Seizing him by the arm, the Micmac drew him out of the throng. A brief colloquy ensued, punctuated by Jean Jacques with grunts of disapproval; then, releasing the Acadian, he made his way unheeded in the commotion toward a small hut, as yet beyond the reach of the flames. Pushing open the door, he entered.
Upon a couch of moss in a corner lay an old man, evidently dying. Beside him knelt a priest performing the last sacred offices of the Catholic Church, and a young girl, the tears upon her pale, worn cheeks. At a glance the Indian perceived that he had found those he sought—Pierre Grétin, Margot, and the good priest of Cobequid, M. Girard. Had the priest not been too much absorbed in his solemn duty to notice the newcomer, the significant fact that the so-called ‘convert’ failed to cross himself would not have passed unobserved. Jean Jacques kneeled down, however, reverently enough.
All that night the circle of fire slowly widened, spreading ever more slowly because the clouds broke in heavy showers; but at length, soon after the poor old man had breathed his last and the bright dawn was illuminating the clearing sky, Jean Jacques saw that another place of refuge must be sought from the fire. Gathering up the few articles the miserable hut contained, he sped with them to the shelter of the near-by woods, and then returning he wrapped, with characteristic taciturnity, the body of the gran’-père in the blanket and, followed by the priest and the weeping Margot, bore it also away.
“For the sainted gran’-père there is no consecrated ground!” moaned the girl, casting a backward glance at the smouldering ruins of the church.
“Weep not for that, my daughter,” said the priest in soothing tones, as he led her forward, “for the faithful servant holy ground shall be found.”
He drew from beneath his robe a tiny vial of holy water and in due form consecrated the spot of earth in the forest in which the gran’-père was to rest. Then seizing one of the two mattocks brought from the hut, he set to work with the Indian.
Few, indeed, were the tools or other possessions Pierre Grétin had contrived to save in their compulsory flight from the pleasant home in the Annapolis Valley—a flight which had taken place shortly after Gabriel’s departure. Even then they might have held on longer had not an ancient grudge on the part of a neighbor served to keep their obstinacy ever before the eyes of Le Loutre; for it has been said that the Acadians were a people given to petty squabbles. At Beaubassin they had found refuge with many others of their race, but on English ground, and it was on this account that the bigoted priest sought to remove them. Long had the Acadians tacitly resisted, not out of love for the English, but out of love for the peace so dear to their sluggish natures and which they were permitted to enjoy under British rule, so long, at least, as they refrained from meddling or from bearing arms.
“No coffin, mon père?” said Margot timidly at last.
For answer the priest stuck his spade into the ground; the work was done. Then he pointed to a white sail upon the waters of Chignecto Bay.
“The English!” she murmured awestruck; and then again, “And no coffin, M. le Curé?”