CHAPTER XIII.
CHARLITTE COMES BACK.
"From dawn to gloaming, and from dark to dawn, Dreams the unvoiced, declining Michaelmas. O'er all the orchards where a summer was The noon is full of peace, and loiters on. The branches stir not as the light airs run All day; their stretching shadows slowly pass Through the curled surface of the faded grass, Telling the hours of the cloudless sun."
J. F. H.
The last golden days of summer had come, and the Acadien farmers wererejoicing in a bountiful harvest. Day by day huge wagons, heaped highwith grain, were driven to the threshing-mills, and day by day thestores of vegetables and fruit laid in for the winter were increased inbarn and store-house.
Everything had done well this year, even the flower gardens, and some ofthe more pious of the women attributed their abundance of blossoms tothe blessing of the seeds by the parish priests.
Agapit LeNoir, who now naturally took a broader and wider interest inthe affairs of his countrymen, sat on Rose a Charlitte's lawn,discussing matters in general. Soon he would have to go to Halifax forhis first session of the local legislature. Since his election he hadcome a little out of the shyness and reserve that had settled upon himin his early manhood. He was now usually acknowledged to be a risingyoung man, and one sure to become a credit to his nation and hisprovince. He would be a member of the Dominion Parliament some day, theold people said, and in his more mature age he might even become aSenator. He had obtained just what he had needed,--a start in life.Everything was open to him now. With his racial zeal and love for hiscountrymen, he could become a representative man,--an Acadien of theAcadiens.
Then, too, he would marry an accomplished wife, who would be of greatassistance to him, for it was a well-known fact that he was engaged tohis lively distant relative, Bidiane LeNoir, the young girl who had beeneducated abroad by the Englishman from Boston.
Just now he was talking to this same relative, who, instead of sittingdown quietly beside him, was pursuing an erratic course of wanderingsabout the trees on the lawn. She professed to be looking for a robin'sdeserted nest, but she was managing at the same time to give carefulattention to what her lover was saying, as he sat with eyes fixed nowupon her, now upon the Bay, and waved at intervals the long pipe that hewas smoking.
"Yes," he said, continuing his subject, "that is one of the first thingsI shall lay before the House--the lack of proper schoolhouseaccommodation on the Bay."
"You are very much interested in the schoolhouses," said Bidiane,sarcastically. "You have talked of them quite ten minutes."
His face lighted up swiftly. "Let us return, then, to our old, oldsubject,--will you not reconsider your cruel decision not to marry me,and go with me to Halifax this autumn?"
"No," said Bidiane, decidedly, yet with an evident liking for the topicof conversation presented to her. "I have told you again and again thatI will not. I am surprised at your asking. Who would comfort our darlingRose?"
"Possibly, I say, only possibly, she is not as dependent upon us as youimagine."
"Dependent! of course she is dependent. Am I not with her nearly all thetime. See, there she comes,--the beauty! She grows more charming everyday. She is like those lovely Flemish women, who are so tall, andgraceful, and simple, and elegant, and whose heads are like burnishedgold. I wish you could see them, Agapit. Mr. Nimmo says they havepreserved intact the admirable _naivete_ of the women of the MiddleAges. Their husbands are often brutal, yet they never rebel."
"Is _naivete_ justifiable under those circumstances, _mignonne_?"
"Hush,--she will hear you. Now what does that boy want, I wonder. Justsee him scampering up the road."
He wished to see her, and was soon stumbling through a verbal message.Bidiane kindly but firmly followed him in it, and, stopping him wheneverhe used a corrupted French word, made him substitute another for it.
"No, Raoul, not _j'etions_ but _j'etais_" (I was). "_Petit mieux_" (alittle better), "not _p'tit mieux_. _La rue_ not _la street_. _Cesjeunes demoiselles_" (those young ladies), "not _ces jeunes ladies_."
"They are so careless, these Acadiens of ours," she said, turning toAgapit, with a despairing gesture. "This boy knows good French, yet hespeaks the impure. Why do his people say _becker_ for _baiser_" (kiss)"and _gueule_ for _bouche_" (mouth) "and _echine_ for _dos_" (back)? "Itis so vulgar!"
"Patience," muttered Agapit, "what does he wish?"
"His sister Lucie wants you and me to go up to Grosses Coques thisevening to supper. Some of the D'Entremonts are coming from Pubnico.There will be a big wagon filled with straw, and all the young peoplefrom here are going, Raoul says. It will be fun; will you go?"
"Yes, if it will please you."
"It will," and she turned to the boy. "Run home, Raoul, and tell Luciethat we accept her invitation. Thou art not vexed with me for correctingthee?"
"_Nenni_" (no), said the child, displaying a dimple in his cheek.
Bidiane caught him and kissed him. "In the spring we will have greatfun, thou and I. We will go back to the woods, and with a sharp knifetear the bark from young spruces, and eat the juicy _bobillon_ inside.Then we will also find candy. Canst thou dig up the fern roots and peelthem until thou findest the tender morsel at the bottom?"
"_Oui_," laughed the child, and Bidiane, after pushing him towards Rose,for an embrace from her, conducted him to the gate.
"Is there any use in asking Rose to go with us this evening?" she said,coming back to Agapit, and speaking in an undertone.
"No, I think not."
"Why is it that she avoids all junketing, and sits only with sickpeople?"
He murmured an uneasy, unintelligible response, and Bidiane againdirected her attention to Rose. "What are you staring at so intently,_ma chere_?"
"That beautiful stranger," said Rose, nodding towards the Bay. "It is anew sail."
"Every woman on the Bay knows the ships but me," said Bidiane,discontentedly. "I have got out of it from being so long away."
"And why do the girls know the ships?" asked Agapit.
Bidiane discreetly refused to answer him.
"Because they have lovers on board. Your lover stays on shore, littleone."
"And poor Rose looks over the sea," said Bidiane, dreamily. "I shouldthink that you might trust me now with the story of her trouble,whatever it is, but you are so reserved, so fearful of making wildstatements. You don't treat me as well even as you do a businessperson,--a client is it you call one?"
Agapit smiled happily. "Marry me, then, and in becoming your advocate Iwill deal plainly with you as a client, and state fully to you all thefacts of this case."
"I daresay we shall have frightful quarrels when we are married," saidBidiane, cheerfully.
"I daresay."
"Just see how Rose stares at that ship."
"She is a beauty," said Agapit, critically, "and foreign rigged."
There was "a free wind" blowing, and the beautiful stranger moved like agraceful bird before it. Rose--the favorite occupation in whose quietlife was to watch the white sails that passed up and down the Bay--stillkept her eyes fixed on it, and presently said, "The stranger is pointingtowards Sleeping Water."
"I will get the marine glass," said Bidiane, running to the house.
"She is putting out a boat," said Rose, when she came back. "She iscoming in to the wharf."
"Allow me to see for one minute, Rose," said Agapit, and he extended hishand for the glass; then silently watched the sailors running about andlooking no larger than ants on the distant deck.
"They are not going to the wharf," said Bidiane. "They are making forthat rock by the inn bathing-house. Perhaps they will engage inswimming."
A slight color appeared in Rose's cheeks, and she glanced longingly atthe glass that Agapit still held. The mystery of the sea and the magicof ships and of seafa
ring lives was interwoven with her whole being. Shefelt an intense gentle interest in the strange sail and the foreignsailors, and nothing would have given her greater pleasure than to haveshown them some kindness.
"I wish," she murmured, "that I were now at the inn. They should have ajug of cream, and some fresh fruit."
The horseshoe cottage being situated on rising ground, a little beyondthe river, afforded the three people on the lawn an uninterrupted viewof the movements of the boat. While Bidiane prattled on, and severelyrebuked Agapit for his selfishness in keeping the glass to himself, Rosewatched the boat touching the big rocks, where one man sprang from it,and walked towards the inn.
She could see his figure in the distance, looking at first scarcelylarger than a black lead pencil, but soon taking on the dimensions of arather short, thick-set man. He remained stationary on the inn verandafor a few minutes, then, leaving it, he passed down the village street.
"It is some stranger from abroad, asking his way about," said Bidiane;"one of the numerous Comeau tribe, no doubt. Oh, I hope he will go onthe drive to-night."
"Why, I believe he is coming here," she exclaimed, after another periodof observation of the stranger's movements; "he is passing by all thehouses. Yes, he is turning in by the cutting through the hill. Who canhe be?"
Rose and Agapit, grown strangely silent, did not answer her, and,without thinking of examining their faces, she kept her eyes fixed onthe man rapidly approaching them.
"He is neither old nor young," she said, vivaciously. "Yes, he is,too,--he is old. His hair is quite gray. He swaggers a little bit. Ithink he must be the captain of the beautiful stranger. There is anindefinable something about him that doesn't belong to a common sailor;don't you think so, Agapit?"
Her red head tilted itself sideways, yet she still kept a watchful eyeon the newcomer. She could now see that he was quietly dressed in darkbrown clothes, that his complexion was also brown, his eyes small andtwinkling, his lips thick, and partly covered by a short, grizzledmustache. He wore on his head a white straw hat, that he took off whenhe neared the group.
His face was now fully visible, and there was a wild cry from Rose. "Ah,Charlitte, Charlitte,--you have come back!"