"But I did not steal it. It came from thy charming Bay. Thou didst not know that, shortly ago, a captain sailed to Sleeping Water with five casks of rum. He hired a man from the Concession to help him hide them, but the man stole one cask. Imagine the rage of the captain, but he could not prosecute, for it was smuggled. Since then we have fun occasionally."
"Who is that bad man? If I knew where was his cask, I would take a little nail and make a hole in it."
"Rose, couldst thou expect me to tell thee?"
"Yes," she said, warmly. Then, remembering that she had been talking English to his French, she suddenly relapsed into low, swift sentences in her own tongue, which Vesper could not understand. He caught their import, however. She was still inveighing against the sin of drunkenness and was begging him to reform, and her voice did not flag until they reached his home, where his wife—a young woman with magnificent eyes and a straight, queenly figure—stood by the gate.
"Bon soir (good evening), Claudine," called out Agapit. "We have brought home Isidore, who, hearing that a distinguished stranger was about to pass through the Concession, thoughtfully put himself on exhibition at the four roads. You had better keep him at home until La Guerrière goes back to Saint Pierre."
"It was La Guerrière that brought the liquor," said Rose, suddenly, to Isidore.
He did not contradict her, and she said, firmly, "Never shall that captain darken my doors again."
The young Acadien beauty gave Vesper a fleeting glance, then she said, bitterly, "It should rather be Saint Judas, for from there the evil one sends stuff to torture us women—Here enter," and half scornfully, half affectionately, she extended a hand to her huge husband, who was making a wavering effort to reach the gateway.
He clung to her as if she had been an anchor, and when she asked him what had happened to his shirt he stuttered, regretfully, "Torn, Claudine,—torn again."
"How many times should one mend a shirt?" she asked, turning her big blazing eyes on Rose.