"I don't know that I ever thought about it, madame," he said, courteously; "but I should like to know."
"About fifty families ran to the wood," she said, with mournful vivacity; "they spent the winter there; I have heard the old people talk of it when I was young. They would sit by the fire and cry. I would try not to cry, but the tears would come. They said their good homes were burnt. Only at night could they revisit them, lest soldiers would catch them. They dug their vegetables from the ground. They also got one cow and carried her back. Ah, she was a treasure! There was one man among them who was only half French, and they feared him, so they watched. One day he went out of the woods,—the men took their guns and followed. Soon he returned, fifty soldiers marching behind him. 'Halt!' cried the Acadiens. They fired, they killed, and the rest of the soldiers ran. 'Discharge me! discharge me!' cried the man, whom they had caught. 'Yes, we will discharge you,' they said, and they put his back against a tree, and once more they fired, but very sadly. At the end of the winter some families went away in ships, but the Comeaus, Thibaudeaus, and Melançons said, 'We cannot leave Acadie; we will find a quiet place.' So they began a march, and one could trace them by the graves they dug. I will not tell you all, for why should you be sad? I will say that the Indians were good, but sometimes the food went, and they had to boil their moccasins. One woman, who had a young baby, got very weak. They lifted her up, they shook the pea-straw stuffing from the sack she lay on, and found her a handful of peas, which they boiled, and she got better.
"They went on and on, they crossed streams, and carried the little ones, until they came here to the Bay,—to Grosses Coques,—where they found big clams, and the tired women said, 'Here is food; let us stay.'
"The men cut a big pine and hollowed a boat, in which they went to the head of the Bay for the cow they had left there. They threw her down, tied her legs, and brought her to Grosses Coques. Little by little they carried also other things to the Bay, and made themselves homes.
"Then the families grew, and now they cover all the Bay. Do you understand now about the march from Annapolis?"
"Thank you, yes," said Vesper, much moved by the sight of tears trickling down her faded face.
"What reason did the old people give for this expulsion from their homes?"
"Always the same, always, always," said Madame Kessy, with energy. "They would not take the oath, because the English would not put in it that they need not fight against the French."
"But now you are happy under English rule?"