Rose à Charlitte

by Marshall Saunders

  CHAPTER XIX.

  AN INTERRUPTED MASS.

  "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 historicPiau's Isle and Belliveau's Cove and the lovely Sissiboo River, pastWeymouth and the Barrens, and other villages stretched out along thishighroad, between Yarmouth and Digby, is Bleury,--beautiful Bleury,which is the final outpost in the long-extended line of Acadienvillages. Beyond this, the Bay--what there is of it, for it soon endsthis side of Digby--is English.

  But beautiful Bleury, which rejoices in a high bluff, a richly woodedshore, swelling hills, and an altogether firmer, bolder outlook thanflat Sleeping Water, is not wholly French. Some of its inhabitants areEnglish. Here the English tide meets the French tide, and, swelling upthe Bay and back in the woods, they overrun the land, and form curiouscontrasts and results, unknown and unfelt in the purely Acadiendistricts nearer the sea.

  In Bleury there is one schoolhouse common to both races, and on acertain afternoon, three weeks after little Narcisse's adventurousvoyage in search of the Englishman, the children were tumultuouslypouring out from it. Instinctively they formed themselves into fourdistinct groups. The groups at last resolved themselves into fourprocessions, two going up the road, two down. The French children tookone side of the road, the English the other, and each procession keptseverely to its own place.

  Heading the rows of English children who went up the Bay was ared-haired girl of some twelve summers, whose fiery head gleamed like atorch, held at the head of the procession. As far as the coloring of herskin was concerned, and the exquisite shading of her velvety brown eyes,and the shape of her slightly upturned nose, she might have beenEnglish. But her eager gestures, her vivacity, her swiftness andlightness of manner, marked her as a stranger and an alien among theEnglish children by whom she was surrounded.

  This was Bidiane LeNoir, Agapit's little renegade, and just now she washighly indignant over a matter of offended pride. A French girl hadtaken a place above her in a class, and also, secure in the fortress ofthe schoolroom, had made a detestable face at her.

  "I hate them,--those Frenchies," she cried, casting a glance of defianceat the Acadien children meekly filing along beyond her. "I sha'n't walkbeside 'em. Go on, you ----," and she added an offensive epithet.

  The dark-faced, shy Acadiens trotted soberly on, swinging their booksand lunch-baskets in their hands. They would not go out of their way toseek a quarrel.

  "Run," said Bidiane, imperiously.

  The little Acadiens would not run, they preferred to walk, and Bidianefuriously called to her adherents, "Let's sing mass."

  This was the deepest insult that could be offered to the children acrossthe road. Sometimes in their childish quarrels aprons and jackets weretorn, and faces were slapped, but no bodily injury ever equalled inindignity that put upon the Catholic children when their religion wasridiculed.

  However, they did not retaliate, but their faces became gloomy, and theyimmediately quickened their steps.

  "Holler louder," Bidiane exhorted her followers, and she broke into ahowling "_Pax vobiscum_," while a boy at her elbow groaned, "_Et cumspiritu tuo_," and the remainder of the children screamed in anirreverent chorus, that ran all up and down the scale, "_Gloria tibiDomine_."

  The Acadien children fled now, some of them with fingers in their ears,others casting bewildered looks of horror, as if expecting to see theearth open and swallow up their sacrilegious tormentors, who stoodshrieking with delight at the success of their efforts to rid themselvesof 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 onone of the bright shining wheels that went up and down the Bay in suchlarge numbers. Before Bidiane had spoken he had dismounted, and hisquick eye was surveying them with a glance like lightning.

  The children stared silently at him. Ridicule cuts sharply into theheart of a child, and a sound whipping inflicted on every girl and boypresent would not have impressed on them the burden of their iniquity asdid the fine sarcasm and disdainful amusement with which this handsomestranger regarded them.

  One by one they dropped away, and Bidiane only remained rooted to thespot 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 Englishmanfrom Boston?"

  "I am."

  "Gosh!" 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 theBay had flashed the news of this wonderful stranger who had come toSleeping Water in quest of an heir or heiress to some vast fortune. Theheir had been found in the person of herself,--small, red-haired BiddyAnn Black, and it had been firmly believed among her fellow playmatesthat at any moment the prince might appear in a golden chariot and whiskher away with him to realms of bliss, where she would live in a gorgeouspalace and eat cakes and sweetmeats all day long, sailing at intervalsin a boat of her own over a bay of transcendent loveliness, in which shewould catch codfish as big as whales. This story had been believed untilvery recently, when it had somewhat died away by reason of thenon-appearance of the prince.

  Now he had arrived, and Bidiane's untrained mind and her little wildbeast 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, andshe scowled fiercely. He would see that her cotton gown was soiled; whyhad she not worn a clean one to-day, and also put on her shoes? Would hereally want her to go away with him? She would not do so; and a lumparose in her throat, and with a passionate emotion that she did notunderstand she gazed across the Bay towards the purple hills of DigbyNeck.

  Vesper, perfectly aware of what was passing in her mind, waited for herto recover herself. "I would like to see your uncle and aunt," he said,at last. "Will you take me to them?"

  She responded by a gesture in the affirmative, and, still with eyes bentobstinately on the ground, led the way towards a low brown housesituated in a hollow between two hills, and surrounded by a grove oftall French poplars, whose ancestors had been nourished by the sweetwaters of the Seine.

  Vesper's time was limited, and he was anxious to gain the confidence ofthe little maid, if possible, but she would not talk to him.

  "Do you like cocoanuts?" he said, presently, on seeing in the distance anegro approaching, with a load of this foreign fruit, that he hadprobably obtained from some schooner.

  "You bet," said Bidiane, briefly.

  Vesper stopped the negro, and bought as many nuts at five cents apieceas he and Bidiane could carry. Then, trying to make her smile bybalancing one on the saddle of his wheel, he walked slowly beside her.

  Bidiane solemnly watched him. She would not talk, she would not smile,but she cheerfully dropped her load when one of his cocoanuts rolled inthe ditch, and, at the expense of a scratched face from an inquisitiverose-bush that bent over to see what she was doing, she restored it tohim.

  "Your cheek is bleeding," said Vesper.

  "No odds," she remarked, with Indian-like fortitude, and she precededhim into a grassy dooryard, that was pervaded by a powerful smell offrying doughnuts.

  Mirabelle Marie, her fat, good-natured young aunt, stood in the kitchendoorway with a fork in her hand, and seeing that the stranger wasEnglish, she b
eamed a joyous, hearty welcome on him.

  "Good day, sir; you'll stop to supper? That's right. Shove your wheelag'in that fence, and come right in. Biddy, git the creamer from thewell and give the genl'man a glass of milk. You won't?--All right, sir,walk into the settin'-room. What! you'd rather set under the trees? Allright. My man's up in the barn, fussin' with a sick cow that's lost hercud. He's puttin' a rind of bacon on her horns. What d'ye say,Biddy?"--this latter in an undertone to the little girl, who was pullingat her dress. "This is the Englishman from Boston--_sakerje_!" and,dropping her fork, she wiped her hands on her dress and darted out tooffer Vesper still more effusive expressions of hospitality.

  He smiled amiably on her, and presently she returned to the kitchen,silly and distracted in appearance, and telling Bidiane that she feltlike a hen with her head cut off. The stranger who was to do so much forthem had come. She could have prostrated herself in the dust before him."Scoot, Biddy, scoot," she exclaimed; "borry meat of some kind. Go tothe Maxwells or to the Whites. Tell 'em he's come, and we've got nothin'but fish and salt pork, and they know the English hate that like pizen.And git a junk of butter with only a mite of salt in it. Mine's saltedheavy for the market. And skip to the store and ask 'em to score us fora pound of cheese and some fancy crackers."

  Bidiane ran away, and, as she ran, her ill humor left her, and she feltherself to be a very important personage. Vivaciously and swiftly sheexclaimed, "He's come!" to several children whom she met, and with akeen and exquisite sense of pleasure looked back to see them standingopen-mouthed in the road, impressed in a most gratifying way by the newscommunicated.

  In the meantime Mirabelle Marie began to make frantic and ludicrouspreparations to set a superfine meal before the stranger, who was nowentitled to a double share of honor. In her extreme haste everythingwent wrong. She upset her pot of lard; the cat and dog got at her plateof doughnuts, and stole half of them; the hot biscuits that she hastilymixed burnt to a cinder, and the jar of preserved berries that sheopened proved to have been employing their leisure time in the cellar byfermenting most viciously.

  However, she did not lose her temper, and, as she was not a woman to becast down by trifles, she seated herself in a rocking-chair, fannedherself vigorously with her apron, and laughed spasmodically.

  Bidiane found her there on her return. The little girl possessed akeener sense of propriety than her careless relative; she was also moremoody and variable, and immediately falling into a rage, she conveyedsome plain truths to Mirabelle Marie, in inelegant language.

  The woman continued to laugh, and to stare through the window at Vesper,who sat motionless under the trees. One arm was thrown over the back ofhis seat, and his handsome head was turned away from the house.

  "Poor calf," said Mirabelle Marie, "he looks down the Bay; he is a verydivil for good looks. Rose a Charlitte is one big fool."

  "We shall have only slops for supper," said Bidiane, in a fury, andswearing under her breath at her.

  Mirabelle Marie at this bestirred herself, and tried to evolve a mealfrom the ruin of her hopes, and the fresh supply of food that her niecehad obtained.

  The little girl meantime found a clean cloth, and spread it on thetable. She carefully arranged on it their heavy white dishes andsubstantial knives and spoons. Then she blew a horn, which made Claude aSucre, her strapping great uncle, suddenly loom against the horizon, inthe direction of the barn.

  He came to the house, and was about to ask a question, but closed hismouth when he saw the stranger in the yard.

  "Go change," said Bidiane, pouncing upon him.

  Claude knew what she meant, and glanced resignedly from his homespunsuit to her resolved face. There was no appeal, so he went to hisbedroom to don his Sunday garments. He had not without merit gained hisnickname of Sugar Claude; for he was, if possible, more easy-going thanhis wife.

  Bidiane next attacked her aunt, whose face was the color of fire, frombending over the stove. "Go put on clean duds; these are dirty."

  "Go yourself, you little cat," said Mirabelle Marie, shaking hermountain of flesh with a good-natured laugh.

  "I'm going--I ain't as dirty as you, anyway--and take off those sneaks."

  Mirabelle Marie stuck out one of the flat feet encased in rubber-soledshoes. "My land! if I do, I'll go barefoot."

  Bidiane subsided and went to the door to look for her two boy cousins.Where were they? She shaded her eyes with her two brown hands, and hergaze swept the land and the water. Where were those boys? Were they backin the pasture, or down by the river, or playing in the barn, or out inthe boat? A small schooner beating up the Bay caught her eye. That wasJohnny Maxwell's schooner. She knew it by the three-cornered patch onthe mainsail. And in Captain Johnny's pockets, when he came from Boston,were always candy, nuts, and raisins,--and the young Maxwells were of agenerous disposition, and the whole neighborhood knew it. Her cousinswould be on the wharf below the house, awaiting his arrival. Well, theyshould come to supper first; and, like a bird of prey, she swooped downthe road upon her victims, and, catching them firmly by the shoulders,marched them up to the house.