"Vive Jésus!
Vive Jésus!
Avec la croix, son cher partage.
Vive Jésus!
Dans les cœurs de tous les élus!
Portons la croix.
Sans choix, sans ennui, sans murmure,
Portons la croix!
Quoique très amère et très dure,
Malgré les sens et la nature,
Portons la croix!"
—Acadien Song.
Charlitte had been in his grave for nearly two years. He slept peacefully in the little green cemetery hard by the white church where a slender, sorrowful woman came twice every week to hear a priest repeat masses for the repose of his soul.
He slept on and gave no sign, and his countrymen came and went above him, reflecting occasionally on their own end, but mostly, after the manner of all men, allowing their thoughts to linger rather on matters pertaining to time than on those of eternity.
One fifteenth of August—the day consecrated by Acadiens all over Canada to the memory of their forefathers—had come and gone, and another had arrived.
This day was one of heavenly peace and calm. The sky was faintly, exquisitely blue, and so placid was the Bay that the occupants of the boats crossing from Digby Neck to some of the churches in Frenchtown were forced to take in their sails, and apply themselves to their oars.
Since early morning the roads of the parish in which Sleeping Water is situated had been black with people, and now at ten o'clock some two thousand Acadiens were assembled about the doors of the old church at Pointe à l'Eglise.
There was no talking, no laughing. In unbroken silence they waited for the sound of the bell, and when it came they flocked into the church, packing it full, and overflowing out to the broad flight of steps, where they knelt in rows and tried to obtain glimpses over each other's shoulders of the blue and white decorations inside, and of the altar ablaze with lights.