Part 5 (1/2)
”Courage; the road will soon improve. It is the ox-teams that cut it up.
They load schooners in the Bay. Here at last is a good spot. Monsieur can mount now. Beware of the sharp stones. All the bones of the earth stick up in places. Does monsieur intend to stay long in Sleeping Water?
Was it monsieur that Rose a Charlitte expected when she drove through the pouring rain to the station, two days since? What did he say in the letter that he sent yesterday in explanation of his change of plans? Did monsieur come from Halifax, or Boston? Did he know Mrs. de la Rive, laundress, of Cambridge Street? Had he samples of candy or tobacco in that big box of his? How much did he charge a pound for his best peppermints?”
Vesper, fully occupied with keeping his wheel out of the ruts in the road, and in maintaining a safe distance from the cart, which pressed him sore if he went ahead and waited for him if he dallied behind, answered ”yes” and ”no” at random, until at length he had involved himself in such a maze of contradictions that Monsieur de la Rive felt himself forced to pull up his brown pony and remonstrate.
”But it is impossible, monsieur, that you should have seen Mrs. de la Rive, who has been dying for weeks, dancing at the wedding of the daughter of her step-uncle, the baker, and yet you say 'yes' when I remark that she was not there.”
The stop and the remonstrance were so birdlike and so quick, that Vesper, taken aback, fell off his wheel and broke his cyclometer.
He picked himself out of the dust, swearing under his breath, and Monsieur de la Rive, being a gentleman, and seeing that this quiet young stranger was disinclined for conversation, suddenly whipped up his pony and sped madly on ahead, the tails of his red coat streaming out behind him, the tip of his pointed cap fluttering and nodding over his thick white locks of hair.
After the lapse of a few minutes, Vesper had recovered his composure, and was looking calmly about him. The road was better now, and they were nearing the Bay, that lay s.h.i.+mmering and s.h.i.+ning like a great sea-serpent coiled between purple hills. He did not know what Grand Pre was like, and was therefore unaware of the extent of the Acadiens' loss in being driven from it; but this was by no means a barren country. On either side of him were fairly prosperous farms, each one with a light painted wooden house, around which cl.u.s.tered usually a group of children, presided over by a mother, who, as the mail-driver dashed by, would appear in the doorway, thrusting forth her matronly face, often partly shrouded by a black handkerchief.
These black handkerchiefs, _la cape Normande_ of old France, were almost universal on the heads of women and girls. He could see them in the fields and up and down the roads. They and the vivacious sound of the French tongue gave the foreign touch to his surroundings, which he found, but for these reminders, might once again have been those of an out-of-the-way district in some New England State.
He noticed, with regret, that the forest had all been swept away. The Acadiens, in their zeal for farming, had wielded their axes so successfully that scarcely a tree had been left between the station and the Bay. Here and there stood a lonely guardian angel, in the shape of a solitary pine, hovering over some Acadien roof-tree, and turning a melancholy face towards its brothers of the forest,--rugged giants primeval, now prostrate and forlorn, and being trailed slowly along towards the waiting schooners in the Bay.
The most of these fallen giants were loaded on rough carts drawn by pairs of sleek and well-kept oxen who were yoked by the horns. The carts were covered with mud from the bad roads of the forest, and muddy also were the boots of the stalwart Acadien drivers, who walked beside the oxen, whip in hand, and turned frankly curious faces towards the stranger who flashed by their slow-moving teams on his s.h.i.+ning wheel.
The road was now better, and Vesper quickly attained to the top of the last hill between the station and the Bay.
Ah! now the fields did not appear bare, the houses naked, the whole country wind-swept and cold, for the wide, regal, magnificent Bay lay spread out before him. It was no longer a thread of light, a sea-serpent s.h.i.+ning in the distance, but a great, broad, beautiful basin, on whose placid bosom all the Acadien, New England, and Nova Scotian fleets might float with never a jostle between any of their s.h.i.+ps.
A fire of admiration kindled in his calm eyes, and he allowed himself to glide rapidly down the hill towards this brilliant blue sweep of water, along whose nearer sh.o.r.es stretched, as far as his gaze could reach, the curious dotted line of the French village.
The country had become flat, as flat as Holland, and the fields rolled down into the water in the softest, most exquisite shades of green, according to the different kinds of gra.s.s or grain flouris.h.i.+ng along the sh.o.r.es. The houses were placed among the fields, some close together, some far apart, all, however, but a stone's throw from the water's edge, as if the Acadiens, fearful of another expulsion, held themselves always in readiness to step into the procession of boats and schooners moored almost in their dooryards.
At the point where Vesper found himself threatened with precipitation into the Bay, they struck the village line. Here, at the corner, was the general shop and post-office of Sleeping Water. The cardinal-bird fluttered his mail-bag in among the loafers at the door, saw the shopkeeper catch it, then, swelling out his vermilion breast with importance, he nimbly took the corner with one wheel in the air and pulled up before the largest, whitest house on the street, and flourished a flaming wing in the direction of a swinging sign,--”The Sleeping Water Inn.”
Vesper, biting his lip to restrain a smile, rounded the corner after him, and leisurely stepped from his wheel in front of the house.
”Ring, sir, and enter,” piped the bird, then, wis.h.i.+ng him _bonne chance_ (good luck), he flew away.
Vesper pulled the bell, and, as no one answered his summons, he sauntered through the open door into the hall.
So this was an Acadien house,--and he had expected a log hut. He could command a view from where he stood of a staircase, a smoking-room, and a parlor,--all clean, cool, and comfortably furnished, and having easy chairs, muslin curtains, books, and pictures.
He smiled to himself, murmured ”I wonder where the dining-room is? These flies will probably know,” and followed a prosperous-looking swarm sailing through the hall to a distant doorway.
A table, covered by a snowy cloth and set ready for a meal, stood before him. He walked around it, rapped on a door, behind which he heard a murmur of voices, and was immediately favored with a sight of an Acadien kitchen.
This one happened to be large, lofty, and of a grateful irregularity in shape. The ceiling was as white as snow, and a delicate blue and cream paper adorned the walls. The floor was of hard wood and partly covered with brightly colored mats, made by the skilful fingers of Acadien women. There were several windows and doors, and two pantries, but no fireplace. An enormous Boston cooking range took its place. Every cover on it glistened with blacking, every bit of nickel plating was polished to the last degree, and, as if to show that this model stove could not possibly be malevolent enough to throw out impurities in the way of soot and ashes, there stood beside it a tall clothes-horse full of white ironed clothes hung up to air.
But the most remarkable thing in this exquisitely clean kitchen was the mistress of the inn,--tall, willowy Mrs. Rose a Charlitte, who stood confronting the newcomer with a dish-cover in one hand and a clean napkin in the other, her pretty oval face flushed from some sacrifice she had been offering up on her huge Moloch of a stove.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”ROSE A CHARLITTE STOOD CONFRONTING THE NEWCOMER.”]
”Can you give me some lunch?” asked Vesper, and he wondered whether he should find a descendant of the Fiery Frenchman in this placid beauty, whose limpid blue eyes, girlish, innocent gaze, and thick braid of hair, with the little confusion of curls on the forehead, reminded him rather of a Gretchen or a Marguerite of the stage.
”But yes,” said Mrs. Rose a Charlitte, in uncertain yet pretty English, and her gentle and demure glance scrutinized him with some shrewdness and accurate guessing as to his attainments and station in life.