Part 4 (1/2)
”It is kept by a woman?”
”Yes,” said the stranger, with preternatural gravity; ”Rose a Charlitte.”
Vesper said nothing, and his face was rarely an index of his thoughts, yet the stranger, knowing in some indefinable way that he wished for further information, continued. ”On the Bay, the friendly fas.h.i.+on prevails of using only the first name. Rose a Charlitte is rarely called Madame de Foret.”
Vesper saw that some special interest attached to the proprietress of the Acadien inn, yet did not see his way clear to find out what it was.
His new acquaintance, however, had a relish for his subject of conversation, and pursued it with satisfaction. ”She is very remarkable, and makes money, yet I hope that fate will intervene to preserve her from a life which is, perhaps, too public for a woman of her stamp. A rich uncle, one Auguste Le Noir, whose beautiful home among orange and fig trees on the Bayou Vermillon in Louisiana I visited last year, may perhaps rescue her. Not that she does anything at all out of the way,” he added, hastily, ”but she is beautiful and young.”
Vesper repressed a slight start at the mention of the name Le Noir, then asked calmly if it was a common one among the Acadiens.
The Le Noirs and Le Blancs, the gentleman a.s.sured him, were as plentiful as blackberries, while as to Melancons, there were eighty families of them on the Bay. ”This has given rise to the curious house-that-Jack-built system of naming,” he said. ”There is Jean a Jacques Melancon, which is Jean, the son of Jacques,--Jean a Basile, Jean a David, and sometimes Jean a Martin a Conrade a Benoit Melancon, but”--and he checked himself quickly--”I am, perhaps, wearying you with all this?” He was as a man anxious, yet hesitating, to impart information, and Vesper hastened to a.s.sure him that he was deeply interested in the Acadiens.
The cloud swept from the face of the vivacious gentleman. ”You gratify me. The old prejudice against my countrymen still lingers in this province in the shape of indifference. I rarely discuss them unless I know my listener.”
”Have I the pleasure of addressing an Acadien?” asked Vesper.
”I have the honor to be one,” said the stout gentleman, and his face flushed like that of a girl.
Vesper gave him a quick glance. This was the first Acadien that he had ever seen, and he was about as far removed from the typical Acadien that he had pictured to himself as a man could be. This man was a gentleman.
He had expected to find the Acadiens, after all the trials they had gone through in their dispossession of property and wanderings by sea and land, degenerated into a despoiled and poverty-stricken remnant of peasantry. Curiously gratified by the discovery that here was one who had not gone under in the stress of war and persecution, he remarked that his companion was probably well-informed on the subject of the expulsion of his countrymen from this province.
”The expulsion,--ah!” said the gentleman, in a repressed voice. Then, unable to proceed, he made a helpless gesture and turned his face towards the window.
The younger man thought that there were tears in his eyes, and forbore to speak.
”One mentions it so calmly nowadays,” said the Acadien, presently, looking at him. ”There is no pa.s.sion, no resentment, yet it is a living flame in the breast of every true Acadien, and this is the reason,--it is a tragedy that is yet championed. It is commonly believed that the deportation of the Acadiens was a necessity brought about by their stubbornness.”
”That is the view I have always taken of it,” said Vesper, mildly. ”I have never looked into the subject exhaustively, but my conclusion from desultory reading has been that the Acadiens were an obstinate set of people who dictated terms to the English, which, as a conquered race, they should not have done, and they got transported for it.”
”Then let me beg you, my dear sir, to search into the matter. If you happen to visit the Sleeping Water Inn, ask for Agapit Le Noir. He is an enthusiast on the subject, and will inform you; and if at any time you find yourself in our beautiful city of Halifax, may I not beg the pleasure of a call? I shall be happy to lay before you some historical records of our race,” and he offered Vesper a card on which was engraved, Dr. Bernardin a.r.s.eneau, Barrington Street, Halifax.
Vesper took the card, thanked him, and said, ”Shall I find any of the descendants of the settlers of Grand Pre among the Acadiens on this Bay?”
”Many, many of them. When the French first came to Nova Scotia, they naturally selected the richest portions of the province. At the expulsion these farms were seized. When, through incredible hards.h.i.+ps, they came struggling back to this country that they so much loved, they could not believe that their lands would not be restored to them. Many of them trudged on foot to fertile Grand Pre, to Port Royal, and other places. They looked in amazement at the settlers who had taken their homes. You know who they were?”
”No, I do not,” said Vesper.
”They were your own countrymen, my dear sir, if, as I rightly judge, you come from the United States. They came to this country, and found waiting for them the fertile fields whose owners had been seized, imprisoned, tortured, and carried to foreign countries, some years before. Such is the justice of the world. For their portion the returned Acadiens received this strip of forest on the Bay Saint-Mary. You will see what they have made of it,” and, with a smile at once friendly and sad, the stout gentleman left the train and descended to a little station at which they had just pulled up.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SLEEPING WATER INN.
”Montrez-moi votre menu et je vous montrerai mon coeur.”
A few minutes later, the train had again entered the forest, and Vesper, who had a pa.s.sion for trees and ranked them with human beings in his affections, allowed the mystery and charm of these foreigners to steal over him. In dignified silence and reserve the tall pines seemed to draw back from the rude contact of the pa.s.sing train. The more a.s.sertive firs and spruces stood still, while the slender hackmatacks, most beautiful of all the trees of the wood, writhed and shook with fright, nervously tossing their tremulous arms and ta.s.selled heads, and breathing long odoriferous sighs that floated after, but did not at all touch the sympathies of the roaring monster from the outer world who so often desecrated their solitude.