A Sister to Evangeline
Page 30
Chapter XXIX
The Hour of her Desolation
Returning from a brief word with the ship-captain,—a very broad-bearded,broad-chested man, in a very rough blue coat,—Lieutenant Waldron passedus hastily, and signified that it was all right. With this sanction wepushed along the crowded deck in order to gain a post of vantage at thebow. The vessel, whose hold was now to be our new and narrow cage, wasone of those ordinarily engaged in the West Indian trade. Our noses toldus this. To the savours of fish and tar which clung in her timbers sheadded a foreign tang of molasses, rum, and coffee. As we stumbled up thecluttered deck, lacking the balance of free hands, these shippy smellswere crossed in curious, pathetic fashion by the homely odours of theblankets, clothes, pillows, and other household stuff that lay aboutwaiting for storage. Here a woman sat stolidly upon her own pile, with amortgage on the future so long as she kept her bedding in possession;and there a youngster, already homesick, for his wide-hearthed cabin,sobbed heavily, with his face buried in an old coat of his father’s.
For hours, in the bitter cold, we held our post in the bow of the shipand watched the boats go back and forth. Of the old mother of PetitJoliet we saw nothing. We judged perforce that she had been moved earlyand carried to the other ship, which swung at anchor a little up thechannel. We were able—I say we, though Marc did all, I being, as itwere, drowned in my own dejection—we were able to be of service indivers instances. When, for example, young Violet was brought aboardwith another boat-load from the chapel prison, we made haste to tell theguards that we had seen his mother and sisters taken to the other ship.As a consequence, when the boat went back to the wharf it carried youngViolet; so he and his were not divided in their exile.
By the very next boat there came to us a black-browed, white-lippedwoman, from whose dry eyes the tears seemed all drained out. She carrieda babe-at-breast, while two thin little ones clung to her homespunskirt. As soon as she reached the deck she stared around in wildexpectation, as if she thought to find her husband waiting to receiveher. Not seeing him, she straightway fainted in a heap. It chanced Iknew the woman’s face. She was the wife of one Caspar Besnard, ofPereau, whom I had seen taken, early in the day, to the other ship. Hewas conspicuous by reason of having red hair, a marvel in Acadie; andtherefore my memory had retained him, though he concerned me not. Now,however, he did concern me much. A few words to the officer of theguard, and the poor woman, with her children, was transferred to whereshe doubtless found her husband.
Such cases justified, in our jailers’ eyes, the favour that had beenshown us. Meanwhile our ship had filled up. We had seen Long Philibertand La Mouche brought aboard, but had not spoken with them. “Time forthat later,” Marc had said. I had watched for Petit Joliet’s mother; andI had watched eagerly for old Mother Pêche; but in vain. While yet theboats were plying, heavy laden, between the shore and the other ship, wefound ourselves ready for departure. Our boats were swung aboard; andthe English _Yeo, heave ho!_ arose as the sailors shoved on the capstan.Lieutenant Waldron, after an all but wordless farewell, went ashore inthe gig with two soldiers. The rest of the red-coats stayed aboard. Theyhad been reënforced by a fresh squad who were marched down late to thelanding. These, plainly, were to be our guard during the voyage; and Isaw with a sort of vague resentment that a tall, foppish exquisite of anofficer, known to me by sight, was to command this guard. He was oneLieutenant Shafto, whom we had seen two or three times at the chapelprison; and I think all disliked him for a certain elaborate loftinessin his air. It came to my mind dimly that I should well rejoice to crossswords with him, and I hinted as much to Marc.
“Who knows?” said my unruffled cousin; “we may live to see him look lesscomplacent.” His smile had a meaning which I could not fathom. I couldsee no ground for his sanguine satisfaction; and I dared not questionwhere some enemy might overhear. I thought no more of it, therefore, butrelapsed into my apathy. As we slipped down the tide I saw, in aboat-load just approaching the other ship, a figure with a red shawlwrapped round head and shoulders. This gave me a pang, as I had hoped tohave Mother Pêche with me, to talk to me of Yvonne and help me to buildup the refuge of a credulous hope. But since even that was deniedme—well, it was nothing, after all, and I was a child! I turned my eyesupon the house, far up the ridge, where the Lamouries had lodging. Itwas one of four, standing well aloof from the rest of the village; and Iknew they all were occupied by those prudent ones of the neighbourhoodwho had been wise in time and now stood safe in English favour. The doomof Grand Pré, I knew, would turn aside from them.
But on the emptied and desolated village it was even now descending.Marc and I, unnoticed in our place, were free to watch. So dire was evenyet the confusion on our deck, so busy seamen and soldiers alike, thatwe were quite forgotten for a time. The early winter dark was gatheringupon Blomidon and the farther hills; but there was to be no dark thatnight by the mouth of Gaspereau.
The house of Petit Joliet, upon the hill, burned long alone. It wasperhaps a signal to the troops at Piziquid, twenty miles away, tellingthem that the work at Grand Pré was done. Not till late in the afternoonwas the torch set to the village itself. Then smoke arose suddenly onthe westernmost outskirts, toward the Habitants dyke. The wind beingfrom the southeast, the fire spread but slowly against it. As the smokedrove low the flames started into more conspicuous brilliance, lickinglithely over and under the rolling cloud that strove to smother them.These empty houses burned for the most part with a clear, light flame;but the barns, stored with hay and straw, vomited angry red, streakedwith black. Up the bleak hillside ran the terrified cattle, with wildlytossing horns. At times, even on shipboard, we caught their bellowings.They had been turned loose, of course, before the fires were started,but had remained huddled in the familiar barnyards until this horribleand inexplicable cataclysm drove them forth. Far up the slope we sawthem turn and stand at gaze.
In an hour we observed that the wharf was empty, and the other shiphoisting sail. Then the fires sprang up in every part of the village atonce. They ran along the main street below the chapel; but they came notvery near the chapel itself, for all the buildings in its immediateneighbourhood had been long ago removed, and it stood in a safeisolation, towering in white solemnity over the red tumult of ruin.
“The chapel will be a camp to-night, instead of a prison,” said Marc atmy ear, his grave eyes fixed and wide. “It will be the last thing togo—it and the Colony of Compromise yonder up the hill.”
“But who shall blame them for the compromise?” I protested, unwilling tohear censure that touched the father of Yvonne.
Marc shrugged his shoulders at this. He never was a lover of vainargument.
“I wonder where the Black Abbé is at this moment!” was what he said,with no apparent relevancy.
“Not yet in his own place, I fear!” said I.
“The implication is a pious one,” said Marc. “Yonder is the work of him,and of no other. He should be roasting now in the hottest of it.”
I really, at this moment, cared little, and was at loss for reply. But abullying roar of a voice just behind us saved me the necessity ofanswering.
“Here, you two! What are ye doin’ here on deck? Git, now! Git, quick!”
The speaker was a big, loose-jointed man, ill-favoured and palpablyill-humoured. I was pleased to note that the middle two of his obtrusivefront teeth were wanting, and that his nose was so misshapen as tosuggest some past calamitous experience. As I learned afterwards, thiswas our ship’s first mate. I was too dull of mood—too sick, in fact—tobe instantly wroth at his insolence. I looked curiously at him; but Marcanswered in a quiet voice:
“Merely waiting here, sir, on parole and by direction, till the properauthorities are ready to take us below!” And he thrust out his manacledhands to show how we were conditioned.
“Well, here’s proper authority, ye’ll find out. Git, er I’ll jog ye!”And he made a motion to take me by the collar.
Instantly along the red-lit deck came soldiers running—three of them.The mate had grabbed a belaying-pin, but stood fingering it, uncertainof his status in relation to the soldiers.
“Corporal,” said Marc ceremoniously to one of them, discerning his rankby the stripes on his sleeve, “pardon the false alarm. There was noprisoner escaping. We were here on parole, by the favour of LieutenantWaldron—as you yourself know, indeed, for we helped you this afternoonin getting scattered families together. But this man—we don’t know whohe is—was brutal, and threatening violence in spite of our defencelessstate. Please take us in charge!”
“Certainly, Captain de Mer,” said the man promptly. “I was just aboutcoming for you!”
Then he turned to the mate with an air of triumphant aversion, in whichlurked, perhaps, a consciousness of conflicting and ill-definedauthorities.
“No belaying-pins for the prisoners!” he growled. “Keep them for yerpoor swabs o’ sailor lads.”
As we marched down the deck under guard the sails overhead were allaglow, the masts and spars gleamed ruddily. The menacing radiance was bythis time filling the whole heaven, and the small, quick-running surgesflashed under it with a sinister sheen. As we reached the open hatch Iturned for a last look at Grand Pré.
The whole valley was now as it were one seething lake of smoke andflame, the high, half-shrouded spire of the chapel rising impregnable onthe further brink. The conflagration was fiercest now along the easternhalf of the main street, toward the water side. Even at this distance weheard the great-lunged roar of it. High over the chaos, like a vaultedroof upheld by the Gaspereau Ridge, arched an almost stationary coveringof smoke-cloud, impenetrable, and red as blood along its under side. Thesmoke of the burning was carried off toward the Habitants andCanard—where there was nothing left to burn. Between the red stillnessabove and the red turbulence below, apart and safe on their high slope,gleamed the cottages of the Colony of Compromise. With what eyes, Iwondered, does my beloved look out upon this horror? Do they strainsadly after the departing ships—or does the Englishman stand by andcomfort her?
As I got clumsily down the ladder the last thing I saw—and the picturebit its lines in strange fashion on my memory—was the other ship, aleague behind us, black-winged against the flame.
Then the hatch closed down. By the glimmer of a swinging lanthorn wegroped our way to a space where we two could lie down side by side. Marcwanted to talk, but I could not. There was a throbbing in my head, agreat numbness on my heart. In my ears the voice of the Minas wavesassailing the ship’s timbers seemed to whisper of the end of things.Grand Pré was gone. I was being carried, sick and in chains, to somefar-off land of strangers. My beloved was cared for by another.
“No!” said I in my heart (I thought at first I had spoken it aloud, butMarc did not stir), “when my foot touches land my face shall turn backto seek her face again, though it be from the ends of earth. It is vain,but I will not give her up. I am not dead yet—though hope is!”
As I thought the words there came humming through my brain that foolishsaying of Mother Pêche’s. Again I saw her on that spring evening bendingover my palm and murmuring—“_Your heart’s desire is near your death ofhope_!”
“Here is my death of hope, mother,” said I to myself. “But where is myheart’s desire?”
And with that I laughed harshly—aloud.
It was an ill sound in that place of bitterness, and heads were raisedto look at me. Marc asked, with a trace of apprehension in his voice:
“What’s the matter, Paul? Anything to laugh at?”
“Myself!” I muttered.
“The humour of the subject is not obvious,” said he curtly.