The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Heir to Grand Pré, by John Frederic Herbin

The Heir to
Grand-Pré

BY

John Frederic Herbin

Author of
"The History of Grand-Pré,"
"The Marshlands."
Wolfville,

N.S.

TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS
1907

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand nine hundred and seven, by John Frederic Herbin, at the Department of Agriculture.

[CONTENTS.]

THE HEIR TO GRAND PRÉ

[CHAPTER I.]

WHAT THE TIDE BROUGHT.

"The moveless helm needs no ruling hand,
Because there is no wind awake to fill
The sail that idles in the sun."

"Well, Len, how is she making now?"

"Falling a little, sir."

"No sign of wind yet?"

"Not a whiff."

"How long before we will have to anchor?"

"About an hour more ebb, sir?"

On this report, the bare head, which had been slightly raised while the interrogation was taking place, fell back into the hollow it had made for itself on an old sail which was both couch and pillow. A well-worn sporting coat lay between the rough cloth and the golden-brown hair and the summer-seasoned skin of a man's face, fresh and full of the health of youth. The figure of the young man settled into a more comfortable position, and a light cloud of smoke rose from his pipe into the moveless air. He lay on the roof of the cabin in the shadow of the mainsail, now hanging out of use from the mast. The sky was hazy and cloudless, and the whole sheet of water was white as burnished silver. Afar off the horizon was dark in places with the mirage of hills or marsh, showing a steamer with its smoke in a straight line upward from its stack. The man minded not the bright sky or the reflecting sea, and from thoughtful blue eyes glanced from time to time at the shore not beyond half a mile distant, frequently turning a pair of powerful binoculars upon the vari-colored bluffs and cliffs as the swift tide bore the boat along. The warm air of June made no impression upon the alertful if moody eyes.

"What point is that just in sight beyond the blue bluff?"

"Pierre Island, sir."

This reply brought the young man to his feet, and he gazed at the island that came quickly out from behind the headland till it was fully exposed to view.

Pierre Island, as now seen, sloped rather steeply from the shore side upward, while the direct front and the whole outer portion in view was precipitous and irregular, rising out of huge masses of broken rock and boulders. The summit was wooded like the cliffs on either hand along the shore followed by the boat.

Frank Winslow, geologist and student, was not of the common type. His easy manner and almost listless movement of body came not from vacation negligence. Nature had given his manhood a fine frame, which his own vigorous temperament had developed with toil and training. His face gave evidence of maturity. The calm and at times thoughtful cast of countenance, due to the serious and studious mind that ruled it, deceived one as to the age of the man. A student by selection and opportunity, a life spent among books and the men of books made his speech deliberate and his face grave. A strong mouth was only partially concealed by a close-cut golden-brown beard and a soft moustache that had seldom been sacrificed to the razor. At rare moments an inexpressibly kind smile disclosed the other man, the inner soul of Frank Winslow.

We are introduced to him thus on board the yacht Marie, owned and commanded by Len Lawson. The yacht and her owner were engaged by Winslow for the purpose of examining the trap bluffs of the shores of Minas Basin in Nova Scotia, and to study the famous tides of the region and of the Bay of Fundy.

The boat was moving rapidly with the outgoing tide towards the island which both Winslow and Len were now looking upon. The whole sheet of water was without a ripple as far as the eye could see, yet the boat passed the shore rapidly, more quickly than a man might run who attempted to keep abreast of the Marie. There was no show of hurry. They were far enough from shore to make their passage seem slow, and objects ahead of them appeared but a short distance away in the deceptive brilliancy of the sea and air, while the small need of effort on board to keep the course and the sails right made the trip dull and slow. Thus they drifted, completely at the mercy of the tide and its shifting currents. Sounds from unseen sources, voices of men and the crash of loading vessels, came to their ears with strange clearness and loudness.

"Shall we be able to get beyond the island before we anchor?" asked Winslow, surveying the enlarging head of the brown-colored bluff in the distance.

"Yes, sir," answered Len, with his hand on the useless tiller, and gazing ahead with thoughtful face. "The water is falling fast, and the tide is making inshore a little. We must make in behind the island for anchorage till the wind comes, or till the tide rises."

"Why is it called Pierre Island, Len?"

"Pierre Gotro owns it and lives there. His father's name was Pierre, and so was his grandfather's," continued Len, still examining the land, and often glancing at the passing cliffs. He was reading the signs and noting the changes of air and land. He had spent the most of his years on the shore of Minas or on its waters, and had become a skilful sailor and pilot, as all must who thus earn their bread. Swift currents, tidal changes, numerous rivers and hidden rocks, and the sudden squalls of that great inland sea make good seamen if they are spared. Len Lawson was of this type, and Winslow tacitly acknowledged his superiority as a "skipper," although he had had a great deal of experience in yachting. Looking at him, Winslow caught a sudden change of expression, a lighting of the eyes, as he discovered some familiar object on the shore of the island. Directing his glass again to the land, Winslow saw on the long slope of bright red beach two ox-teams moving down towards the sea. The leading one was guided by a stalwart old man with grey beard, and deep voice, which could be plainly heard across the water. In the cart drawn by the second pair were two women, one past middle age, the other young.

"Look through this, Len," said Winslow, holding out the powerful glass made for the purpose of examining inaccessible veins of mineral and geological formations.

Len placed the glass to his eye, and the exclamation he made told how much of a surprise the glance gave him.

"Is that Pierre, the owner of the island?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who are the women?"

"The servant and his daughter."

"What is the daughter's name, and is she the older or the younger woman?" asked Winslow, making a mental surmise as to the cause of the interest evinced by the young master of the Marie in the people on the shore.

"The young woman with bare head is the daughter," replied Len, evasively.

"You did not mention her name, did you?" persisted Winslow.

"Marie," said Len, attempting to hide his evident confusion by directing the glass to another quarter, thus turning his face from the cool eyes of Winslow.

"A pretty name, Len; you did well in choosing it for your boat."

Len soon turned his gaze again to the island, and caught sight of the last of the kindly smile in the eyes still looking him through. He was loth to let the glasses leave his face, and he looked long and steadily at the group. They were near enough now to enable them to hear the deep, rich voice of Pierre and the lower tones of the occupants of the following team. The oxen moved slowly down the shore in the soft red clay and sand, the wheels thumping over the black projecting rocks at times, sending the echoed sound along the shore. The laughter of the girl came pleasantly to their ears as the swaying cart forced the older woman to seize the side near her more firmly while one wheel or the other went over a rock.

The Marie had now drifted well in towards the island, while at the same time the tide had fallen away, thus lessening the space between the boat and the shore. Len still kept the glass to his eyes, and his eyes on the shore till a sudden blow upon the bottom of the yacht, and a loud scraping along her side startled him into giving his attention to matters elsewhere.

"Only a rock, Len," said Winslow, coolly surveying the shore again with the glass which Len had hastily restored to him. Yet not a sign of danger had been manifest.

A little to their left the current swept between the island and the mainland, about a mile away, while the line the boat was following would direct them about half a mile from the outside of the island. They had now approached so near the shore as to be within easy speaking distance of the island folk, who had reached the edge of the water and stood watching the yacht.

"Sheer off, boy! sheer off! if you don't want to ground," called out Pierre. At the sound of his voice the cattle walked fearlessly into the water.

Len sounded with an oar, and found that the sand was just under his keel.

Springing to the bow of the boat, he again reached for bottom, and putting all his weight on the oar, turned the boat's head away from the shore. Winslow was in a moment following his example at the stern, and their united strength gave a slight outward motion to the heavy boat. Another slight scraping sound told them how near they were to being aground, and they exerted all their force to escape the danger that threatened them at every moment.

"It's all against us, sir, there is a breeze coming," cried Len, flushed with his exertions. "It will drive us on, if we don't strike before it comes."

The next moment the boat struck again, and came to a standstill. Len let down the sail, which fell with a rattle, and tried to force the boat off into deep water. In his attempts his oar slipped off the rock on which they had lodged, and he fell with a splash into the water. As the rock was beneath him he was only waist deep in the water, and with no little difficulty, because of the force of the tide, he got back into the boat again.

The speed of the current was more apparent as it rushed by the side of the Marie, now firmly held, and listing slowly towards the shore as the tide fell.

Pierre meanwhile was urging his oxen slowly towards the helpless young men. The water was up to the hubs, and the animals seemed to enjoy the cool current gliding past them up to their bellies.

"Well, Len, you are as good as anchored for this tide, and some of the flood," said the old man from the cart. "You are listed right, and you can run to good harbor to-night if you are not stove in."

The young man made no reply, but stood looking down the side of the injured boat, for he found that she was leaking, and waited for a chance to examine her side.

It was not long before he was able to step down to the rock, which now stood out of the water, and showed the position held by the boat, and the extent of the damage she had received.

"She leaks pretty bad, sir," he said to Winslow, "I don't think we can leave here for a couple of days."

"All right," said Winslow, quietly; "I can spend the time here, about the island and under the cliffs."

Pierre now stood near the rock, and with Len was examining the damaged side of the craft.

"You can't get her right in less than two days, Len, as you will have to get her out of this as soon as you can."

"I will stay here till you are ready, Len," said Winslow, "if Mr. Gotro will permit me to go over his island."

"The shore is free to all," answered the old man.

"Can you put me up? Any small room will serve for the few hours I will spend in it," asked Winslow.

"We never keep people, sir," said Pierre, kindly. "At the house on the mainland there are several Americans staying, and they can keep you there."

"You will have to cross by the stone ford in about an hour, or you can cross over in a boat at half flood," explained Len.

"I think I will examine the rear of the island first, where the formation is so broken," said Winslow. "What do the veins contain?"

"You will find minerals of different kinds there. Many people come here and carry away a great deal of stone of different colors, which they seem to consider valuable. I send several boxes of it away every spring, after the frost comes out of the cliff and lets down the specimens. The rock is dangerous and overhangs very much, and is loose and broken. The best veins are above, where it is not easy to get to them. Those below have been broken out and are not so good."

"I can see the beautiful coloring of the veins from here, through my glass. Have the cliffs never been climbed?"

"Not often. I would advise you not to attempt it, sir," said the old man, seriously.

"I thank you, Mr. Gotro," returned Winslow, "I do not think I shall be tempted to climb. I am more interested in studying the formation than in securing specimens, if I can find any that are fairly good below."

"Our visitors carry away about everything that is worth taking," said Pierre, with a smile.

"I can well believe it," laughed Winslow, as he stepped to the shore and walked towards the island.

A cool breeze was now coming up out of the west, and the pleasant sound of the rippling water on the beach, and the sunshine flooded the broad space between the cliffs and the island, lighting up the red sandstone walls and the colored faces of the wooded hills, falling upon the right and left into the soft blue haze of the distance.

The laughter of the young woman, or the sound of the boat being set to rights, were borne to the ears of Winslow as he took his way upward. The blood coursed freely in his veins, and as he looked about him he found his eyes pleased, and in his breast a contentment and luxurious calm seemed to find place. He felt the joyousness of his fresh and strong manhood, and he turned to the nature about him the reflection of the bright light of his warm eyes and glowing face.

[CHAPTER II.]

DULSE.

"The garnet dulse and glistening curls of weed."

The tide is now almost at its lowest point. Over a mile of shining flat beach lay between the sea and Pierre Island rising into the bright air like an immense tower or castle. On the side nearest the main shore a steep slope gave access to the island by means of a winding road through the woods to the summit. Here, amid trees and cleared strips of garden and field, rose a stone house, dark against the blue sky.

On the outer or sea side jagged and precipitous cliffs, here and there indented by inlets where the high tide made small bays, composed the sea front of the island, impassable to man or animal. On the innumerable small shelves and ledges, showing white patches from the presence of seagulls and their young, clumps of green brush and small trees were thinly scattered over the face of the rock.

Between the cliffs and the road the sides of the island gradually increased in slope and became more and more wooded with the thick, gnarled, and stunted growth peculiar to the islands of this salt lake, the Basin of Minas.

The ox-teams had passed on with the tide, and the island folk were busy along the seaweed-covered fringe of dark beach that marked the junction of sea and land.

The yacht, perched on a broad, flat rock only a few feet high, lay helpless on its side. The busy figure of the young sailor often appeared as he passed in and out of the boat with implements of his craft. On the rock alongside a small fire burned and the smell of tar pervaded the air.

Pierre Gotro and his daughter, and their servant, old Suzanne, moved quickly among the seaweed, and with small forks were busy loading the carts with dulse. The tides were running low for a few days and the dulse-beds were fully exposed.

Light-hearted Marie laughed and jested with Suzanne, and often directed her words to her father.

"Suzanne, do you think that Len is dry yet? Poor fellow, he did get so wet." She smiled as she asked the question.

"He will tell you himself to-night when he comes to Bluff Castle," said the older woman, in reply.

"I hope he won't come, Suzanne; he is so strange now, since we have grown up."

"You are strange, too, perhaps. He says you have become proud since you have been going away to school," said Suzanne.

"I am not proud," cried Marie, quickly; "but he frightens me sometimes. He is changed," she continued, in a calmly positive tone.

"Why did the stranger wish to stay with us, Suzanne?" Marie asked, after some minutes of silence.

"I suppose to be near the cliffs," replied Suzanne.

"They will have all Pierre Island carried away some time if père does not ask them to stop pulling down the cliff." Her low, musical laughter rippled from her lips and filled her eyes with brown, warm light. Often a merrier peal reached out to where Len was at work and made him look towards the group.

"It is a wonder that Len is not here helping père," she said, as she saw him standing beside his boat.

"Marie! Marie!" Pierre would sometimes say, without looking up from his work.

This gentle admonishment restrained but little the overflow of healthy good-nature. Suzanne often laughed at the gay words of her young mistress.

The carts were now full of the wet dulse, trembling like jelly as the oxen moved over the beach. Marie had seated herself on the front of the cart, her feet resting on the pole to which the animals were yoked. Her father was leading his pair, and now carefully avoided the rocks and soft places, while Suzanne walked behind, not caring to trust herself to so precarious a seat as was left for her.

They filed slowly upward upon the long stretch of sand. Marie was now silent. Her large brown Acadian eyes became thoughtful. Suzanne had enough to do to walk after the slow team, while Pierre, though far beyond middle life, walked easily at the head of his team.

The old man, hardy and active, bronzed by a life of labor on the open shore or upon his island, made a venerable figure in the dignity and manliness of his bearing. His dress was rough, and wet from the labor he had been engaged in on the beach, but his commanding figure and kindly features, softened by time, and ripened by the great grief that had left him uncompanioned through the later years of his life, gave Pierre a bearing and dignity of face above the ordinary type of the workingman.

Pierre Gotro was the last of his name who had inhabited once the marsh country on the south of the Basin of Minas. His ancestors had been removed at the time of the great deportation, in 1755, by the harsh orders of Governor Lawrence. He was the highest type of the Acadian in form and feature, patriarchal in ripe old age, and calmly peaceful amid the conditions of a life removed from the bustling world, and faithful to the duties of his isolated existence. The sadness of his race he inherited as the only legacy bequeathed by an unfortunate people. This melancholy vein may be detected in the nature of the Acadians of to-day after a hundred and fifty years of transmission. This great inheritance of grief the generations must yet bear to mark their lives and to influence their living for another century.

Marie had suddenly become silent. Her large brown eyes suggested the sway of active thought, dominated by some strong emotion tinged with melancholy. In the limpid depth of her look could be read the play of imagination. Her eyes made her a part of everything in the warm love of her heart; and everything became a part of her. The blue of the sky gave of its glorious color to her being. The long stretch of bluff and cliff and wooded crest, and the magnificent sweep of the tide, though now fallen to its lowest ebb, and the dim blue line of Blomidon, and the rich, salty air, entered into her nature as an essence, and filled her with an exaltation of melancholy gladness, of happy intensity of feeling that almost led to tears. So is that intimate commingling of spirit and nature in the exquisite moments of pure physical existence.

The carts had now reached the foot of the bluff, upon the clean pebbles, free of sand, heated by the sun, and on these the wet dulse was thrown and spread to dry. In the course of a few hours the two large loads would be reduced by the process of drying to less than half the original bulk.

The teams now returned to the beds for another load before the tide covered the shore again. They had gone but a short distance down the red sand when there came a sudden interruption to the quiet of the afternoon and the calm of the proceedings. A slight, warm breeze was coming out of the west, and borne up against it from some part of the island came the dull roar of falling stone. This was heard by Pierre and Suzanne, and the old man stopped the oxen in wonder at the unusual sound, but the cry of a human voice that followed upon the noise was heard only by the young ears of Marie.

"Père, père!" she cried to her father, "did you hear the voice?"

"No, child. What did you hear?"

"I heard a man's voice at the bluffs back of the island, where the sound of the falling stone came from."

They all listened for a moment, Marie's face pale with uncertainty and fear.

"There, there it is again!" the girl cried, and without another word she ran towards the bluffs. Pierre turned the head of the teams towards the island again, and giving some directions to Suzanne, took the direction now followed by his daughter with fleet feet. As he hurried along he thought of Len, and stopping for a moment, he put his hands to his mouth and sent his voice ringing out over the beach to the boat. Len stood up and saw the old man beckoning him. He also observed the figure of Marie making her way among the smaller boulders, and in another moment her flying feet carried her out of sight. He noted that for some reason the teams were returning and Pierre was now moving rapidly towards the point where his daughter had disappeared. He cried out that he could not leave the boat, for the tide was coming.

Marie was meanwhile approaching the place where she had detected a faint cloud of dust among the huge fragments of rock which must have fallen from the face of the island and rolled out on the rocky beach which formed this part of the shore, centuries before, perhaps.

Again she heard the man's voice, but louder now, as the sounds were brought to her ears from among the piled-up masses of stone. The voice electrified her into increased activity. There was hope in the sound to her, where previously the silence had filled her with a vague terror of something awful that would suddenly confront her vision. The slight sound of her light feet darting over the sand, or the beds of trap even, echoed back to her ears with a warning tone. Only once did she hear the voice again. It was yet some distance ahead, but it lent wings to her feet. Panting and pale in spite of her exertions, and with wide, scared eyes, and teeth set in determination to go on, though in expectation of something shocking to her senses at every turn of her path and around every projecting point of the cliff, she now approached an inlet or small ravine cut into the cliff about fifty yards, whose bottom sloped down from each side. After every rain a brook, fed by the waters caught on the island, would run down the cliff and find its way to the sea by means of this cove, lessening gradually till it fell drop by drop. At the head of this cove was a large vein of red mineral known as acadialite, which formed part of the cliff to a great height, following the irregular surface of the rock. This vein was in the bed of the brook, at this time with no water running. Through centuries the cove had been gradually deepened, the softer mineral yielding to the action of the elements more easily than other parts of the rock. The action of frost had loosened the adjacent stone, and in many places it was broken and ready to fall. The flow of the water had worn down the bottom of the cove, leaving a depression of some depth.

Marie was drawn to this cove because she knew of the large vein, and also because she was aware of the dangerous character of the place, made so by the looseness of the formation. She saw from the mouth of the inlet a large mass of stone that had recently fallen, piled up near the head of the cove. She examined it quickly from her position at the opening of the cove, and seeing nothing of Winslow she was about to pass on farther around the island, when her quick eye caught the faded colors of the coat which the young man had worn when he left the boat. It lay near the heap of stone, and a few pieces of rock had rolled upon it. At this discovery Marie cried out with terror at the first thought that came to her, that the voice she had heard was of the stranger now buried under the stone, and either unconscious or dead. Half fainting from the effect of this thought upon her, she had to force herself to return by the way she came, to meet her father and to hurry him on to the rescue. Her weakened strength did not permit her to move quickly, but she met her father but a short distance away, and after telling Pierre what she had seen she fell to the sand utterly helpless.

"Hurry, père, the gentleman may be saved yet!" she said, faintly.

"I will take you back to Suzanne first," replied the old man.

"Oh, no, père, I will be stronger soon. The running tired me." As she spoke she rose to her feet, though pale and trembling.

Pierre then hurried away, and in a few moments Marie turned toward the cove again. Just as she came in sight of her father, Len arrived with a rope in his hand, and the two men set to work at once to throw aside the stone from the pile which had fallen.

Marie looked on and heard the crash of rock after rock as it was cast from the desperate hands of the men, and the sounds echoed out of the cove and filled her heart with ominous fear and dread of something about to be revealed. Yet she could not take her eyes from the mass of rock. She watched with feverish interest her father lift huge stones, or help Len in removing those too large for the strength of one alone. In this way the intense strain upon her nerves continued. Once she went out of sight of them, but the sounds were more terrible to hear when out of sight of the cause of them than before. So she was forced to return again. It was a terrible sight for Marie, with her quick imagination and tender heart. Tears would often force themselves to her eyes, and her terror heightened more and more.

Suddenly the work was interrupted by a groan that filled the cove. The men looked about them with questioning eyes, and Marie, springing towards them, looked intently up the cliff for the cause of the sound.

Again the sound reached their ears, and the maiden shrieked wildly as she caught the motion of a hand and arm above a rocky shelf some distance above the place where the men stood.

Pointing to the place, she cried, "There, there he is, père!"

As if in reply to her words, Winslow rose to a sitting position, which brought him into sight of all of them below. He looked down upon them in a dazed way, his face pale and bleeding, and his clothes dusty and torn. He gave evidence in his appearance of having passed through a terrible experience.

"Ah, Len, is that you! I am glad to see you. And you also, good friend. What are you going to do for me?" said Winslow faintly, but smiling in spite of his condition.

"Are you much hurt, sir?" asked Pierre.

"A little bruised; and from the looks of things here I am likely to stay for awhile—at least, unless the rest of the rock goes down."

He began feeling his left arm as he spoke, which hung down helpless at his side.

"No bones broken, I think," said Winslow, "but pretty painful. My shoulder is stiff, and I can't lift my arm. I did not follow your advice, Mr. Gotro, so here I am, paying the penalty of rashness. I saw this vein of acadialite, and it seemed so fine above the shelf that I could not resist the temptation of coming up to get a piece of it. The way up was not difficult at all, but I did not realize how loose the stone is here. In getting out a piece of the vein I started some loose rock just above me, which fell and nearly broke my arm, knocked me down, and, worse of all, it started the rock below by which I came up, and left it difficult for me to return.

"It looks difficult," said Pierre, "but I think we can get you down. There is no chance from above," he continued, examining the cliff intently. "Can you move along the cliff a little?"

Winslow attempted to rise, but fell back again, putting his hand to his head as he did so.

"No use," he said. "I shall have to stay where I am for awhile. Something to drink would be in order just now, Len; can you pass me up something?"

The young man addressed looked more helpless than ever, being unable to appreciate the humor of Winslow in the trying and dangerous situation in which he was placed.

The sound of falling particles of stone warned the men below at this moment, and moving quickly back from the base of the cliff, they escaped a mass of rock that fell near the pile already down.

"Don't stand too near, friends," said Winslow, when the dust cleared away. "It would be suicide for you to attempt to come up here. I don't see just now how I can get down, with only one arm to aid me. I feel better, however, and if I can reach what looks like a small stream of water yonder, a taste of it will revive me."

He then rose slowly and carefully to his knees, and resting one hand on the rock, made his way inch by inch to the dripping water, the last of the brook that found its course out of the cliff above and lost itself in the loose material of the shelf.

After much difficulty he reached it, and stooping down, caught up the precious drops in his hand and raised them to his lips.

"Thank heaven for that!" he murmured, looking down again at the anxious faces below.

[CHAPTER III.]

THE PRECIOUS STOCKING.

"Thick veined with amethyst and zeolite."

Marie had now joined her father near the head of the cove, and was an interested though silent spectator of the events that were transpiring. The intensity of her feeling was shown in her eyes. She forgot herself entirely in the overpowering emotion caused by the danger Winslow was in, and by his inability to do anything to aid his escape from the ledge without the assistance of her father. At the same time she feared that even Pierre could not rescue him. Her fear for the young man was greater than her confidence in her father's skill to aid him, the situation of Winslow seemed so terribly fraught with danger.

"Pass up your rope, now, Len," said Winslow, as he saw the young man making a suitable coil for throwing, and measuring the distance to the shelf with his eye.

"Try a throw from that high rock there, skipper."

Len did as he was directed, but the rope did not reach half the necessary height.

"Have you a ball of stout twine?" asked Winslow, his mind alert and stronger now. "If so, throw it up to me, and I will let down the end for your rope."

All pockets were emptied, but only a few yards of twine of varying size and quality were found, Marie's shoelaces not adding nearly enough to serve the purpose.

Suddenly the young woman made an exclamation of joy, and turning to her father, came close to him and said in their native tongue:

"J'amelerai mon bas, père."

"Merci, mademoiselle," said Winslow, in good French accent.

These words only added greater speed to her feet as she withdrew from sight behind a large rock, and in a few minutes appeared again with a goodly ball of yarn. Her appearance at once disclosed the secret the rock would otherwise have kept. There was not enough of her skirt to cover her rough boots used for the beach and the shell-covered dulse-beds, so beneath it was seen one white ankle and part of a limb, which was reason enough for the heightened color of the maiden's cheeks. It must be understood that a stocking can only be unravelled by beginning at the end knitted last, namely, at the toe.

"Now, Len, do your best. Throw it as near to me as you can."

The ordeal was too much for his accuracy of aim, and he threw the ball so that it lodged out of Winslow's reach, some distance to one side.

At this unlucky throw Marie hastened to the large rock again, and returned at once with the leg of a stocking which had already been partly sacrificed. She gave one end of it to her father to hold, and with deft fingers began to wind up another ball of the strong homespun yarn. This was ready in a few minutes, and Pierre took the ball, and standing at some distance away from the cliff, threw it upward to within easy reach of Winslow, who soon had hold of it.

Tying a small stone to the end of the yarn, Winslow let it down the side of the ledge to Pierre, holding the ball carefully. When the end came to the old man's hand, and he had drawn out enough of it to serve, Winslow then held the upper end of the length with his mouth, and, still retaining the ball, unrolled it and let down a loop of the string, till Pierre had three lengths to which to attach the rope.

"Now let me see what I can do with the rope when I get it up here," said Winslow.

Pierre now spoke. "I see but one place where you can fasten the rope. That is a little beyond where you got the water. It looks like a corner of stone which this loop I have made will slip over."

Winslow could see the place, and moved forward to it.

"You see, sir, that the rock of the shelf is bare and firm there, so that when you slip off the rock you are on now to come down the rope you are not likely to bring down a lot of stone on top of you or us, and perhaps break your hold upon the rope."

"True," answered Winslow, "I will try the point."

With hand and mouth Winslow succeeded in getting the loop of the life-line to his hand, and trying it over the rock found that it would not hold.

"It will not hold," said Winslow, in a disappointed tone.

"Is there a crack in the rock near in which you could put a stick to hold the loop?" asked Pierre.

"Yes, there is," he replied. "A piece of wood an inch thick would hold."

"Let down the yarn, then, and this driftwood will give us what we want."

Selecting a tough piece of wood, Pierre attached the cord to it, and Winslow with much labor drew it up to the shelf.

"Just the thing," he said, slipping the loop over the stake as he drove it into the crack in position. It caused him many a twinge of pain, and Marie's quick ears heard an occasional groan, and his face had become pale again. She called her father's attention to this.

"You cannot feel sure of being able to come down the rope with one hand," said Pierre, "though you have courage and determination. You have not strength enough. We cannot go to you to help you any more. It would only add to your danger. The rope is not long enough to lower you down. Rest awhile, and when you are fully prepared to try the rope, the tide will be in the cove and a fall will be less serious, if such an accident should occur."

And then, turning to Len, Pierre went on: "It is time you were looking after your boat."

"I see the water is already nearing the cove," said Winslow, now resting as easily as he could, and showing in his voice and face that his strength was much reduced.

As Len went away Pierre said to Marie, "I must leave you here for a short time. Will you be afraid to stay?"

"No, père, but do not be gone long."

Marie, with all her pity disclosed in her eyes, was alone with Winslow. Her shyness was forgotten in the fear that possessed her for his safety. She gazed at him steadily as he lay against the cliff with his eyes closed and the marks of his accident still upon him.

They remained in this situation for some time, Marie's alarm becoming greater with vague uncertainty and doubt as the minutes passed without any sign of her father's approach.

The tide had now come well into the cove and was rising rapidly, moving steadily towards her where she sat. She could now detect the sound of rolling pebbles on the edge of the tide. The cove was filled with a loud noise as of some new, invisible life stirring and hurrying about from one side to the other and whispering incoherently. A cool breeze had followed the tide and was blowing into the place in gusts, and as she watched Winslow she could see it move his hair, or lift the long tie that hung from his throat. He opened his eyes as the sound of Pierre's voice made Marie start to her feet. The noise of a cart bumping over the rocks filled the cove with loud echoes, and the voice that guided them recalled Winslow to affairs about him. Marie ran to her father as he appeared in sight and spoke to him, in her anxiety expressing herself in the Acadian tongue.

Pierre came up towards the head of the cove and spoke encouragingly to Winslow.

"We will soon have you down now. The tide is well up, and when it is deep enough to save you from falling upon the rocks in case anything should happen to the rope or your strength should give out, you will be saved any more bruises."

Pierre feared that Winslow could not get down the rope with one hand, in his present weak state.

Winslow had indeed become so reduced in energy as to be unable to act without the direction of Pierre.

Meanwhile, the oxen were backed close to where the rope reached the ground, and stood patiently in the water, now rising quickly towards their bodies. The cart was on the lower ground of the sloping beach of the cove. Pierre stood ready in the cart, reserving his strength for the final trial, and permitting Winslow to rest without fatiguing him with useless conversation.

"Get yourself ready," commanded Pierre, putting force into his words which rose above the increased sounds of the place.

Winslow slowly rose, obedient to the directing will of the old man.

"Lie down on the rock near the rope." The words were obeyed.

"Take the rope under you, and hold it with your hand." Painfully he followed the instruction.

"Move your body till your legs hang over the shelf." A few minutes passed away while Winslow slowly drew himself back, a few fragments of stone clattering down as he reached the position indicated by Pierre. Here he hung, his stronger hand holding the rope.

"Move your legs till the line is wound about them." As he complied the line was given a circling motion till it had wound about his legs and was held between them.

"Keep your legs stiff and hold on!" cried out Pierre, in a firm and earnest tone of voice. The order came loud and sharp to the dull sense of Winslow, and he put all his strength into play in a desperate effort, his brain acting by the inherent desire to live, and the man responding, though dully.

"Slip off the shelf, slowly, slowly."

In a moment Winslow was in mid air, clinging with one hand to the rope held stiff by Pierre and kept away from the bluff wall. He was able by means of the rope wound round Winslow's legs to control the speed of his descent, and relieve the weight and muscular strain upon the one arm he was able to use. Pierre kept him from falling down upon the rocks so quickly as to injure or perhaps kill him. He let Winslow slip down slowly, not to burn his hands or loosen his hold. He could not thus use his strength many minutes, and the old man timed his fall carefully, as not a second could be lost to ensure his safety. His place was yet dangerous, because of its height, though he was clear of the dangerous rock.

Seeing a sudden motion of Winslow's head, like that of a man who tries to keep himself awake and yet nods, Pierre felt that he was relaxing his hold of the rope.

"Hold on, hold on, sir," cried Pierre, reserving his last command for the important time he saw had come. Immediately the head rose slowly, and as the downward motion was checked altogether, he saw Winslow's arm grow more rigid and his fingers clasp themselves more closely about the rope.

Again Pierre lessened the strain on the rope, and the almost limp body began to descend again slowly, the helpless arm swinging a little. Inch by inch he lowered, each fraction of time lessening the danger and bringing him nearer the arms of the old man.

Suddenly, without warning, Winslow's head fell back and his hand relaxed, and slipping out of the control of the rope he fell into the water near Pierre, who was now up to his armpits in the tide.

Seizing the unconscious form of the young man, he bore him to the cart higher up the sloping beach, and speaking to the well-trained oxen, directed them out of the water to the dry shore.

Pierre found Marie in a swoon, and placing her in the cart beside the lifeless form of Winslow, he urged his oxen quickly forward along the devious way among the boulders, and soon came to the road leading upward to his home on the summit of the island. At "Bluff Castle," as Pierre's stone house was called, Suzanne anxiously waited, while out on the rising tide the Marie, under sail, was making for safe harbor.

When Winslow came to himself, above the consciousness of pain, he felt upon his face the soft touch of a woman's hair.

The sun that day went down and left Minas Basin in the cool, clear air of a summer night. Blomidon lay dark against the western heavens, pointing on the one side to the open waters of the Bay of Fundy, whose bosom is a mighty tide with forces never at rest; and on the other hand to the marshes of the Grand-Pré shore, full of the fate of a people.

[CHAPTER IV.]

BLUFF CASTLE.

"Where are the hands to guide the waiting plow,
To sway the lumbering oxen with a stroke,
Now waiting at the bars for band and yoke?—
An exile curst as with a branded brow.
The kindly walls that cannot shield him now
Are black in embers that have ceased to smoke,
Wrapt tenderly with marsh-fogs as a cloak.
The willows shade no gables where they bow.
The wandering exile from dead Acadie
Sees through the mist of sorrow never done
That mercy has no hand held out to save.
Yet ne'er again the meadows of the sea
Mayhap shall know this heart-sore, weary son,
Denied the kindness of an alien grave."

Winslow's recovery was rapid, under the care and skill of Suzanne. His left shoulder gave him considerable trouble, and he was compelled to keep his arm in a sling for several days; yet it was not long after his mishap when he had strength enough to wander over the island and ingratiate himself with the folk of Pierre Island.

A deep friendship soon drew Winslow and Pierre together, and the young man spent much of his time in the company of the older. He felt that he owed him a debt of gratitude that could never be paid, while Pierre treated the matter lightly as regards his own connection with the rescue. He dealt with the escape of his young friend as with an event that touched a sympathetic and vital chord in his own heart. Pierre opened his heart to him as a father would who had recovered a lost son. A deep friendship developed and drew them together in a bond of fellowship and mutual confidence.

Winslow was now domiciled at "Bluff Castle," where his simple and modest tastes, his good-nature and his quiet tact, pleased the old Acadian and the women of his household.

Pierre carried with him into his daily life the rural simplicity of the peasant, and a certain dignity and kindness which never left him. His was a calm and quiet old age, far removed from the world, and free from its weaknesses and sordid influences and its common failings. The philosophers of old had the nature of this old Acadian, wise in the experiences peculiar to their environments, and true to those high principles of living which only men learn who contemplate with correct judgment the events of their existence and aim at the highest point for the purpose of their life. Tempered with a long life of labor, reared and trained within the sight and influence of the mighty changes of elemental nature, and in constant communication with its forces, and at last made wise at the shrine of sorrow, Pierre seemed to Winslow the embodiment of the highest qualities of ripe and noble old age.

Pierre found himself drawn to Winslow as he would have been to his own son had not an accident cut him off in his young manhood. Because of this greatest loss and its resulting sorrow, the whole tendency and purpose of his life had been changed, and in his only daughter, Marie, he had placed the whole of his affection and hope and purpose of life. Yet the maiden had become a great fear to him in the element of uncertainty which necessarily affected his view of her future years. The father realized his age and the youth of the daughter, and the difficulties that might at any time surround her if he were removed by death. He yet mourned his wife, and felt that his life was broken by the loss of his son, but he faced the future calmly and without fear, save for the thought of his daughter. In her young womanhood she made the only concern of his life, and there was as yet no promise for the future.

Yet in her was his only life. To her would descend all the title and history of the Gotros, for the first time since the great banishment of the Acadians in 1755 without a male representative. The name was virtually extinct and the house broken when he passed away.

"This stone house of the Gotros is known among the Acadians as 'Pierre Logis,' and has been the home of the Pierres, as the Gotros of the direct line are known, ever since your ancestor removed our people from Grand-Pré," said the old man, pointing to his house.

"Tell me, good friend," said Winslow, "how this came to be chosen by the Gotros as a place of residence, and how they escaped the persecution that followed your people even after they were driven from their lands and separated."

"It is a long story, full of cruelty and suffering," answered the old man, sadly. "We must go back almost to the first settlement of Grand-Pré. Our name became very numerous, and then gradually through centuries died out. I am the last of our line,—the last of the name Pierre Gotro."

The old man remained for some moments in thought, and a shade of sadness resting on his face darkened the depths of his eyes. His mind seemed to be dwelling upon the things of the past, and his thoughts shaped themselves at last in words calm and unimpassioned, as one who deals with revered things. The strength of his heart and mind, the chastening experiences of his life, the philosophical cast of his reason and understanding, gave dignity to his utterances, and impressed Winslow with the nobility of this son of toil. He began the story of his people and his family.

"The first Gotro came to Grand-Pré from Port Royal, now called Annapolis, after that place had been settled for eighty years. It sent off its people like a hive in summer when, overcrowded, the young bees are compelled to seek a new home. The great meadows of Grand-Pré were waiting unpeopled, and in a few years became the largest of the Acadian centres. The whole section on the south yonder, called Minas," pointing with his arm across the water to the blue hills in the south, thirty miles distant, "saw four generations of our sons, who had become a prosperous and contented people.

"The Gotros in particular were favorable to English rule, as they had rich and large possessions of land and were anxious to avoid trouble with the people of other nationality. Yet, with all the other Acadian people who had taken the oath of allegiance to the English crown, they refused to the last to take up arms against their own kindred and nationality, as they were expected to do by the provincial governors who proposed the measure. This refusal on their part served as a pretext for removing them in 1755 from the province.

"You know how all the people were called to their church, deceived by the order which declared that it was the command of the king, and that they were to hear the wishes of the English king in regard to themselves. Expecting a settlement of all their difficulties, they were thus entrapped and forcibly removed from their homes, and all the houses, barns and mills of Grand-Pré destroyed by fire."

"The history of Pierre Gotro does not relate to those of our race who were removed. The first Pierre Gotro who made this island his home was known as 'Peche Gotro,' because of his fondness for fishing, and his skill in that calling. He was but a young man at the time, not being married, and was but one of the numerous name in Minas. Pierre owned a fishing boat, and had been away fishing during the summer. While the salmon ran he lived near this island. Having injured his boat, he was belated in his return to Grand Pré. Before the boat was ready to sail he saw the New England ships sail into the Basin, and from the island he saw them at anchor or sailing about on the waters at the south of the basin. Other ships came after, and he learned from Indians and escaping Acadians what was happening at Grand Pré.

"Pierre Island at that time made a safe retreat. It was almost inaccessible save by a narrow and dangerous path which animals had discovered and kept open by constant use. The slope of the island which has the road leading up here was not connected with the beach, for the lowest point of it at that time was nearly fifty feet high, and was built up as it is now after many years of labor when it was finally safe for an Acadian to return to Nova Scotia.

"Here Pierre made his home. In the cove where you were hurt he kept his boat, the channel thither being through a long and dangerous space of boulders.

"It is strange that the Acadians ever attempted to return to a country where they had received such cruel treatment. It would have seemed more pleasing to them to go among their own people in other places, where they would not have been subjected to such severe and unjust treatment, after they had been separated and broken as a people. Yet they returned. And thus it was that Pierre came to take possession of this island. He saw the ships sail out of the Basin. He saw the glare of many fires that told of the fate of the homes of the Acadians, his own people. He felt himself as much an outcast as if he had been on a ship destined for a strange country and an unfriendly people.

"With the building of the stone house Pierre began the long and lonely life which opens the history of Pierre Island. Months of terrible doubt as to the fate of his own kindred, and the privation which beset him turned the young man into an old man before his time. Winter set in and cut him off from his home, or what had been his home. His supply of salted fish, with other provisions he had providently gathered, sustained him. But for eight years he never tasted bread. In six years the New England settlers had homes on the Acadian lands. Each year brought more people. The exiled Acadians themselves found their way back to their own country, but not to the places which had been their homes. Many of them who had escaped the dangers of the sea, and the disease that broke out on the ships, died on the long march back to Acadia. They toiled on through a thousand miles of wilderness. Government persecution finally ceased, but for many years they were hated by many of the new settlers, and were glad to escape from them into the woods and to make homes again in the wilderness. On their fine lands the English settlers could not at first support themselves, and had to get aid from the government. The Acadians, in spite of the many disadvantages of their new life and the changed conditions of their existence, throve without help, and in the course of a few years had numerous colonies. In this way the people have learned to do with little, and learned the value of hard labor, while in their inmost souls was planted the melancholy of a hunted and oppressed race.

"Pierre in his lonely life learned wisdom and acquired great skill in the chase and on the water. It was many long years before he learned of his own family and relatives, and of the cruel fate of the numerous Gotros. In twenty years but few remained. Their large possessions, which had included almost all of the present village of Grand-Pré, and a large and rich family, were reduced to a few heart-broken and hopeless old men and women.

"At forty years of age Pierre married one of his own people who had returned to her country after years of wandering and privation. She was an Acadian woman whom he had known at Grand-Pré. For twenty years he had lived alone on this island, and had cleared enough land to raise the necessaries of daily life, and by means of his fishing he added to his small wealth. He had built the stone house, and had raised up with stone and earth a road from the beach to the slope by which we come up to Bluff Castle.

"Four generations of Pierres end with me," said the old man, sadly. "When I am placed with those whose graves are in sight of the land lost to them while they lived, and where their ancestors lie without a stone or mark to show the wayfarer, when I lie down with them the Pierres will be no more.

"That is the story of Bluff Castle. Each Pierre in turn went to his own people and chose a wife, and marrying her brought her here. Here the wives of the Pierres died and were buried. The daughters have never married till my sister broke the law established in the family after the deportation. That law required that no female should marry if the Pierre Gotro should continue and the name be perpetuated.

"We had come to look upon this as an old family tradition, without meaning, and belonging to an earlier and superstitious time. They had placed much importance on the perpetuation of the name, and deemed it not too great a sacrifice if the females of the family remained unmarried. I did not think it justifiable to make the whole life of my sister bound to the observance of it. Indeed, her own spirit rebelled against the acceptance of that old family law after she had been away to school and had become imbued with the ideas of a later generation.

"Well," continued Pierre, "my sister married. She died of a terrible disease in a month, and her husband followed not long after. Then came the fate of the Pierres. My only son was drowned. As if the dreadful broken vow of the Gotros were not yet expiated, my wife sickened and passed away, not soon, but after a lingering illness of years, forcing upon my unbelieving heart the truth of the legend of our family, and the belief that the end of the Pierres was indeed to come with myself. I have rejected the belief all my life since the last loss that came to me through the death of my wife. I reject it to-day as I see myself the last of the Pierre Gotros of the direct line. I look about me at Pierre Logis, and at the place of our labor for nearly a hundred and fifty years. Our pride was placed in a name. Our pride will die as our name will go out. The effect of so selfish an object and so personal a desire is manifest in our family now. The once despised and unconsidered female element of the name takes up the family line, and upon a woman depends the continuance of the Gotro blood, for the name is soon to be lost."

The old man paused, gazing towards the place where lay the Gotros, the dark stones standing in mute testimony of the pride of a family, and the noble man in his great grief and firm submission to the fatal result of that pride blotted out in the judgment book all that was scored against the Gotros. He was the noblest of them all, this Gotro, the last of the Pierres.

[CHAPTER V.]

THE HEIR TO GRAND-PRÉ.

"Along my father's dykes I roam again,
Among the willows by the river side,
These miles of green I know from hill to tide,
And every creek and river's ruddy stain.
Neglected long and shunned, our dead have lain,
Here where a people's dearest hope had died."

Frank Winslow was more and more drawn to Pierre as he continued the history of the Gotros and his connection with them. He looked at him now as he stood thoughtfully gazing about him upon the scene which would change its character when he died, and which had been unchanged for over a century. He must have felt that to him were entrusted the traditions of a family and a name. His was the duty to be fulfilled in the accomplishment of a purpose that had come to him through four generations. In him was the death of this aim, and the end of the name associated with that purpose. In not complying with the conditions of the trust imposed upon him, was he really to blame for the final failure of that great ambitious purpose transmitted through so many of his ancestors and conditioned with so many difficulties? Winslow felt that a strange fatality had followed upon the actions of Pierre, and a cruel punishment had come on him for the violation of the Gotro traditions. His case had been a most remarkable one. As he thought of the years of sorrow the old man had had to endure, and had borne so faithfully and without murmur, he saw in Pierre a complete expiation for any blame that might stand against him. The spell was broken. The punishment for the broken family law was fully meted out in Pierre's life. He yet suffered for his act, but he had sacrificed himself to relieve others. If he did wrong, or made a mistake, he bore the penalty of it in himself that nobody else might suffer.

While Winslow mused thus, and felt the sorrow that must be moving the heart of his aged friend, he could not give voice to his sympathy, for he realized that such a grief was beyond his range of expression in condolence. Words would have been out of place. He could but wait. He felt his feelings pledged to support the old man in his deep grief. While they were silent, each guided by his peculiar emotions, Pierre's beautiful daughter appeared at the door of the stone house. Seeing the two men, she approached quickly, and before her father was aware of her presence she had placed her hand upon his arm and laughingly called him from his reverie.

"Père!"

Pierre turned to her, and with a smile placed his hand upon her shoulder, saying to Winslow as he did so:

"To this girl have the generations of the Pierres come. What remains of their proud ambitions and lifelong desires dies with me. In her may begin the better life, free from those stern traditions, that may make the blood of the Gotros pure again, even though the name be never revived again in us."

"You have been kept apart from your own people even, by the purpose your ancestors imposed. It has isolated you," said Winslow.

He did not say what was in his mind concerning Marie. He did not express the desire he experienced to take upon himself the guardianship of this maiden, should occasion require it. He determined that she would not be entirely alone or without protection if the care of the father were taken from her. He noted the love of the old man for this girl. He realized the anxiety of the father, who had been almost a mother as well, for the lovely charge which had been left to his care. This fixed Winslow's resolve to take the old man's place whenever it should be necessary. He did not feel that he could disclose the feelings that moved him on the subject, although he knew that Pierre reciprocated the friendship Winslow had for him. He desired to tell Pierre that he need have no fear. Yet he could not do so, certainly not before the young woman. The situation was delicate, and only time could show how they stood to each other. Pierre, though an old man, looked so strong and hale that he knew in all probability he would add two decades to his life, and by that time his daughter would be of sufficient age to be no longer a cause of anxiety.

Winslow looked upon his self-imposed task as a matter of course. He was a young man, but the work of his life had matured him early, and the peculiar character of his experiences had thrown him in contact with older men rather than with the things of youth. He looked upon Marie as a child. She did not impress him in any other way. And as a child he dealt with her, and gave her such a place in his mind as made him now resolve to become, as it were, a father to her should she be left in the world without a protector. He found another condition in his life from that moment. He was no longer alone and with but himself to consider henceforth. He deemed it a sacred trust placed upon him by the friendship that had sprung up between the last Pierre and himself.

The old man again turned to Winslow, and holding his daughter's hand, said:

"To this girl, after I am gone, belongs Grand-Pré. Long ago the Pierres learned of the death of all who had land there, and by the marriage of the second Pierre he united in his family all title and claim to Grand-Pré. From this you may believe sprung the desire to maintain and perpetuate the ownership that they vainly hoped might eventually be enjoyed in the possession of land that had been taken from them. This desire and hope led to a care that the interests should not be lost or divided, and hence arose the traditions of the Pierre Gotros, and the penalty of any infringement of the family law. That there could be but one male heir was an imperative condition. The fate of the family was cast upon one son. If there should be a daughter she should not marry. There has been but one son, and no daughter married till my sister broke the established law.

"That I am heir to Grand-Pré gives me no concern. What was once our land is never to return to us. We have waited for a century. The persons who now claim it and who dwell upon it recognize no claim made by any Acadian for the land of his fathers. The government has at no time considered the right or wrong of returning it to the heirs of the original owners. It has all passed out of our hands, and I see no hope, no possibility of chance, remote or otherwise, of the land of the Gotros, the home of the Pierres, the Grand-Pré of our desire and ambition, ever being put back into our hands again. We can but point to that beautiful country and say that it was once ours. Not a trace of our occupation remains, and it is never to see us more. At my time of life I cannot feel regret at this. What I may have once thought of it does not concern me now. My daughter is heir to all my claims upon Grand-Pré. But the penalties shall never fall to her. I feel that the purpose of our family dies with me. Indeed it is now dead. Marie enters upon a new lease of life not embarrassed by the traditions of a family, and not restrained by the conditions placed upon the Pierres. It has cost our family much to free her, if there is any meaning in what has been experienced. But that is done.

"It has always seemed strange to me that the hope of the Gotros lived so long. It must have grown out of the great love our people have always had for their homes. It must have been this love that brought them back after the deportation. It certainly bound several generations of them to a hopeless purpose of one day being able to return to Grand-Pré. Grand-Pré village, you must understand, was, in comparison with the country usually called Grand-Pré, but a small part. Less than twenty families were included in the village, yet it was a rich village, the choicest of all Minas. It gave its name to almost the whole section. It had the church, in which the people were kept prisoners. Near it on the east is the burying ground, to-day without a mark to tell where our people sleep.

"Your writers and historians for years have been justifying the act of that people who removed the Acadians. Simple statement of the case was not deemed sufficient, and all kinds of reasons have been stated to give foundation for the deportation. Perhaps you do not know that facts have come to light within a few years which prove beyond a doubt that the governor of the province of Nova Scotia, Lawrence, was the chief instrument in bringing about the removal of the Acadians. The country under his administration had a large French population. Lawrence hated the Acadians, and by harsh treatment, arbitrary manner, and irritating restrictions put upon their movements he drove them to the extreme of fear and unhappiness. He compelled them to look upon him as an enemy, and to expect any violence at his hands. He had determined to get rid of them, and drove them to desperation to do something that would give a reason for removing them. He kept up the agitation against them in New England by false statements as to their behaviour and attitude towards the English. At the last, in spite of his efforts, he had to make accusations that were without foundation to give a show of reason for removing them. Yet all this effort against the people, and the deportation itself, were contrary to the expressed wishes of the government of England, and orders came, but too late, to stay any attempt at removing the Acadian people out of the country. As may be expected, the records of Lawrence's administration stand against the people. The genius that could develop the scheme of removing a people from their homes, and leave them to the mercy of such cruel circumstances and unfavorable conditions, could well be expected to make the record of his term of office seem to stand against this people. According to the reports and documents of his administration the Acadians are condemned, that is, in the records that have been preserved. But strange to say, many records of certain important periods have been altogether lost or destroyed. This silence of history is construed against our people.

"Many of your people who visit here, and come to the island," continued Pierre, "send me books and histories that are printed from time to time dealing with the question of the deportation."

"Yes," said Winslow, "I have just read a book by one, a well-known Canadian writer, who most unfairly and slightingly deals with your people, and ignores utterly the latest accepted statements of history."

"Our families bear witness to the hatred of the New England people to the unfortunate and homeless race when they were thrown helpless among them. Many tales of cruelty are told of those days."

"It is a sad story," said Winslow. "My own kinsman, I am sorry to say, when he wrote his journal, was filled with apprehension that your Grand-Pré people were likely to rise, unarmed as they were, against his soldiers, and he dealt with them in a way only excused by the stern demands of discipline and a soldier's duty. He had to restrain his men from acts of brutality and oppression they were too apt to practise. It is too evident that to have been an Acadian was to be liable to almost any outrage at the hands of the rude soldiery. But the otherwise worthy colonel was somewhat vain, and made history for himself. He made the statement in his journal, and permits the belief, that all the Acadians were captured and removed. Among his private papers are statements to the contrary, however, and he regretted his connection with the deportation to his dying day. He was under orders. He fulfilled his most unpleasant duty, but one may read his protest upon every page of his journal. His pride was that of a soldier in the strict performance of his duty."

"There was no desire on the part of Governor Lawrence," continued Winslow, warmly, "to have the people treated kindly. They were of no further use in Nova Scotia. Indeed, they were on land that he desired to get from them for other people, and they had large stocks of cattle that would become confiscate when they were removed. Their return to their homes was contrary to his desire and against the success of his scheme. He endeavored in every way to prevent this. He made little attempt to arrange that they should find homes in New England, and, indeed, he found that they would not be permitted to land in many places. Yet he worked out his devilish plan to get rid of them at any cost, and he threw them upon the charity of the other provinces. If many died on the way to our country, packed as they were like animals in the holds of the small vessels, and without help or hope when they were landed at various points down our coast, and if disease thinned their ranks and hunger and fatigue killed, these were agents he was glad to have the aid of to lessen the possibility of any great number ever returning to the lands that they had been taken from. He was a most brutal man, with strength of purpose to accomplish anything and to bend others to his desires."

Winslow ceased speaking with the flush of manly scorn and indignation upon his face and the warmth of sincere enthusiasm glancing from his eyes.

Father and daughter looked upon him in silence. Marie felt the contagion of his feeling, while his presence and the force of his words moved strongly, absorbing her every thought and feeling.

"Salmon! Salmon!" came a loud and excited voice from the shore below. Pierre was roused to action by the words. He explained to Winslow that the first salmon had come up the Basin, and that there were fish in the weir.

[CHAPTER VI.]

SALMON.

"Silver salmon, mystery of the seas."

"Salmon! Salmon!"

Again the cry was borne up to Bluff Castle from the shore. In a few minutes Pierre and Winslow, followed shortly after by Marie and Suzanne, hurried down the road. The tide was out, and as they came in sight of the weir they saw Len Lawson moving about in the shallow water of the channel between the island and the mainland. The first run of salmon of the season had come, which had been expected for several days.

Again Len called out, "Salmon! Salmon!" as he saw the men approach down the beach. He had in his hands a long, slight pole about twelve feet long, and as he moved about he struck the water with it and appeared to be much excited.

"Come on, Mr. Winslow," he cried out, "here is sport for you. There are fifty of them at least." He struck the water again, and Winslow could see the ripples made by a number of fish in rapid motion through the water.

Low tide had left but a narrow and shallow channel, across which had been placed a weir, composed of brush. The bottom of the channel was solid rock, and to keep the weir in position, and to prevent the rapid tides carrying it out, heavy beams had been laid down and pinned to the rock bed with iron bolts. To these beams were attached the posts supporting the weir.

The place had been well chosen. The water at certain times of the tide was but a few inches deep at the shallowest point. From this point each way the water deepened gradually. About fifty yards from this shallow point, in the direction the tide takes when running out, the weir was placed. In this way the shallow water prevented the fish escaping back into the sea, and the weir shut them off from the water on the other side. In this pond, so to speak, they were kept till the tide rose again. Yet there was a broad stretch of water for them to move about to escape the efforts of the beaters to strike them. At other times the tide did not fall low enough to enable the salmon to be caught. As it happened, the tide now ran low, and the fish had come in, and there was considerable excitement apparent in the efforts made to secure the valuable fish.

The water was perfectly clear, and the school of salmon could be seen darting about easily in the deeper tide. Often, when separated, they leaped into the air, or broke the bright surface of the water into tiny ripples which showed the rapid movements of their silvery bodies. When in the shallower places their fins could be seen as they curved back into deeper water.

A party of American tourists from the hotel on the mainland was now approaching, to witness the capture of the salmon. Winslow in a few moments found himself in the water, where he was soon joined by others. Each took up a position and was provided with a pole.

The work now began in earnest. The men thrashed here and there, and as the salmon darted about they attempted to strike the water above them so as to stun them till they could be taken to the shore. Often in the excitement somebody would fall into the water, or would be well splashed by somebody else, and thus for some minutes the scene was a lively as well as a noisy one.

Each salmon stunned by a blow was carried to shore, and all were captured but one, very large and swift, which had eluded the efforts of the beaters.

Suddenly it darted into the shadow of one of the beams supporting the weir poles. Seeing this, Pierre, who had taken no part in the killing of the salmon, called the other men away from the fish, and approaching from the other side of the log, slipped his hand over it. He touched the side of the fish with his fingers, and at once the salmon inclined towards his hand, and in another moment Pierre slipped his fingers into its gills and lifted it from the water.

The exclamations of surprise that this feat elicited were interrupted by loud laughter from Len Lawson, who was having some amusement at the expense of one of the strangers. This gentleman had removed his glasses, and being near-sighted, had attacked a large fish which he supposed was a salmon. Len drew it from the water, and held it up to view as Pierre was carrying to shore the salmon he had caught. It proved to be a large and extremely ugly fish, with head out of all proportion to its body, and known as a sculpin, a fish without any apparent use in nature. As he approached to examine it more closely Len threw it towards him, and in stepping back to avoid it he fell with a splash into the water.

"Another salmon," cried Len, as he threw it. "May you enjoy it when it is served."

When the stranger rose to his feet again Len feared that he had gone too far with the joke, and said,

"I am very sorry, sir; I did not mean to make you wet."

"It's all right, young man," returned the other; "I am not much wetter than I was previously, thanks to this kind of fun. However, my fondness for water will never equal what yours may be some day."

Len's smile vanished, and an ugly look came into his eyes, and he muttered something under his breath. He looked stealthily about him, and moved away from the people. Winslow saw the whole affair, and wondered what the meaning of the sudden change in Len's manner meant, as he did not understand the words of the stranger.

The salmon were now divided up, or sold on the spot at a high price, and in a few more minutes the tide turned and filled up quickly the space between the shores.

Pierre and Winslow walked up the road together, and the old man explained to his friend the meaning of the words that had so affected Len. The story was in substance as follows:

An old Acadian woman and her grandson, whose father and mother had died while attempting to reach their own country again after having been left on the shore of Virginia, had reached this part of the province after months of difficulty and hardship. She was passing through a settlement of English people. The whole care and hope of her life were in her grandchild. She had often given to him and starved herself for his sake. She had carried him miles and miles to save him from suffering. On this day she had walked a long distance in the heat of the summer, and held him in her arms while he slept. He awoke, and feeling very thirsty, asked several times for a drink. Just then a man approached with a bucket of water which he had taken from a well or spring. Seeing him, the child again cried out for a drink. On this the woman arose from the stone on which she had rested for a moment, and asked the man for a sip to give her child. The man refused her request, and pushing her aside, passed on, leaving the child in tears. The man's cruelty and the tears of the child aroused her, and crying out after the man as he left her, she said:

"Man of hate! Man of Satan! you shall thirst. And your sons from their manhood shall thirst till your name shall die. Your breed shall be cursed with what you deny my child."

"From that day," said Pierre, in concluding his narrative, "the sons of the man have been afflicted with an awful, unquenchable thirst. They are known as the water-cursed, and they are dying out. It is believed by the people here that Len will not escape the water curse, and it has isolated them from their own race. There are several who are afflicted, but Len has not come of age yet. I know what the effect upon them has been, and it is indeed a curse.

"Unfortunately for Len, he has grown into a violent attachment for Marie. No Acadian would marry a victim of the water curse."

"I have observed evidence of his love for Marie," he replied.