“The spider too is my guide, and the ant also. But the little pimpernel, the poor man’s weather-glass, and the convolvulus are truer than any barometer, and a glass of water never lies.”
“Ah, Doctor,” said I, “you and I read and study the same book. I don’t mean to assert we are, as Sorrow says, nateral children, but we are both children of nature, and honour our parents. I agree with you about the fog, but I wanted to see if you could answer signals with me. I am so glad you have come on board. You want amusement, I want instruction. I will swap stories with you for bits of your wisdom, and as you won’t take boot, I shall be a great gainer.”
After a good deal of such conversation, we went below, and in due season turned in, in a place where true comfort consists in oblivion. The morning, as the doctor predicted, was clear, the fog was gone, and the little French village lay before us in all the beauty of ugliness. The houses were small, unpainted, and uninviting. Fish-flakes were spread on the beach, and the women were busy in turning the cod upon them. Boats were leaving the shore for the fishing-ground. Each of these was manned by two or three or four hands, who made as much noise as if they were getting a vessel under weigh, and were severally giving orders to each other with a rapidity of utterance that no people but Frenchmen are capable of.
“Every nation,” said the doctor, “has its peculiarity, but the French Acadians excel all others in their adherence to their own ways; and in this particular, the Chesencookers surpass even their own countrymen. The men all dress alike, and the women all dress alike, as you will presently see, and always have done so within the memory of man. A round, short jacket which scarcely covers the waistcoat, trowsers that seldom reach below the ankle-joint, and yarn stockings, all four being blue, and manufactured at home, and apparently dyed in the same tub, with moccasins for the feet, and a round fur or cloth cap to cover the head, constitute the uniform and unvaried dress of the men. The attire of the women is equally simple. The short gown which reaches to the hip, and the petticoat which serves for a skirt, both made of coarse domestic cloth, having perpendicular blue and white stripes, constitute the difference of dress that marks the distinction of the sexes, if we except a handkerchief thrown over the head, and tied under the chin, for the blue stockings and the moccasins are common to both, males and females.
“There has been no innovation for a century in these particulars, unless it be that a hat has found its way into Chesencook, not that such a stove-pipe looking thing as that has any beauty in it; but the boys of Halifax are not to be despised, if a hat is, and even an ourang-outang, if he ventured to walk about the streets, would have to submit to wear one. But the case is different with women, especially modest, discreet, unobtrusive ones, like those of the ‘long-shore French.’ They are stared at because they dress like those in the world before the Flood, but it’s an even chance if the antediluvian damsels were half so handsome; and what pretty girl can find it in her heart to be very angry at attracting attention? Yes, their simple manners, their innocence, and their sex are their protection. But no cap, bonnet, or ribbon, velvet, muslin, or lace, was ever seen at Chesencook. Whether this neglect of finery (the love of which is so natural to their countrywomen in Europe) arises from a deep-rooted veneration for the ways of their predecessors, or from the sage counsel of their spiritual instructors, who desire to keep them from the contamination of the heretical world around them, or from the conviction that
‘The adorning thee with so much art
Is but a barbarous skill,
’Tis like the barbing of a dart,
Too apt before to kill,’
I know not. Such however is the fact nevertheless, and you ought to record it, as an instance in which they have shown their superiority to this universal weakness. Still, both men and women are decently and comfortably clad. There is no such thing as a ragged Acadian, and I never yet saw one begging his bread. Some people are distinguished for their industry, others for their idleness; some for their ingenuity, and others for their patience; but the great characteristic of an Acadian is talk, and his talk is, from its novelty, amusing and instructive, even in its nonsense.
“These people live close to the banks where cod are found, and but little time is required in proceeding to the scene of their labour, therefore there is no necessity for being in a hurry, and there is lots of time for palaver. Every boat has an oracle in it, who speaks with an air of authority. He is a great talker, and a great smoker, and he chats so skilfully, that he enjoys his pipe at the same time, and manages it so as not to interrupt his jabbering. He can smoke, talk, and row at once. He don’t smoke fast, for that puts his pipe out by consuming his tobacco; nor row fast, for it fatigues him.”
“Exactly,” sais I, “but the tongue, I suppose, having, like a clock, a locomotive power of its own, goes like one of my wooden ones for twenty-four hours without ceasing, and like one of them also when it’s e’en amost worn-out and up in years, goes at the rate of one hundred minutes to the hour, strikes without counting the number, and gives good measure, banging away often twenty tunes at one o’clock.”
Every boat now steered for the “Black Hawk,” and the oracle stopped talking French to practise English. “How you do, Sare? how you do your wife?” said Lewis Le Blanc, addressing me.