"Yes, now,—but the past? What can make up for the weeping of the old people?"
Nothing could, and Vesper hastened to introduce a new subject of conversation. "I have heard much about the good Abbé that you speak of. Did you ever see him?"
"See him,—ah, sir, he was an angel of God, on this Bay, and he a gentleman out of France. We were all his children, even the poor Indians, whom he gathered around him and taught our holy religion, till their fine voices would ring over the Bay, in hymns to the ever blessed Virgin. He denied himself, he paid our doctors' bills, even to twenty pounds at a time,—ah, there was mourning when he died. When my bans were published in church the good Abbé rode no more on horseback along the Bay. He lay a corpse, and I could scarcely hold up my head to be married."
"In speaking of those old days," said Vesper, "can you call to mind ever hearing of a LeNoir of Grand Pré called the Fiery Frenchman?"
"Of Etex LeNoir," cried the old woman, in trumpet tones, "of the martyr who shamed an Englishman, and was murdered by him?"
"Yes, that is the man."
"I have heard of him often, often. The old ones spoke of it to me. His heart was broken,—the captain, who was more cruel than Winslow, called him a papist dog, and struck him down, and the sailors threw him into the sea. He laid a curse on the wicked captain, but I cannot remember his name."
"Did you ever hear anything of the wife and child of Etex LeNoir?"
"No," she said, absently, "there was only the husband Etex that I had heard of. Would not his wife come back to the Bay? I do not know," and she relapsed into the dullness from which her temporary excitement had roused her.