flinging open the door without ceremony she cried, “English ships in the bay!” and sped upon her homeward course.
Herbes and Marin and their wives were still planning and discussing, but the words on their lips were checked by Margot’s breathless ejaculation. In silence they gazed at one another, with the characteristic slowness of their race. What was now to be done?
Margot, whose mind moved more swiftly than those of most of her country-people, soon spoke again, with as much impatience as the habit of respect for her elders permitted.
“What shall we do, you say? Oh, good friends, let us escape to the English ships, they will help us to Halifax! But oh, quick, quick!”
“You forget, maiden,” said Marin with pompous rebuke. “There is the oath of allegiance in the way.”
“And what of that?” cried all three women this time. Marie Herbes continuing:
“What hurt did the oath do us in the past? Did we not till our own land and gather in our crops unaffrighted and undisturbed?—untaxed too? Did not our own priests minister to us?”
A crafty gleam crept into the little eyes of Marin.
“Yes,” he said, “and if we broke faith with our rulers for our good or advancement, why—pfui! What matter!” He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands. “A small matter! Let the habitan take the oath anew, said the governor. But now—now it is otherwise. As we came through the settlement the new proclamation was made known to us. Should the French—and verily are they not of our own blood? make fair offers, such, for instance, that under their rule too, we should live in peace, and it became the duty of a good habitan to give ear to them, what then? Then would we be called traitors, and meet the fate of such!”
Marie lifted her eyebrows, and made a little sound of dissension in her throat.
“It is true,” he persisted doggedly.
“The good friend is in the right,” put in Herbes, speaking for the first time. “This Governor Lawrence is not as the others, he is not to be cajoled.”
“But why should we break faith with the English?” It was Margot who spoke in a low voice. “With the Acadians the French have never yet kept faith.”
“What knows a young maid of great affairs such as these?” growled Marin; while his wife added with a taunting laugh:
“But thou must remember, mon ami, that the child has an English lover; what wouldst thou, then?”
The color dyed Margot’s cheek, then fled, leaving her very pale. But she was, as we know, no moral coward, so she quickly controlled herself, and replied quietly:
“Pardon, madame, thou hast forgotten that my cousin’s mother was an Acadian, even as we are, and that he himself was my cousin ere he was my lover. The country of his birth is dear to him, though whether he be yet alive I know not, or whether I shall ever see him more.”
Her voice choked, and her dark eyes filled. The good Marie clapped her briskly on the shoulder crying vehemently:
“Be of a better courage, mon enfant! Thou and thy heretic will meet again, never fear!”
“Sometimes it misgives me that our Margot is already part heretic herself,” said Louis with a suspicious glare.
“Shame on thee, shame on thee!” protested his wife. “And hast thou so soon forgotten to be grateful? Could the maiden not have left us that day on the banks of the Missaguash—you a mere helpless burden hindering her flight?” Then, while Louis hung his head in abashed silence, she hastily brought the conversation back to its former subject. It was finally decided that the whole party should proceed to the house of the neighbor whom Margot had warned of the arrival of the ships, there to discuss the advisability of further action. Thus slowly did the minds of Acadians work. The result was that the commandant at the fort received no notice of the enemy’s approach until the small hours of the morning. The attacking force was then at the very doors, and all was confusion and alarm. Messengers were sent in hot haste to Louisbourg for aid, and by alternate threats and promises the poor Acadians, who so much preferred to have their fighting done for them, were forced either to assist in the defense of the fort, or worse still, oppose the enemy in the open.
It was a case of English regulars and provincials against French regulars and Acadians—on the one side the whole heart, on the other but half a heart; for the French soldiers corrupted by corrupt officials, were no match either in resolution for the stout New Englanders, or in discipline for the British troops. The Acadians and Indians sent out of the fort were as mere puppets in the path of Monckton’s army, and the second night beheld the invaders safely across the river and encamped within a mile of Beauséjour.
Herbes and Marin had of course been pressed into the service, but unlike their neighbors had decided to leave their families in the farmhouse instead of hiding them in the woods. The crafty Marin declared that the home was far enough from the scene of the conflict to insure safety, but in truth he depended far more upon the almost certain hope that Margot’s English lover would take care that she, therefore they, would not be molested. By this it may be seen how vague were his notions concerning army regulations, discipline, and so forth. Depending on this hope, however, the women and the two half-grown sons of Marin were left behind, to listen to the distant roar and rattle of the bombardment of Beauséjour,—for the attack was not long in beginning. The wives told their beads, weeping and praying for the safety of their husbands, while Margot, pale and still, and alternating betwixt hope and fear, turned now consciously in her petitions to the faith of him whom she loved. For Margot’s nature like that of Gabriel, was clear and straightforward; and now that the forms of the Catholic religion were getting to mean little to her, she faced the knowledge bravely, dropping these forms one by one, striving to wait patiently until light and help should come; and this lonely waiting amounted to heroism in a timid Acadian maid. But the length of the loneliness, the yearning for counsel and support, was forming the girl’s character, and ripening it as the seed ripens within the pod. It was Margot, the woman, who now awaited the return of Gabriel, and such a woman as she might never have become had she led the effortless, unaspiring existence of the average Acadian peasant, without mental struggle or any higher object than that of living from day to day.
News of the siege came but fitfully to the three women, bereft as they were of neighbors and the usual neighborly gossip; for the inhabitants of the scattered houses, or rather huts, within reach had all fled to the shelter of the woods. Now and then some head of a family, wearied of what seemed to him profitless combat, having succeeded in eluding the unwelcome task, paused at the farmhouse to drink a cup of milk on his way to rejoin wife and babes, and shake his head over the news he brought; or a fugitive Indian, prowling along the river’s bank, bade the paleface squaws make ready for flight, declaring that the great medicine-man could not much longer induce the braves to hold the fort against the foe. But secure in their simple faith that Marin would contrive to see Gabriel, and that Gabriel would protect them, the women refused to face the perils of the forest.
The day was the sixteenth of June. For several days they had heard nothing, and growing hourly more anxious, the three would once and again drop their household tasks, and stepping one by one to the door, call to the boys perched upon the tall trees to know if aught might be seen or heard. When at last a shout went up, it chanced that all the women were in the house. As they ran out into the open, young François cried:
“They come, they come! a host of them!”
“Who come?” inquired his mother impatiently. “Speak, boy!”
“I cannot yet tell, ma mère; but yes, yes!”
And little Jules took up the cry:
“Yes, yes! It is our own dear Acadians. And they laugh, they are glad, they carry bundles and shout!”
“And see the bon père, Jules; he waves his cap, he espies us!”
And sliding down the tree, François was off and away, deaf to his mother’s calls and commands, followed as promptly as the shortness of his legs would permit by his little brother.
What did it all mean? The three women left behind looked into one another’s eyes, with the unspoken query on their lips. Then, with an air of determination, the wife of Marin threw her homespun apron over her head and went after her sons. Marie Herbes dropped upon the rude bench before the door, and began rapidly telling her beads, tapping her foot upon the ground meanwhile in an agony of impatience and anxiety.
And Margot? For the lonely girl how much was now at stake! Leaning against the wall of the house, her hands idle for the reason that she no longer owned beads to tell, her dark lashes resting on her pale cheeks, and a prayer in her heart for resignation if the worst was to be, she waited.
Then it was that for the first time she fully understood that she was ever hoping and praying for the success of the alien race; that she had ceased merely to tolerate them for the sake of the peace they gave, but that she had in very truth gone over,—as a few others of her race had done, and were doing,—heart and soul to the enemy.
Undoubtedly the siege of Beauséjour was at an end; the question trembling on the lips of the waiting women was, In whose hands was the victory? For peaceful Acadians, released from the perils and toils of war, would for the moment rejoice in either victory or defeat; both would sound alike to them.
Without, the sun burned more and more hotly. Within, the soup in the iron pot, hung above the crackling sticks, boiled—presently boiled over. None heeded.
Half an hour dragged by, the minutes ticking slowly along in the old clock in the corner. Then Marie sprang to her feet.
“They come!” she cried.
Verily they came—a strange spectacle. Out of the woods and across the bridge poured a little horde of Acadians—all Acadians, Margot saw in one swift glance, many of them excited by the red French wine, but every man of them singing and shouting, as they tramped along laden with what was evidently plunder from the fort.
“Beauséjour has fallen—has fallen!”
Thus they sang, as if exulting in the defeat of an enemy.
The wife of Marin, almost as wild as the men, had loaded herself down with part of her husband’s burden, and her voice rang shrill above the tumult in response to Marie’s vociferous queries:
“Beauséjour has fallen, I tell thee. And the English have pardoned our men because they said they but fought under compulsion. All is well.”
“But whence came this, and this?” persisted the more practical Marie, pointing to the motley collection of food, wearing apparel, wines, and even furniture, with which the ground was now littered.
Questions for long brought no coherent reply, and it was not until late in the afternoon, their comrades having scattered in search of their respective families, that either Herbes or Marin was able to give a clear account of all that had happened.
It was significant of the religious dependence and docility of the Acadian nature that one of the first questions asked and answered should be concerning the fate of Le Loutre. At the query the two men, who since their vain trip to Quebec had wavered somewhat in their allegiance to the tyrannical abbé, shrugged their shoulders and spread their hands as those who knew nothing.
“But, Louis,” Marie cried, “it is important that we know, for without him are we not but lost sheep in the wilderness?”
“As to that, good wife, I cannot tell thee,” answered Louis. “When we left that villainous fort M. l’Abbé was nowhere to be seen. Depend on it, he was with the commandant. All was hurry and confusion from the moment the shell fell upon the officers’ table while they sat at meat, killing six of them, yes, six!” Here he crossed himself, shuddering, and Marin took up the tale:
“Yes, and the bon Dieu alone knows how great was the wonder of the English, who expected to fight many more days, when the white flag flew from the ramparts. M. l’Abbé I beheld everywhere then. He ran from one to the other, pleading that the flag of the coward, for so our brave abbé called it, be taken in. Well, we Acadians know that he hath the gift of speech, but now it was in vain. The French were glad to cease this foolish killing of men for naught, glad even as we were. So presently it was arranged that they should march out with the honors of war,—whatever honor there be in slaying and quarreling,—and proceed at once to Louisbourg. Then the officers fell to drinking and plundering ere they departed, and we gathered up what little we could lay hands on, and so took leave with our pardon. Of the priest I saw no more. That is all that has happened.”
Margot, who during this recital had been leaning forward with clasped hands, at last ventured timidly, addressing Louis Herbes:
“And mon cousin; of him you saw nothing?”
“No, little one,” replied Louis kindly; “but, I learned that one Gabriel, with another name that cracks the jaws even to think of, was much spoken of during the attack by reason of his valor, and that he fought well. Rather he than I,” he concluded with a grimace.
Margot fell back and said no more. She had all for which she had dared to hope; again she must wait, it was true, but this time not wholly uncheered.
The sun sank and the moon rose and the wearied household was wrapped in slumber, all but Margot, who leaned from the window of the shedroom she occupied apart from the common sleeping apartment, which according to Acadian custom also served for a kitchen. She had tried to sleep and had failed.
Secure in the pardon granted them by the English, heedless of the future, the Acadians were once more collected under their own rooftrees, and as Margot’s eyes roamed along the banks of the Missaguash they rested with a sense of sympathetic peace upon the little farmhouses containing so many re-united families.
Yet it was strange how constantly on this night of apparent peace her mind reverted to the relentless priest who had caused herself and others so much misery. Involuntarily her mind strayed backward to the days when they had all hung on every glance of that strong, imperious man, whose word was law to a weak and vacillating people, and who represented to the simple villagers salvation here and hereafter. Now, in his hour of defeat, how would it be? His influence had already waned, she thought.
Her window was raised only a few feet from the ground and, unseen by her, a figure came gliding along in the shadow of the wide eaves. Another moment and her quick ear had caught the sound of hushed steps, but before the flashing thought had had time to concentrate in the cry, “Gabriel!” a grasp of iron was laid upon her shoulder and a hand crushed down upon her mouth.
There was a hideous interval before a word was spoken, after her terrified eyes had taken in the fact that she was in the clutches of one of the dreaded Micmacs. Then, was it with increased horror or with relief that she recognized the voice which at last spoke?
“Margot! maiden!” The whisper was harsh. “It is thy priest and father in God who commands thy service.”
The shock temporarily deprived the girl of power to reply, but finding that she made neither struggle nor outcry, Le Loutre, for it was indeed he, released her.
This man was her enemy, so ran her swift thought; he had robbed her of all that made life dear.
Now Margot, though gentle in heart and deed, was human and intolerant, as the young usually are. Forgiveness of cruel wrong could only come through prayer and striving. She remembered the destroyed and abandoned home, made desolate by this man; the beloved gran’-père, dead from exposure and want; the beloved cousin, an outcast and a wanderer; and it was this man who had done it.
Yes, she guessed what the priest wanted. He was a hunted fugitive. But why did he come to her, whom he had so greatly wronged?
Then she remembered also the words Gabriel had once read to her from an ancient printed page treasured by his mother as having been the property of his father: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us.”
She was so long silent that the voice of Le Loutre had in it a quaver of apprehension when he again addressed her, and when she looked up and saw, even in the moonlight, how almost craven were the glances the once arrogant priest cast over his shoulder into the dim, wide-stretching woods, compassion as well as higher emotions was aroused, and her resolve taken.
“M. l’Abbé,” she said simply, “there are none here who would harm their priest, even should they awake. As for me, I will do what I can, and God will teach me to forgive you.”
At the sound of such words from one of the least of his flock, the priest’s imperious temper sprang to his lips. But the situation was too perilous for anger.
None here who would harm him? He was not over sure of that. The men, did not they both believe he had harmed them? Yet all that he had done had been for their souls’ good. And of a surety he knew his dear Acadians, who for the sake of peace and freedom from alarms would hesitate, even though the life of the guardian of those souls were at stake. But this maiden, with her it was otherwise. True, she was half-heretic, but she was made of sterner stuff than most of her compatriots. Her he felt sure that he might trust.
Minds work quickly in hours of danger, and it was but a minute before he replied:
“I will pray for the salvation of thy soul, maiden, if yet it may be won. But now,” his voice in spite of him trembling with anxiety, “where wilt thou conceal me until such time as my trusty Cope arrives to go with me to Baye-Verte? There tarries my brother in God, Manach, and together we seek safety at Quebec.”
At the name of Jean Baptiste Cope, the Micmac at whose hands Gabriel had endured so much, Margot’s heart contracted with something like hatred. There was a short, sharp struggle within her. This, then, was what forgiving your enemies meant? Oh, it was hard, hard! And this priest and this Indian had injured so many, was it right to help them to escape?
Little did she guess the thoughts pouring forth from the abbé’s fertile imagination as he watched her—new thoughts, new ideas. Anxiety for the maiden’s soul, he would have said, was the mainspring of his intended actions, the desire to make one final effort to save her from perdition. Like many another too sure of his own holiness, the taint of personal malice, personal revenge, ran like a dark and dirty thread through the whiteness of his own soul’s garment. Le Loutre was as honest with himself as he was able to be, and certainly his fanaticism was real and true.
Yet he judged Gabriel entirely by himself, by his own capacity for righteous (?) hatred: Gabriel was at the head of the party searching for him betwixt Beauséjour and Baye-Verte, and it was for this reason that he had made a wide détour, appointing the meeting with his factotum, Cope, at a house where dwelt one who could be depended upon not to betray him. Her influence over the young heretic, he believed, could also be depended upon, should the fugitives be intercepted by him in their flight. Honor, loyalty to duty, counted for nothing in the estimation of the religious fanatic.
“It is for her soul’s salvation,” he repeated to himself with pious emphasis. From the woods near by floated the quavering cry of a night owl.
“Await me here, Margot,” exclaimed the priest authoritatively, and stepping backward was lost in the shadows.
Force of habit was strong, and still leaning from the window she instinctively obeyed.
A few minutes elapsed, and then the terrifying Indian, who no longer had terrors for her, re-appeared.
But this time no words passed. A brawny arm seized her by the waist, while at the same time a cloth was pushed into her mouth. Unable to utter a sound, she was dragged from the window, and borne away.