CHAPTER VII
When Gabriel, two or three days later, rode up to rejoin Monckton’s command under the walls of Beauséjour, his heart—despite his failure to capture the fugitive priest—beat high with joyful anticipation, for Monckton had promised that upon his return he should be given a few hours to visit his cousin and assure himself that all was indeed well with her. The general himself was subject to the orders of Governor Shirley, and Gabriel had come to him with a letter of recommendation from George Washington. Washington, himself a Virginian, rightly guessed that the young soldier, of English birth and bound to Virginia by ties of blood and sympathy, would not harmonize comfortably with the New England Puritans under Winslow.
“The maiden were best at Halifax,” had been Monckton’s comment on hearing Gabriel’s briefly told tale. “There abide many of her people.”
Best! Yes, how far best! But wishes were vain.
The general, when Gabriel arrived in camp, was busy in his tent, and merely waved his hand hurriedly as the young man saluted and began to make his report.
“I know, I know!” he exclaimed. “The rascally priest has slipped through our fingers, disguised as one of his infernal Micmacs, I understand. Well, the country is well rid of him. I shall soon have other work for you.”
Chancing to glance up, something in his lieutenant’s face struck him—something in the tense eagerness of the fine, soldierly figure.
“Speak,” he said kindly, “what is it?”
Then suddenly he remembered, and a smile illumined his anxious, rather worn face, while that of Gabriel flushed in response.
“Ah, I bethink me. Well, rest and eat, and then go to the house on the Missaguash where dwells the cousin. Ere long I will have less pleasant work for you.”
The color ebbed from Gabriel’s face. He longed to inquire further; to ask if the rumor were true that in consequence of persistent refusal to take the oath of allegiance the Acadians were to be expelled from English soil, from the places of refuge still left them by the French after forcing them from their former homes. Poor, unhappy people; driven like sheep before the wolves! But discipline forbade anything but prompt and silent obedience. And, as an hour or two later, he swung at a gallop toward the home of Herbes and Marin, of whose precise locality he had been informed by a friendly Acadian, his high hopes of the morning were tinged with gloomy forebodings.
One by one the French forts were falling into English hands, and in a few days Acadia would once more be an English province. Already the land over which he rode—called the Chignecto district—belonged no more to France.
Across the bridge he thundered, and there in the midst of the meadows stood the rough cabin and outlying sheds inhabited by those he sought. Faster and faster flew the horse, conscious of his rider’s impatience, and Marin, lolling on a bench before the door, arose in mingled alarm and curiosity. To the women and children, crowding to the front at the sound of galloping hoofs, the young soldier was a splendid apparition as he sprang from his excited steed and greeted them bareheaded, the glory of the May sun in his ruffled blonde curls, and his eyes shining blue as the waters of far Chignecto Bay.
Then of a sudden knowledge came to Marie.
“Ah, the cousin!” she ejaculated; and then could say no more. How could she tell him?
“Yes,” he cried, “I am Gabriel. Where is Margot?”
“Ah, la pauvre petite! Who knows?”
And the kind-hearted woman threw her apron over her head and burst into loud sobs, in which she was joined by Julie, the wife of Marin.
Frantic as he was with anxiety, Gabriel could extract nothing coherent from either the women or Marin, the latter a stupid fellow at best, with just enough brains to be suspicious and obstinate; but fortunately Louis Herbes arrived on the scene, and from him the sad tale was forthcoming.
“Nevertheless he was no Indian,” concluded Louis shrewdly, glancing over his shoulder and speaking in a whisper; “it was M. l’Abbé himself.”
“How knowest thou that?” growled Marin.
“I do know it,” asserted Herbes with quiet confidence. “There were some who also knew and told. I have spoken aloud and sorely of the loss of our Margot.”
“Yes, bon ami,” sneered Marin. “Now tell it all. Give le bon prêtre into the hands of the heretics.”
“Whom I may trust, that also I know,” exclaimed Louis vehemently, turning upon his friend. . . Then more calmly, “No matter for that. M. l’Abbé is out of Acadie ere now, and we, say I, are well rid of him. Only grief and trouble did he bring us.”
He glanced around defiantly, but the little group remained passive. Gabriel stood apart, his face hidden in his horse’s mane. At length he spoke:
“And thou knowest no more, good Louis? Thou hast no clue?”
“This only: that from Baye-Verte M. l’Abbé, and his brother priest made sail for Quebec, and it was said that he would leave our Margot at Isle St. Jean, where is a goodly colony of our people, driven out of Acadie long since and living miserably.”
Gabriel groaned. Julie stepped forward and laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder.
“Better that than the Indians,” she exclaimed in the sanguine tones habitual to her. “And something tells me that la petite escaped. Who knows? She may have made her way to Halifax.”
“Impossible!” returned Gabriel sadly. “All alone, those many leagues?”
“But,” put in Herbes confidently, “there was a party of our country people landed at Baye-Verte from that melancholy isle, on their way to Halifax to take the oath of allegiance. One party had already done so, with the result that they were reinstated in their old homes and furnished by the heretic English with provisions for the winter. This second party looked for the same indulgence, if not too late. Who knows? the maiden may have joined them. One coming hither from Baye-Verte vowed that he saw her not with the priests.”
“And I?” exclaimed Gabriel, in a sudden burst of anger with himself, “why did not I capture that man, who over and over again has brought misery into my own life and the lives of all dear to me? From Beauséjour to Baye-Verte it is but twelve miles, and meseemed I rode with my company over every inch of it, yet saw neither priest nor Indian.”
The face of Louis took on a peculiar expression.
“M. le Capitain,” he said, “it hath been related of us that we, the Acadians, love gold. And why not?” shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands. “Gold, it is good, and we are poor. M. l’Abbé has gold always, and so there are those who would hide and help him, even though he be shorn of his strength. Also, is he not our father in God?” Here his expression became devout, and he crossed himself. “Also, there are some who have wearied of his rule—worse, say I, than that of a dozen kings—and would speed him in his flight.”
But Marie interrupted her husband:
“Yes, Halifax,” she cried, whirling on the two men; “and was it not your wife, she who knows nothing, and the wife of the good friend, and la petite herself, women all, who gave you the wise counsel to go to Halifax while yet there was time, and take the honorable oath of allegiance, and live in peace in the fair Annapolis meadows, and you would not? What have the French done for us, I ask thee once more? What matter the flag? I tell thee once again. Give us peace in the homes of our fathers.”
And at the thought, Marie wiped the tears of memory from her eyes.
Louis continued silent, and Marin it was that answered with a shrug.
“No need to weep, bonne femme! There is yet time. The English are a dull race. They permit themselves to be deceived once and yet again.”
“But not again,” put in Gabriel sternly. “Look you, Marin, and you too, friend Herbes, you would have done well to listen to the sage counsel of your wives, and of the little Margot,” here his voice faltered, “who was ever wise, and for whose safe keeping so long I owe you all thanks which may not be measured. Yet I tell you, England’s lion may sleep long, but he wakes at last; so hath it ever been. Our governors, Cornwallis, Hopson, were men of large and tender heart; they forgave and forbore. With this governor it is otherwise; with Governor Shirley is it also otherwise; these are men who will not forbear; they strike, and they strike hard. Greatly I fear me that naught will avail you now; yet I know nothing absolutely.”
He mounted his horse, and held out his hand to the group, all the brightness gone from his young face. But they clung to him, unwilling to part from their last hope, beseeching him to intercede for them, promising that if he succeeded they would start for Halifax at once, searching constantly for the maiden by the way.
“Alas, good friends!” replied the young man sadly, “I am insignificant. No word of mine has weight with general or governor, although it is true that Monckton favors me somewhat. My time, my person, are at the disposal of my superiors. I cannot even go myself to search for and rescue the beloved! Even with you, my friends, I have lingered too long.”
He pressed each hand in turn.
“But you will try, M. le capitain?” they cried in chorus.
“I will try. But I am not even a captain!”
He smiled kindly upon them, but in his eyes was a sorrow akin to despair. Another moment, and the thunder of his horse’s hoofs sounded upon the bridge.
It was as he foretold. The long years of indulgence were at an end. The storm so slow in gathering broke at last with the fury of the long-delayed. Winslow and Monckton, the New England and the British generals, their tempers ruffled by distasteful duty, were already inclined to fall out; and Gabriel soon saw that in order to intercede successfully for his Acadian friends he must bide his time. But the peremptory orders sent by Governor Lawrence neither general was in a hurry to carry out; and so it happened that one day Gabriel perceived his chance and seized it.
“They are friends of yours, you say?” said Monckton, “and cared for the cousin in her time of need? How came it, then, that they gave her not better protection now? They tell you she is safe, but how know they? How know you?”
“Ah, if I did but know!” broke from the young soldier involuntarily. Then controlling himself, he proceeded: “General, the women of the household have long striven with the men that they should return to live under the English flag. Herbes and Marin were among those who signed the petition to the French and English governments that they should be allowed to do so, thereby grievously displeasing Le Loutre, so that he selected these men to go to Quebec as deputies, well knowing the reception that awaited them there. Thus did he punish them; and my lord can guess that it was punishment indeed!”
Monckton half smiled; then rubbed his forehead in weariness and perplexity. Finally he said:
“Well, lieutenant, go! But bid them do quickly that which they desire. The order has gone forth, and in a day or two at farthest I may spare none.”
So once more Gabriel flew across the Missaguash, and although he could hear nothing more of Margot, he at least had the consolation of feeling that he had saved her benefactors, and that there was always hope she might be found at Halifax, whither the party started that same night in their ox-wagons, driving their milch-cows before them.