Part 32 (1/2)
AN INTERRUPTED Ma.s.s.
”Here is our dearest theme where skies are blue and brightest, To sing a single song in places that love it best; Freighting the happy breeze when snowy clouds are lightest; Making a song to cease not when the singer is dumb in rest.”
J. F. H.
Away up the Bay, past Sleeping Water and Church Point, past historic Piau's Isle and Belliveau's Cove and the lovely Sissiboo River, past Weymouth and the Barrens, and other villages stretched out along this highroad, between Yarmouth and Digby, is Bleury,--beautiful Bleury, which is the final outpost in the long-extended line of Acadien villages. Beyond this, the Bay--what there is of it, for it soon ends this side of Digby--is English.
But beautiful Bleury, which rejoices in a high bluff, a richly wooded sh.o.r.e, swelling hills, and an altogether firmer, bolder outlook than flat Sleeping Water, is not wholly French. Some of its inhabitants are English. Here the English tide meets the French tide, and, swelling up the Bay and back in the woods, they overrun the land, and form curious contrasts and results, unknown and unfelt in the purely Acadien districts nearer the sea.
In Bleury there is one schoolhouse common to both races, and on a certain afternoon, three weeks after little Narcisse's adventurous voyage in search of the Englishman, the children were tumultuously pouring out from it. Instinctively they formed themselves into four distinct groups. The groups at last resolved themselves into four processions, two going up the road, two down. The French children took one side of the road, the English the other, and each procession kept severely to its own place.
Heading the rows of English children who went up the Bay was a red-haired girl of some twelve summers, whose fiery head gleamed like a torch, held at the head of the procession. As far as the coloring of her skin was concerned, and the exquisite shading of her velvety brown eyes, and the shape of her slightly upturned nose, she might have been English. But her eager gestures, her vivacity, her swiftness and lightness of manner, marked her as a stranger and an alien among the English children by whom she was surrounded.
This was Bidiane LeNoir, Agapit's little renegade, and just now she was highly indignant over a matter of offended pride. A French girl had taken a place above her in a cla.s.s, and also, secure in the fortress of the schoolroom, had made a detestable face at her.
”I hate them,--those Frenchies,” she cried, casting a glance of defiance at the Acadien children meekly filing along beyond her. ”I sha'n't walk beside 'em. Go on, you ----,” and she added an offensive epithet.
The dark-faced, shy Acadiens trotted soberly on, swinging their books and lunch-baskets in their hands. They would not go out of their way to seek a quarrel.
”Run,” said Bidiane, imperiously.
The little Acadiens would not run, they preferred to walk, and Bidiane furiously called to her adherents, ”Let's sing ma.s.s.”
This was the deepest insult that could be offered to the children across the road. Sometimes in their childish quarrels ap.r.o.ns and jackets were torn, and faces were slapped, but no bodily injury ever equalled in indignity that put upon the Catholic children when their religion was ridiculed.
However, they did not retaliate, but their faces became gloomy, and they immediately quickened their steps.
”Holler louder,” Bidiane exhorted her followers, and she broke into a howling ”_Pax vobisc.u.m_,” while a boy at her elbow groaned, ”_Et c.u.m spiritu tuo_,” and the remainder of the children screamed in an irreverent chorus, that ran all up and down the scale, ”_Gloria tibi Domine_.”
The Acadien children fled now, some of them with fingers in their ears, others casting bewildered looks of horror, as if expecting to see the earth open and swallow up their sacrilegious tormentors, who stood shrieking with delight at the success of their efforts to rid themselves of their undesired companions.
”Shut up,” said Bidiane, suddenly, and at once the laughter was stilled.
There was a stranger in their midst. He had come gliding among them on one of the bright s.h.i.+ning wheels that went up and down the Bay in such large numbers. Before Bidiane had spoken he had dismounted, and his quick eye was surveying them with a glance like lightning.
The children stared silently at him. Ridicule cuts sharply into the heart of a child, and a sound whipping inflicted on every girl and boy present would not have impressed on them the burden of their iniquity as did the fine sarcasm and disdainful amus.e.m.e.nt with which this handsome stranger regarded them.
One by one they dropped away, and Bidiane only remained rooted to the spot by some magic incomprehensible to her.
”Your name is Bidiane LeNoir,” he said, quietly.
”It ain't,” she said, doggedly; ”it's Biddy Ann Black.”
”Really,--and there are no LeNoirs about here, nor Corbineaus?”
”Down the Bay are LeNoirs and Corbineaus,” said the little girl, defiantly; then she burst out with a question, ”You ain't the Englishman from Boston?”
”I am.”
”Gos.h.!.+” she said, in profound astonishment; then she lowered her eyes, and traced a serpent in the dust with her great toe. All up and down the Bay had flashed the news of this wonderful stranger who had come to Sleeping Water in quest of an heir or heiress to some vast fortune. The heir had been found in the person of herself,--small, red-haired Biddy Ann Black, and it had been firmly believed among her fellow playmates that at any moment the prince might appear in a golden chariot and whisk her away with him to realms of bliss, where she would live in a gorgeous palace and eat cakes and sweetmeats all day long, sailing at intervals in a boat of her own over a bay of transcendent loveliness, in which she would catch codfish as big as whales. This story had been believed until very recently, when it had somewhat died away by reason of the non-appearance of the prince.
Now he had arrived, and Bidiane's untrained mind and her little wild beast heart were in a tumult. She felt that he did not approve of her, and she loved and hated him in a breath. He was smooth, and dignified, and sleek, like a priest. He was dark, too, like the French people, and she scowled fiercely. He would see that her cotton gown was soiled; why had she not worn a clean one to-day, and also put on her shoes? Would he really want her to go away with him? She would not do so; and a lump arose in her throat, and with a pa.s.sionate emotion that she did not understand she gazed across the Bay towards the purple hills of Digby Neck.