It was a broad piece, and full as much as I could wisely spare; but an old woman or a small boy is ever welcome to share my last penny. Her strange eyes gleamed for a moment, but as she looked up to bless me her face changed. After gazing earnestly into my eyes she muttered something which I could not catch, and to my huge amazement flung the silver behind her with a violence which left no doubt of her intentions. She flung it toward a little swampy pool; but as luck would have it the coin struck a willow sapling by the pool’s edge, bounded back, and fell with a clink upon a flat stone, where I marked it as it lay whitely glittering.
I was too amazed to protest for a moment, but the old woman hastened to appease me.
“There was sorrow on it, dearie,—thy sorrow,” she exclaimed coaxingly; “and I wouldn’t have it. The devil take all thy bad luck, and Mary give thee new fortune!”
To me it seemed that throwing away the silver piece was taking superstition quite too seriously. I laughed and said:
“But, mother, if there be bad luck ahead of me, so much the more do I want your blessing, and truly I cannot spare you another silver crown. Faith, this one’s not gone yet, after all!” And picking it up I handed it back to her. “Let the devil fly away with my ill luck, if he may, but don’t let him fly away with your little savings,” I added.
The old dame shook her head doubtfully, and then with a sigh of resignation, as who should say, “The gifts of destiny are not to be thrust aside,” slipped the silver into some deep-hidden pocket. But her loving concern for my prosperity was not to be balked. After a little fumbling she brought out a small pebble, which she gave me with an air that showed it to be, in her eyes, some very great thing.
I took it with an answering concern, looked at it very closely, and turned it over in my hand, waiting for some clue to its significance before I should begin to thank her for the gift, if gift it were. The stone was assuredly beautiful, about the size of a hazel-nut, and of a clouded, watery green in color, but the curious quality of it was that as you held it up a moving loop of light seemed to gather at its heart, taking somewhat the semblance of a palely luminous eye. My interest deepened at once, and I bethought me of a stone of rarity and price which was sometimes to be found under Blomidon. It went by the name of “Le Veilleur,” or “The Watcher,” among our Acadian peasants; but the Indians called it “The Eye of Manitou,” and many mystic virtues were ascribed to it.
“Why, mother,” I said presently, “this is a thing of great price! I cannot take it. ‘Tis a ‘Watcher,’ is it not?” And I gazed intently into its elusive loop of light.
“I have another,” she answered eagerly, thrusting her hands under her red cloak as if to prevent me giving back the stone. “That is for thee, and thou’lt need it, chéri Master Paul.”
“Well,” said I, staring at the beautiful jewel with a growing affection, “I will take it with much thanks, mother, but I must pay you what it is worth; and that I will find out in Quebec, from one who knows the worth of jewels.”