"It is too fine for the house," said Agapit. "Are you too fatigued to walk? If agreeable I will take you to Sleeping Water River, where you have not yet been, and tell you how it accumulated its name. There is no one inside," he continued, as Vesper cast a glance at the kitchen windows, "but the miller and his wife, in whom I no longer take pleasure, and the mail-driver who tells so long stories."
"So long that you have no chance."
"Exactly," said Agapit, fumbling in his pocket. "See what I bought to-day of a travelling merchant. Four cigars for ten cents. Two for you, and two for me. Shall we smoke them?"
Vesper took the cigars, slipped them in his pocket, and brought out one of his own, then with Agapit took the road leading back from the village to the river.
[CHAPTER XII.]
AN UNHAPPY RIVER.
"Pools and shadows merge
Beneath the branches, where the rushes lean
And stumble prone; and sad along the verge
The marsh-hen totters. Strange the branches play
Above the snake-roots in the dark and wet,
Adown the hueless trunks, this summer day.
Strange things the willows whisper."
J. F. H.
"There is a story among the old people," said Agapit, "that a band of Acadiens, who evaded the English at the time of the expulsion, sailed into this Bay in a schooner. They anchored opposite Sleeping Water, and some of the men came ashore in a boat. Not knowing that an English ship lay up yonder, hidden by a point of land, they pressed back into the woods towards Sleeping Water Lake. Some of the English, also, were on their way to this lake, for it is historic. The Acadiens found traces of them and turned towards the shore, but the English pursued over the marshes by the river, which at last the Acadiens must cross. They threw aside their guns and jumped in, and, as one head rose after another, the English, standing on the bank, shot until all but one were killed. This one was a Le Blanc, a descendant of René Le Blanc, that one reads of in 'Evangeline.' Rising up on the bank, he found himself alone. Figure the anguish of his heart,—his brothers and friends were dead. He would never see them again, and he turned and stretched out a hand in a supreme adieu. The English, who would not trouble to swim, fired at him, and called, 'Go to sleep with your comrades in the river.'