Rose à Charlitte

CHAPTER VIII.
FAIRE BOMBANCE.

The True Born Englishman. Defoe.

Bidiane was late for supper, and Claudine was regretfully remarking that the croquettes and the hot potatoes in the oven would all be burnt to cinders, when the young person herself walked into the kitchen, her face a fiery crimson, a row of tiny beads of perspiration at the conjunction of her smooth forehead with her red hair.

"I have had a glorious ride," she said, opening the door of the big oven and taking out the hot dishes.

Claudine laid aside the towel with which she was wiping the cups and saucers that Mirabelle Marie washed. "Go sit down at the table, Bidiane; you must be weary."

The girl, nothing loath, went to the dining-room, while Claudine brought her in hot coffee, buttered toast, and preserved peaches and cream, and then returning to the kitchen watched her through the open door, as she satisfied the demands of a certainly prosperous appetite.

"And yet, it is not food I want, as much as drink," said Bidiane, gaily, as she poured herself out a second glass of milk. "Ah, the bicycle, Claudine. If you rode, you would know how one's mouth feels like a dry bone."

"I think I would like a wheel," said Claudine, modestly. "I have enough money saved."

"Have you? Then you must get one, and I will teach you to ride."

"How would one go about it?"

"We will do it in this way," said Bidiane, in a business-like manner, for she loved to arrange the affairs of other people. "How much money have you?"

"I have one hundred dollars."

"'Pon me soul an' body, I'd have borrered some if I'd known that," interrupted Mirabelle Marie, with a chuckle.

"Good gracious," observed Bidiane, "you don't want more than half that. We will give fifty to one of the men on the schooners. Isn't La Sauterelle going to Boston, to-morrow?"

"Yes; the cook was just in for yeast."

"Has he a head for business?"

"Pretty fair."

"Does he know anything about machines?"

"He once sold sewing-machines, and he also would show how to work them."

"The very man,—we will give him the fifty dollars and tell him to pick you out a good wheel and bring it back in the schooner."

"Then there will be no duty to pay," said Claudine, joyfully.

"H'm,—well, perhaps we had better pay the duty," said Bidiane; "it won't be so very much. It is a great temptation to smuggle things from the States, but I know we shouldn't. By the way, I must tell Mirabelle Marie a good joke I just heard up the Bay. My aunt,—where are you?"

Mirabelle Marie came into the room and seated herself near Claudine.

"Marc à Jaddus à Dominique's little girl gave him away," said Bidiane, laughingly. "She ran over to the custom-house in Belliveau's Cove and told the man what lovely things her papa had brought from Boston, in his schooner, and the customs man hurried over, and Marc had to pay—I must tell you, too, that I bought some white ribbon for Alzélie Gauterot, while I was in the Cove," and Bidiane pulled a little parcel from her pocket.

Mirabelle Marie was intensely interested. Ever since the affair of the ghosts, which Bidiane had given up trying to persuade her was not ghostly, but very material, she had become deeply religious, and took her whole family to mass and vespers every Sunday.

Just now the children of the parish were in training for their first communion. She watched the little creatures daily trotting up the road towards the church to receive instruction, and she hoped that her boys would soon be among them. In the small daughter of her next-door neighbor, who was to make her first communion with the others, she took a special interest, and in her zeal had offered to make the dress, which kind office had devolved upon Bidiane and Claudine.

"Also, I have been thinking of a scheme to save money," said Bidiane. "For a veil we can just take off this fly screen," and she pointed to white netting on the table. "No one but you and Claudine will know. It is fine and soft, and can be freshly done up."

"Mon jheu! but you are smart, and a real Acadien brat," said her aunt. "Claudine, will you go to the door? Some divil rings,—that is, some lady or gentleman," she added, as she caught a menacing glance from Bidiane.

"If you keep a hotel you must always be glad to see strangers," said Bidiane, severely. "It is money in your pocket."

"But such a trouble, and I am sleepy."

"If you are not careful you will have to give up this inn,—however, I must not scold, for you do far better than when I first came."

"It is the political gentleman," said Claudine, entering, and noiselessly closing the door behind her. "He who has been going up and down the Bay for a day or two. He wishes supper and a bed."

"Sakerjé!" muttered Mirabelle Marie, rising with an effort. "If I was a man I guess I'd let pollyticks alone, and stay to hum. I s'ppose he's got a nest with some feathers in it. I guess you'd better ask him out, though. There's enough to start him, ain't there?" and she waddled out to the kitchen.

"Ah, the political gentleman," said Bidiane. "It was he for whom I helped Maggie Guilbaut pick blackberries, yesterday. They expected him to call, and were going to offer him berries and cream."

Mirabelle Marie, on going to the kitchen, had left her niece sitting composedly at the table, only lifting an eyelid to glance at the door by which the stranger would enter; but when she returned, as she almost immediately did, to ask the gentleman whether he would prefer tea to coffee, a curious spectacle met her gaze.

Bidiane, with a face that was absolutely furious, had sprung to her feet and was grasping the sides of her bicycle skirt with clenched hands, while the stranger, who was a lean, dark man, with a pale, rather pleasing face, when not disfigured by a sarcastic smile, stood staring at her as if he remembered seeing her before, but had some difficulty in locating her among his acquaintances.

Upon her aunt's appearance, Bidiane found her voice. "Either I or that man must leave this house," she said, pointing a scornful finger at him.

Mirabelle Marie, who was not easily shocked, was plainly so on the present occasion. "Whist, Bidiane," she said, trying to pull her down on her chair; "this is the pollytickle genl'man,—county member they call 'im."

"I do not care if he is member for fifty counties," said Bidiane, in concentrated scorn. "He is a libeller, a slanderer, and I will not stay under the same roof with him,—and to think it was for him I picked the blackberries,—we cannot entertain you here, sir."

The expression of disagreeable surprise with which the man with the unpleasant smile had regarded her gave way to one of cool disdain. "This is your house, I think?" he said, appealing to Mirabelle Marie.

"Yessir," she said, putting down her tea-caddy, and arranging both her hands on her hips, in which position she would hold them until the dispute was finished.

"And you do not refuse me entertainment?" he went on, with the same unpleasant smile. "You cannot, I think, as this is a public house, and you have no just reason for excluding me from it."

"My aunt," said Bidiane, flashing around to her in a towering passion, "if you do not immediately turn this man out-of-doors, I shall never speak to you again."

"I be dèche," sputtered the confused landlady, "if I see into this hash. Look at 'em, Claudine. This genl'man'll be mad if I do one thing, an' Biddy'll take my head off if I do another. Sakerjé! You've got to fit it out yourselves."

"Listen, my aunt," said Bidiane, excitedly, and yet with an effort to control herself. "I will tell you what happened. On my way here I was in a hotel in Halifax. I had gone there with some people from the steamer who were taking charge of me. We were on our way to our rooms. We were all speaking English. No one would think that there was a French person in the party. We passed a gentleman, this gentleman, who stood outside his door; he was speaking to a servant. 'Bring me quickly,' he said, 'some water,—some hot water. I have been down among the evil-smelling French of Clare. I must go again, and I want a good wash first.'"

Mirabelle Marie was by no means overcome with horror at the recitation of this trespass on the part of her would-be guest; but Claudine's eyes blazed and flashed on the stranger's back until he moved slightly, and shrugged his shoulders as if he felt their power.

"Imagine," cried Bidiane, "he called us 'evil-smelling,'—we, the best housekeepers in the world, whose stoves shine, whose kitchen floors are as white as the beach! I choked with wrath. I ran up to him and said, 'Moi, je suis Acadienne'" (I am an Acadienne). "Did I not, sir?"

The stranger lifted his eyebrows indulgently and satirically, but did not speak.

"And he was astonished," continued Bidiane. "Ma foi, but he was astonished! He started, and stared at me, and I said, 'I will tell you what you are, sir, unless you apologize.'"

"I guess yeh apologized, didn't yeh?" said Mirabelle Marie, mildly.

"The young lady is dreaming," said the stranger, coolly, and he seated himself at the table. "Can you let me have something to eat at once, madame? I have a brother who resembles me; perhaps she saw him."

Bidiane grew so pale with wrath, and trembled so violently that Claudine ran to support her, and cried, "Tell us, Bidiane, what did you say to this bad man?"

Bidiane slightly recovered herself. "I said to him, 'Sir, I regret to tell you that you are lying.'"

The man at the table surveyed her in intense irritation. "I do not know where you come from, young woman," he said, hastily, "but you look Irish."

"And if I were not Acadien I would be Irish," she said, in a low voice, "for they also suffer for their country. Good-by, my aunt, I am going to Rose à Charlitte. I see you wish to keep this story-teller."

"Hole on, hole on," ejaculated Mirabelle Marie in distress. "Look here, sir, you've gut me in a fix, and you've gut to git me out of it."

"I shall not leave your house unless you tell me to do so," he said, in cool, quiet anger.

Bidiane stretched out her hands to him, and with tears in her eyes exclaimed, pleadingly, "Say only that you regret having slandered the Acadiens. I will forget that you put my people to shame before the English, for they all knew that I was coming to Clare. We will overlook it. Acadiens are not ungenerous, sir."

"As I said before, you are dreaming," responded the stranger, in a restrained fury. "I never was so put upon in my life. I never saw you before."

Bidiane drew herself up like an inspired prophetess. "Beware, sir, of the wrath of God. You lied before,—you are lying now."

The man fell into such a repressed rage that Mirabelle Marie, who was the only unembarrassed spectator, inasmuch as she was weak in racial loves and hatreds, felt called upon to decide the case. The gentleman, she saw, was the story-teller. Bidiane, who had not been particularly truthful as a child, had yet never told her a falsehood since her return from France.

"I'm awful sorry, sir, but you've gut to go. I brought up this leetle girl, an' her mother's dead."

The gentleman rose,—a gentleman no longer, but a plain, common, very ugly-tempered man. These Acadiens were actually turning him, an Englishman, out of the inn. And he had thought the whole people so meek, so spiritless. He was doing them such an honor to personally canvass them for votes for the approaching election. His astonishment almost overmastered his rage, and in a choking voice he said to Mirabelle Marie, "Your house will suffer for this,—you will regret it to the end of your life."

"I know some business," exclaimed Claudine, in sudden and irrepressible zeal. "I know that you wish to make laws, but will our men send you when they know what you say?"

He snatched his hat from the seat behind him. His election was threatened. Unless he chained these women's tongues, what he had said would run up and down the Bay like wildfire,—and yet a word now would stop it. Should he apologize? A devil rose in his heart. He would not.

"Do your worst," he said, in a low, sneering voice. "You are a pack of liars yourselves," and while Bidiane and Claudine stiffened themselves with rage, and Mirabelle Marie contemptuously muttered, "Get out, ole beast," he cast a final malevolent glance on them, and left the house.

For a time the three remained speechless; then Bidiane sank into her chair, pushed back her half-eaten supper, propped her red head on her hand, and burst into passionate weeping.

Claudine stood gloomily watching her, while Mirabelle Marie sat down, and shifting her hands from her hips, laid them on her trembling knees. "I guess he'll drive us out of this, Biddy,—an' I like Sleepin' Water."

Bidiane lifted her face to the ceiling, just as if she were "taking a vowel," her aunt reflected, in her far from perfect English. "He shall not ruin us, my aunt,—we will ruin him."

"What'll you do, sissy?"

"I will tell you something about politics," said Bidiane, immediately becoming calm. "Mr. Nimmo has explained to me something about them, and if you listen, you will understand. In the first place, do you know what politics are?" and hastily wiping her eyes, she intently surveyed the two women who were hanging on her words.

"Yes, I know," said her aunt, joyfully. "It's when men quit work, an' gab, an' git red in the face, an' pass the bottle, an' pick rows, to fine out which shall go up to the city of Boston to make laws an' sit in a big room with lots of other men."

Bidiane, with an impatient gesture, turned to Claudine. "You know better than that?"

"Well, yes,—a little," said the black-eyed beauty, contemptuously.

"My aunt," said Bidiane, solemnly, "you have been out in the world, and yet you have many things to learn. Politics is a science, and deep, very deep."

"Is it?" said her aunt, humbly. "An' what's a science?"

"A science is—well, a science is something wonderfully clever—when one knows a great deal. Now this Dominion of Canada in which we live is large, very large, and there are two parties of politicians in it. You know them, Claudine?"

"Yes, I do," said the young woman, promptly; "they are Liberals and Conservatives."

"That is right; and just now the Premier of the Dominion is a Frenchman, my aunt,—I don't believe you knew that,—and we are proud of him."

"An' what's the Premier?"

"He is the chief one,—the one who stands over the others, when they make the laws."

"Oh, the boss!—you will tell him about this bad man."

"No, it would grieve him too much, for the Premier is always a good man, who never does anything wrong. This bad man will impose on him, and try to get him to promise to let him go to Ottawa—oh, by the way, Claudine, we must explain about that. My aunt, you know that there are two cities to which politicians go to make the laws. One is the capital."

"Yes, I know,—in Boston city."

"Nonsense,—Boston is in the United States. We are in Canada. Halifax is the capital of Nova Scotia."

"But all our folks go to Boston when they travels," said Mirabelle Marie, in a slightly injured tone.

"Yes, yes, I know,—the foolish people; they should go to Halifax. Well, that is where the big house is in which they make the laws. I saw it when I was there, and it has pictures of kings and queens in it. Now, when a man becomes too clever for this house, they send him to Ottawa, where the Premier is."

"Yes, I remember,—the good Frenchman."

"Well, this bad man now wishes to go to Halifax; then if he is ambitious,—and he is bad enough to be anything,—he may wish to go to Ottawa. But we must stop him right away before he does more mischief, for all men think he is good. Mr. Guilbaut was praising him yesterday."

"He didn't say he is bad?"

"No, no, he thinks him very good, and says he will be elected; but we know him to be a liar, and should a liar make laws for his country?"

"A liar should stay to hum, where he is known," was the decisive response.

"Very good,—now should we not try to drive this man out of Clare?"

"But what can we do?" asked Mirabelle Marie. "He is already out an' lying like the divil about us—that is, like a man out of the woods."

"We can talk," said her niece, seriously. "There are women's rights, you know."

"Women's rights," repeated her aunt, thoughtfully. "It is not in the prayer-book."

"No, of course not."

"Come now, Biddy, tell us what it is."

"It is a long subject, my aunt. It would take too many words to explain, though Mr. Nimmo has often told me about it. Women who believe that—can do as men. Why should we not vote,—you, and I, and Claudine?"

"I dunno. I guess the men won't let us."

"I should like to vote," said Bidiane, stoutly, "but even though we cannot, we can tell the men on the Bay of this monster, and they will send him home."

"All right," said her aunt; while Claudine, who had been sitting with knitted brows during the last few minutes, exclaimed, "I have it, Bidiane; let us make bombance" (feasting). "Do you know what it means?"

No, Bidiane did not, but Mirabelle Marie did, and immediately began to make a gurgling noise in her throat. "Once I helped to make it in the house of an aunt. Glory! that was fun. But the tin, Claudine, where'll you git that?"

"My one hundred dollars," cried the black-eyed assistant. "I will give them to my country, for I hate that man. I will do without the wheel."

"But what is this?" asked Bidiane, reproachfully. "What are you agreeing to? I do not understand."

"Tell her, Claudine," said Mirabelle Marie, with a proud wave of her hand. "She's English, yeh know."

Claudine explained the phrase, and for the next hour the three, with chairs drawn close together, nodded, talked, and gesticulated, while laying out a feminine electioneering campaign.

CHAPTER IX.
LOVE AND POLITICS.

One morning, three weeks later, Rose, on getting up and going out to the sunny yard where she kept her fancy breed of fowls, found them all overcome by some strange disorder. The morning was bright and inspiring, yet they were all sleeping heavily and stupidly under, instead of upon, their usual roosting-place.

She waked up one or two, ran her fingers through their showy plumage, and, after receiving remonstrating glances from reproachful and recognizing eyes, softly laid them down again, and turned her attention to a resplendent red and gold cock, who alone had not succumbed to the mysterious malady, and was staggering to and fro, eyeing her with a doubtful, yet knowing look.

"Come, Fiddéding," she said, gently, "tell me what has happened to these poor hens?"

Fiddéding, instead of enlightening her, swaggered towards the fence, and, after many failures, succeeded in climbing to it and in propping his tail against a post.

Then he flapped his gorgeous wings, and opened his beak to crow, but in the endeavor lost his balance, and with a dismal squawk fell to the ground. Sheepishly resigning himself to his fate, he tried to gain the ranks of the somniferous hens, but, not succeeding, fell down where he was, and hid his head under his wing.

A slight noise caught Rose's attention, and looking up, she found Jovite leaning against the fence, and grinning from ear to ear.

"Do you know what is the matter with the hens?" she asked.

"Yes, madame; if you come to the stable, I will show you what they have been taking."

Rose, with a grave face, visited the stable, and then instructed him to harness her pony to the cart and bring him around to the front of the house.

Half an hour later she was driving towards Weymouth. As it happened to be Saturday, it was market-day, and the general shopping-time for the farmers and the fishermen all along the Bay, and even from back in the woods. Many of them, with wives and daughters in their big wagons, were on their way to sell butter, eggs, and farm produce, and obtain, in exchange, groceries and dry goods, that they would find in larger quantities and in greater varieties in Weymouth than in the smaller villages along the shore.

Upon reaching Weymouth, she stopped on the principal street, that runs across a bridge over the lovely Sissiboo River, and leaving the staid and sober pony to brush the flies from himself without the assistance of her whip, she knocked at the door of her cousin's office.

"Come in," said a voice, and she was speedily confronted by Agapit, who sat at a table facing the door.

He dropped his book and sprang up, when he saw her. "Oh! ma chère, I am glad to see you. I was just feeling dull."

She gently received and retained both his hands in hers. "One often does feel dull after a journey. Ah! but I have missed you."

"It has only been two weeks—"

"And you have come back with that same weary look on your face," she said, anxiously. "Agapit, I try to put that look in the back of my mind, but it will not stay."

He lightly kissed her fingers, and drew a chair beside his own for her. "It amuses you to worry."

"My cousin!"

"I apologize,—you are the soul of angelic concern for the minds and bodies of your fellow mortals. And how goes everything in Sleeping Water? I have been quite homesick for the good old place."

Rose, in spite of the distressed expression that still lingered about her face, began to smile, and said, impulsively, "Once or twice I have almost recalled you, but I did not like to interrupt. Yours was a case at the supreme court, was it not, if that is the way to word it?"

"Yes, Rose; but has anything gone wrong? You mentioned nothing in your letters," and, as he spoke, he took off his glasses and began to polish them with his handkerchief.

"Not wrong, exactly, yet—" and she laughed. "It is Bidiane."

The hand with which Agapit was manipulating his glasses trembled slightly, and hurriedly putting them on, he pushed back the papers on the table before him, and gave her an acute and undivided attention. "Some one wants to marry her, I suppose," he said, hastily. "She is quite a flirt."

"No, no, not yet,—Pius Poirier may, by and by, but do not be too severe with her, Agapit. She has no time to think of lovers now. She is—but have you not heard? Surely you must have—every one is laughing about it."

"I have heard nothing. I returned late last night. I came directly here this morning. I intended to go to see you to-morrow."

"I thought you would, but I could not wait. Little Bidiane should be stopped at once, or she will become notorious and get into the papers,—I was afraid it might already be known in Halifax."

"My dear Rose, there are people in Halifax who never heard of Clare, and who do not know that there are even a score of Acadiens left in the country; but what is she doing?" and he masked his impatience under an admirable coolness.

"She says she is making bombance," said Rose, and she struggled to repress a second laugh; "but I will begin from the first, as you know nothing. The very day you left, that Mr. Greening, who has been canvassing the county for votes, went to our inn, and Bidiane recognized him as a man who had spoken ill of the Acadiens in her presence in Halifax."

"What had he said?"

"He said that they were 'evil-smelling,'" said Rose, with reluctance.

"Oh, indeed,—he did," and Agapit's lip curled. "I would not have believed it of Greening. He is rather a decent fellow. Sarcastic, you know, but not a fool, by any means. Bidiane, I suppose, cut him."

"No, she did not cut him; he had not been introduced. She asked him to apologize, and he would not. Then she told Mirabelle Marie to request him to leave the house. He did so."

"Was he angry?"

"Yes, and insulting; and you can figure to yourself into what kind of a state our quick-tempered Bidiane became. She talked to Claudine and her aunt, and they agreed to pass Mr. Greening's remark up and down the Bay."

Agapit began to laugh. Something in his cousin's strangely excited manner, in the expression of her face, usually so delicately colored, now so deeply flushed and bewildered over Bidiane's irrepressibility, amused him intensely, but most of all he laughed from sheer gladness of heart, that the question to be dealt with was not one of a lover for their distant and youthful cousin.

Rose was delighted to see him in such good spirits. "But there is more to come, Agapit. The thing grew. At first, Bidiane contented herself with flying about on her wheel and telling all the Acadien girls what a bad man Mr. Greening was to say such a thing, and they must not let their fathers vote for him. Following this, Claudine, who is very excited in her calm way, began to drive Mirabelle Marie about. They stayed at home only long enough to prepare meals, then they went. It is all up and down the Bay,—that wretched epithet of the unfortunate Mr. Greening,—and while the men laugh, the women are furious. They cannot recover from it."

"Well, 'evil-smelling' is not a pretty adjective," said Agapit, with his lips still stretched back from his white teeth. "At Bidiane's age, what a rage I should have been in!"

"But you are in the affair now," said Rose, helplessly, "and you must not be angry."

"I!" he ejaculated, suddenly letting fall a ruler that he had been balancing on his finger.

"Yes,—at first there was no talk of another candidate. It was only, 'Let the slanderous Mr. Greening be driven away;' but, as I said, the affair grew. You know our people are mostly Liberals. Mr. Greening is the new one; you, too, are one. Of course there is old Mr. Gray, who has been elected for some years. One afternoon the blacksmith in Sleeping Water said, jokingly, to Bidiane, 'You are taking away one of our candidates; you must give us another.' He was mending her wheel at the time, and I was present to ask him to send a hoe to Jovite. Bidiane hesitated a little time. She looked down the Bay, she looked up here towards Weymouth, then she shot a quick glance at me from her curious yellow eyes, and said, 'There is my far-removed cousin, Agapit LeNoir. He is a good Acadien; he is also clever. What do you want of an Englishman?' 'By Jove!' said the blacksmith, and he slapped his leather apron,—you know he has been much in the States, Agapit, and he is very wide in his opinions,—'By Jove!' he said, 'we couldn't have a better. I never thought of him. He is so quiet nowadays, though he used to be a firebrand, that one forgets him. I guess he'd go in by acclamation.' Agapit, what is acclamation? I searched in my dictionary, and it said, 'a clapping of hands.'"

Agapit was thunderstruck. He stared at her confusedly for a few seconds, then he exclaimed, "The dear little diablette!"

"Perhaps I should have told you before," said Rose, eagerly, "but I hated to write anything against Bidiane, she is so charming, though so self-willed. But yesterday I began to think that people may suppose you have allowed her to make use of your name. She chatters of you all the time, and I believe that you will be asked to become one of the members for this county. Though the talk has been mostly among the women, they are influencing the men, and last evening Mr. Greening had a quarrel with the Comeaus, and went away."

"I must go see her,—this must be stopped," said Agapit, rising hastily.

Rose got up, too. "But stay a minute,—hear all. The naughty thing that Bidiane has done is about money, but I will not tell you that. You must question her. This only I can say: my hens are all quite drunk this morning."

"Quite drunk!" said Agapit, and he paused with his arms half in a dust coat that he had taken from a hook on the wall. "What do you mean?"

Rose suffocated a laugh in her throat, and said, seriously, "When Jovite got up this morning, he found them quite weak in their legs. They took no breakfast, they wished only to drink. He had to watch to keep them from falling in the river. Afterwards they went to sleep, and he searched the stable, and found some burnt out matches, where some one had been smoking and sleeping in the barn, also two bottles of whiskey hidden in a barrel where one had broken on some oats that the hens had eaten. So you see the affair becomes serious when men prowl about at night, and open hen-house doors, and are in danger of setting fire to stables."

Agapit made a grimace. He had a lively imagination, and had readily supplied all these details. "I suppose you do not wish to take me back to Sleeping Water?"

Rose hesitated, then said, meekly, "Perhaps it would be better for me not to do it, nor for you to say that I have talked to you. Bidiane speaks plainly, and, though I know she likes me, she is most extremely animated just now. Claudine, you know, spoils her. Also, she avoids me lately,—you will not be too severe with her. It is so loving that she should work for you. I think she hopes to break down some of your prejudice that she says still exists against her."

Rose could not see her cousin's face, for he had abruptly turned his back on her, and was staring out the window.

"You will remember, Agapit," she went on, with gentle persistence; "do not be irritable with her; she cannot endure it just at present."

"And why should I be irritable?" he demanded, suddenly wheeling around. "Is she not doing me a great honor?"

Rose fell back a few steps, and clasped her amazed hands. This transfigured face was a revelation to her. "You, too, Agapit!" she managed to utter.

"Yes, I, too," he said, bravely, while a dull, heavy crimson mantled his cheeks. "I, too, as well as the Poirier boy, and half a dozen others; and why not?"

"You love her, Agapit?"

"Does it seem like hatred?"

"Yes—that is, no—but certainly you have treated her strangely, but I am glad, glad. I don't know when anything has so rejoiced me,—it takes me back through long years," and, sitting down, she covered her face with her nervous hands.

"I did not intend to tell you," said her cousin, hurriedly, and he laid a consoling finger on the back of her drooping head. "I wish now I had kept it from you."

"Ah, but I am selfish," she cried, immediately lifting her tearful face to him. "Forgive me,—I wish to know everything that concerns you. Is it this that has made you unhappy lately?"

With some reluctance he acknowledged that it was.

"But now you will be happy, my dear cousin. You must tell her at once. Although she is young, she will understand. It will make her more steady. It is the best thing that could happen to her."

Agapit surveyed her in quiet, intense affection. "Softly, my dear girl. You and I are too absorbed in each other. There is the omnipotent Mr. Nimmo to consult."

"He will not oppose. Oh, he will be pleased, enraptured,—I know that he will. I have never thought of it before, because of late years you have seemed not to give your thoughts to marriage, but now it comes to me that, in sending her here, one object might have been that she would please you; that you would please her. I am sure of it now. He is sorry for the past, he wishes to atone, yet he is still proud, and cannot say, 'Forgive me.' This young girl is the peace-offering."

Agapit smiled uneasily. "Pardon me for the thought, but you dispose somewhat summarily of the young girl."

Rose threw out her hands to him. "Your happiness is perhaps too much to me, yet I would also make her happy in giving her to you. She is so restless, so wayward,—she does not know her own mind yet."

"She seems to be leading a pretty consistent course at present."

Rose's face was like an exquisitely tinted sky at sunrise. "Ah! this is wonderful, it overcomes me; and to think that I should not have suspected it! You adore this little Bidiane. She is everything to you, more than I am,—more than I am."

"I love you for that spice of jealousy," said Agapit, with animation. "Go home now, dear girl, and I will follow; or do you stay here, and I will start first."

"Yes, yes, go; I will remain a time. I will be glad to think this over."

"You will not cry," he said, anxiously, pausing with his hand on the door-knob.

"I will try not to do so."

"Probably I will have to give her up," he said, doggedly. "She is a creature of whims, and I must not speak to her yet; but I do not wish you to suffer."

Rose was deeply moved. This was no boyish passion, but the unspeakably bitter, weary longing of a man. "If I could not suffer with others I would be dead," she said, simply. "My dear cousin, I will pray for success in this, your touching love-affair."

"Some day I will tell you all about it," he said, abruptly. "I will describe the strange influence that she has always had over me,—an influence that made me tremble before her even when she was a tiny girl, and that overpowered me when she lately returned to us. However, this is not the occasion to talk; my acknowledgment of all this has been quite unpremeditated. Another day it will be more easy—"

"Ah, Agapit, how thou art changed," she said, gliding easily into French; "how I admire thee for thy reserve. That gives thee more power than thou hadst when young. Thou wilt win Bidiane,—do not despair."

"In the meantime there are other, younger men," he responded, in the same language. "I seem old, I know that I do to her."

"Old, and thou art not yet thirty! I assure thee, Agapit, she respects thee for thy age. She laughs at thee, perhaps, to thy face, but she praises thee behind thy back."

"She is not beautiful," said Agapit, irrelevantly, "yet every one likes her."

"And dost thou not find her beautiful? It seems to me that, when I love, the dear one cannot be ugly."

"Understand me, Rose," said her cousin, earnestly; "once when I loved a woman she instantly became an angel, but one gets over that. Bidiane is even plain-looking to me. It is her soul, her spirit, that charms me,—that little restless, loving heart. If I could only put my hand on it, and say, 'Thou art mine,' I should be the happiest man in the world. She charms me because she changes. She is never the same; a man would never weary of her."

Rose's face became as pale as death. "Agapit, would a man weary of me?"

He did not reply to her. Choked by some emotion, he had again turned to the door.

"I thank the blessed Virgin that I have been spared that sorrow," she murmured, closing her eyes, and allowing her flaxen lashes to softly brush her cheeks. "Once I could only grieve,—now I say perhaps it was well for me not to marry. If I had lost the love of a husband,—a true husband,—it would have killed me very quickly, and it would also have made him say that all women are stupid."

"Rose, thou art incomparable," said Agapit, half laughing, half frowning, and flinging himself back to the table. "No man would tire of thee. Cease thy foolishness, and promise me not to cry when I am gone."

She opened her eyes, looked as startled as if she had been asleep, but submissively gave the required promise.

"Think of something cheerful," he went on.

She saw that he was really distressed, and, disengaging her thoughts from herself by a quiet, intense effort, she roguishly murmured, "I will let my mind run to the conversation that you will have with this fair one—no, this plain one—when you announce your love."

Agapit blushed furiously, and hurried from the room, while Rose, as an earnest of her obedience to him, showed him, at the window, until he was out of sight, a countenance alight with gentle mischief and entire contentment of mind.

CHAPTER X.
A CAMPAIGN BEGUN IN BRIBERY.

"After madness acted, question asked."

Tennyson.

Before the day was many hours older, Agapit was driving his white horse into the inn yard.

There seemed to be more people about the house then there usually were, and Bidiane, who stood at the side door, was handing a long paper parcel to a man. "Take it away," Agapit heard her say, in peremptory tones; "don't you open it here."

The Acadien to whom she was talking happened to be, Agapit knew, a ne'er-do-weel. He shuffled away, when he caught sight of the young lawyer, but Bidiane ran delightedly towards him. "Oh, Mr. LeNoir, you are as welcome as Mayflowers in April!"

Her face was flushed, there were faint dark circles around the light brown eyes that harmonized so much better with her red hair than blue ones would have done. The sun shone down into these eyes, emphasizing this harmony between them and the hair, and Agapit, looking deeply into them, forgot immediately the mentor's part that he was to act, and clasped her warmly and approvingly by the hand.

"Come in," she said; but Agapit, who would never sit in the house if it were possible to stay out-of-doors, conducted her to one of the rustic seats by the croquet lawn. He sat down, and she perched in the hammock, sitting on one foot, swinging the other, and overwhelming him with questions about his visit to Halifax.

"And what have you been doing with yourself since I have been away?" he asked, with a hypocritical assumption of ignorance.

"You know very well what I have been doing," she said, rapidly. "Did not I see Rose driving in to call on you this morning? And you have come down to scold me. I understand you perfectly; you cannot deceive me."

Agapit was silent, quite overcome by this mark of feminine insight.

"I will never do it again," she went on, "but I am going to see this through. It is such fun—'Claude,' said my aunt to her husband, when we first decided to make bombance, 'what politics do you belong to?' 'I am a Conservative,' he said; because, you know, my aunt has always told him to vote as the English people about him did. She has known nothing of politics. 'No, you are not,' she replied, 'you are a Liberal;' and Claudine and I nearly exploded with laughter to hear her trying to convince him that he must be a Liberal like our good French Premier, and that he must endeavor to drive the Conservative candidate out. Claude said, 'But we have always been Conservatives, and our house is to be their meeting-place on the day of election.' 'It is the meeting-place for the Liberals,' said my aunt. But Claude would not give in, so he and his party will have the laundry, while we will have the parlor; but I can tell you a secret," and she leaned forward and whispered, "Claude will vote for the Liberal man. Mirabelle Marie will see to that."

"You say Liberal man,—there are two—"

"But one is going to retire."

"And who will take his place?"

"Never mind," she said, smiling provokingly. "The Liberals are going to have a convention to-morrow evening in the Comeauville schoolhouse, and women are going. Then you will see—why there is Father Duvair. What does he wish?"

She sprang lightly from the hammock, and while she watched the priest, Agapit watched her, and saw that she grew first as pale as a lily, then red as a rose.

The parish priest was walking slowly towards the inn. He was a young man of tall, commanding presence, and being a priest "out of France," he had on a soutane (cassock) and a three-cornered hat. On the Bay are Irish priests, Nova Scotian priests, Acadien priests, and French-Canadian priests, but only the priests "out of France" hold to the strictly French customs of dress. The others dress as do the Halifax ecclesiastics, in tall silk or shovel hats and black broadcloth garments like those worn by clergymen of Protestant denominations.

"Bon jour, mademoiselle," he said to Bidiane.

"Bon jour, monsieur le curé," she replied, with deep respect.

"Is Madame Corbineau within?" he went on, after warmly greeting Agapit, who was an old favorite of his.

"Yes, monsieur le curé,—I will take you to her," and she led the way to the house.

In a few minutes she came dejectedly back. "You are in trouble," said Agapit, tenderly; "what is it?"

She glanced miserably at him from under her curling eyelashes. "When Mirabelle Marie went into the parlor, Father Duvair said politely, so politely, 'I wish to buy a little rum, madame; can you sell me some?' My aunt looked at me, and I said, 'Yes, monsieur le curé,' for I knew if we set the priest against us we should have trouble,—and then we have not been quite right, I know that."

"Where did you get the rum?" asked Agapit, kindly.

"From a schooner,—two weeks ago,—there were four casks. It is necessary, you know, to make bombance. Some men will not vote without."

"And you have been bribing."

"Not bribing," she said, and she dropped her head; "just coaxing."

"Where did you get the money to buy it?"

For some reason or other she evaded a direct answer to this question, and after much deliberation murmured, in the lowest of voices, that Claudine had had some money.

"Bidiane, she is a poor woman."

"She loves her country," said the girl, flashing out suddenly at him, "and she is not ashamed of it. However, Claude bought the rum and found the bottles, and we always say, 'Take it home,—do not drink it here.' We know that the priests are against drinking, so we had to make haste, for Claudine said they would get after us. Therefore, just now, I at once gave in. Father Duvair said, 'I would like to buy all you have; how much is it worth?' I said fifty dollars, and he pulled the money out of his pocket and Mirabelle Marie took it, and then he borrowed a nail and a hammer and went down in the cellar, and Claudine whispered loudly as he went through the kitchen, 'I wonder whether he will find the cask under the coal?' and he heard her, for she said it on purpose, and he turned and gave her a quick look as he passed."

"I don't understand perfectly," said Agapit, with patient gravity. "This seems to be a house divided against itself. Claudine spends her money for something she hates, and then informs on herself."

Bidiane would not answer him, and he continued, "Is Father Duvair at present engaged in the work of destruction in the cellar?"

"I just told you that he is."

"How much rum will he find there?"

"Two casks," she said, mournfully. "It is what we were keeping for the election."

"And you think it wise to give men that poison to drink?" asked Agapit, in an impartial and judicial manner.

"A little does not hurt; why, some of the women say that it makes their husbands good-natured."

"If you were married, would you like your husband to be a drunkard?"

"No," she said, defiantly; "but I would not mind his getting drunk occasionally, if he would be gentlemanly about it."

Her tone was sharp and irritated, and Agapit, seeing that her nerves were all unstrung, smiled indulgently instead of chiding her.

She smiled, too, rather uncertainly; then she said, "Hush, here is Father Duvair coming back."

That muscular young priest was sauntering towards them, his stout walking-stick under his arm, while he slowly rubbed his damp hands with his white handkerchief.

Agapit stood up when he saw him, and went to meet him, but Bidiane sat still in her old seat in the hammock.

Agapit drew a cheque-book from his pocket, and, resting it on the picket fence, wrote something quickly on it, tore out the leaf, and extended it towards the priest.

"This is for you, father; will you be good enough to hand it to some priest who is unexpectedly called upon to make certain outlays for the good of his parishioners?"

Father Duvair bowed slightly, and, without offering to take it, went on wiping his hands.

"How are you getting on with your business, Agapit?"

"I am fully occupied. My income supports me, and I am even able to lay up a little."

"Are you able to marry?"

"Yes, father, whenever I wish."

A gleam of humor appeared in Father Duvair's eyes, and he glanced towards the apparently careless girl seated in the hammock.

"You will take the cheque, father," said Agapit, "otherwise it will cause me great pain."

The priest reluctantly took the slip of paper from him, then, lifting his hat, he said to Bidiane, "I have the honor to wish you good morning, mademoiselle."

"Monsieur le curé," she said, disconsolately, rising and coming towards him, "you must not think me too wicked."

"Mademoiselle, you do not do yourself justice," he said, gravely.

Bidiane's eyes wandered to the spots of moisture on his cassock. "I wish that rum had been in the Bay," she said; "yet, monsieur le curé, Mr. Greening is a very bad man."

"Charity, charity, mademoiselle. We all speak hastily at times. Shall I tell you what I think of you?"

"Yes, yes, monsieur le curé, if you please."

"I think that you have a good heart, but a hasty judgment. You will, like many others, grow wise as you grow older, yet, mademoiselle, we do not wish you to lose that good heart. Do you not think that Mr. Greening has had his lesson?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then, mademoiselle, you will cease wearying yourself with—with—"

"With unwomanly exertions against him," said Bidiane, with a quivering lip and a laughing eye.

"Hardly that,—but you are vexing yourself unnecessarily."

"Don't you think that my good cousin here ought to go to Parliament?" she asked, wistfully.

Father Duvair laughed outright, refused to commit himself, and went slowly away.

"I like him," said Bidiane, as she watched him out of sight, "he is so even-tempered, and he never scolds his flock as some clergymen do. Just to think of his going down into that cellar and letting all that liquor run out. His boots were quite wet, and did you notice the splashes on his nice black cassock?"

"Yes; who will get the fifty dollars?"

"Dear me, I forgot all about it. I have known a good deal of money to go into my aunt's big pocket, but very little comes out. Just excuse me for a minute,—I may get it if I pounce upon her at once."

Bidiane ran to the house, from whence issued immediately after a lively sound of squealing. In a few minutes she appeared in the doorway, cramming something in her pocket and looking over her shoulder at her aunt, who stood slapping her sides and vowing that she had been robbed.

"I have it all but five dollars," said the girl, breathlessly. "The dear old thing was stuffing it into her stocking for Mr. Nimmo. 'You sha'n't rob Peter to pay Paul,' I said, and I snatched it away from her. Then she squealed like a pig, and ran after me."

"You will give this to Claudine?"

"I don't know. I think I'll have to divide it. We had to give that maledicted Jean Drague three dollars for his vote. That was my money."

"Where did you see Jean Drague?"

"I went to his house. Some one told me that the Conservative candidate had called, and had laid seven dollars on the mantelpiece. I also called, and there were the seven dollars, so I took them up, and laid down ten instead."

Agapit did not speak, but contented himself with twisting the ends of his mustache in a vigorous manner.

"And the worst of it is that we are not sure of him now," she said, drearily. "I wonder what Mr. Nimmo would say if he knew how I have been acting?"

"I have been wondering, myself."

"Some of you will be kind enough to tell him, I suppose," she said. "Oh, dear, I'm tired," and leaning her head against the hammock supports, she began to cry wearily and dejectedly.

Agapit was nearly frantic. He got up, walked to and fro about her, half stretched out his hand to touch her burnished head, drew it back upon reflecting that the eyes of the street, the neighbors, and the inn might be upon him, and at last said, desperately, "You ought to have a husband, Bidiane. You are a very torrent of energy; you will always be getting into scrapes."

"Why don't you get married yourself?" and she turned an irritated eye upon him.

"I cannot," said Agapit, in sudden calm, and with an inspiration; "the woman that I love does not love me."

"Are you in love?" asked Bidiane, immediately drying her eyes. "Who is she?"

"I cannot tell you."

"Oh, some English girl, I imagine," she said, disdainfully.

"Suppose Mr. Greening could hear you?"

"I am not talking against the English," she retorted, snappishly, "but I should think that you, of all men, would want to marry a woman of your own nation,—the dear little Acadien nation,—the only thing that I love," and she wound up with a despairing sob.

"The girl that I love is an Acadien," said Agapit, in a lower voice, for two men had just driven into the yard.

"Is it Claudine?"

"Claudine has a good education," he said, coldly, "yet she is hardly fitted to be my wife."

"I daresay it is Rose."

"It is not Rose," said Agapit; and rendered desperate by the knowledge that he must not raise his voice, must not seem excited, must not stand too close to her, lest he attract the attention of some of the people at a little distance from them, and yet that he must snatch this, the golden moment, to press his suit upon her, he crammed both hands in his coat pockets, and roamed distractedly around the square of grass.

"Do I know her?" asked Bidiane when, after a time, he came back to the hammock.

"A little,—not thoroughly. You do not appreciate her at her full value."

"Well," said Bidiane, resignedly, "I give it up. I daresay I will find out in time. I can't go over the names of all the girls on the Bay—I wish I knew what it is that keeps our darling Rose and Mr. Nimmo apart."

"I wish I could tell you."

"Is it something that can be got over?"

"Yes."

She swung herself more vigorously in her delight. "If they could only marry, I would be willing to die an old maid."

"But I thought you had already made up your mind to do that," said Agapit, striking an attitude of pretended unconcern.

"Oh, yes, I forgot,—I have made up my mind that I am not suited to matrimony. Just fancy having to ask a man every time you wanted a little money,—and having to be meek and patient all the time. No, indeed, I wish to have my own way rather more than most women do," and, in a gay and heartless derision of the other sex, she hummed a little tune.

"Just wait till you fall in love," said Agapit, threateningly.

"A silly boy asked me to marry him, the other evening. Just as if I would! Why, he is only a baby."

"That was Pius Poirier," said Agapit, delightedly and ungenerously.

"I shall not tell you. I did wrong to mention him," said Bidiane, calmly.

"He is a diligent student; he will get on in the world," said Agapit, more thoughtfully.

"But without me,—I shall never marry."

"I know a man who loves you," said Agapit, cautiously.

"Do you?—well, don't tell me. Tell him, if you have his confidence, that he is a goose for his pains," and Bidiane reclined against her hammock cushions in supreme indifference.

"But he is very fond of you," said Agapit, with exquisite gentleness, "and very unhappy to think that you do not care for him."

Bidiane held her breath and favored him with a sharp glance. Then she sat up very straight. "What makes you so pale?"

"I am sympathizing with that poor man."

"But you are trembling, too."

"Am I?" and with the pretence of a laugh he turned away.

"Mon cousin," she said, sweetly, "tell that poor man that I am hoping soon to leave Sleeping Water, and to go out in the world again."

"No, no, Bidiane, you must not," he said, turning restlessly on his heel, and coming back to her.

"Yes, I am. I have become very unhappy here. Every one is against me, and I am losing my health. When I came, I was intoxicated with life. I could run for hours. I was never tired. It was a delight to live. Now I feel weary, and like a consumptive. I think I shall die young. My parents did, you know."

"Yes; they were both drowned. You will pardon me, if I say that I think you have a constitution of iron."

"You are quite mistaken," she said, with dignity. "Time will show that I am right. Unless I leave Sleeping Water at once, I feel that I shall go into a decline."

"May I ask whether you think it a good plan to leave a place immediately upon matters going wrong with one living in it?"

"It would be for me," she said, decidedly.

"Then, mademoiselle, you will never find rest for the sole of your foot."

"I am tired of Sleeping Water," she said, excitedly quitting the hammock, and looking as if she were about to leave him. "I wish to get out in the world to do something. This life is unendurable."

"Bidiane,—dear Bidiane,—you will not leave us?"

"Yes, I will," she said, decidedly; "you are not willing for me to have my own way in one single thing. You are not in the least like Mr. Nimmo," and holding her head well in the air, she walked towards the house.

"Not like Mr. Nimmo," said Agapit, with a darkening brow. "Dear little fool, one would think you had never felt that iron hand in the velvet glove. Because I am more rash and loud-spoken, you misjudge me. You are so young, so foolish, so adorable, so surprised, so intoxicated with what I have said, that you are beside yourself. I am not discouraged, oh, no," and, with a sudden hopeful smile overspreading his face, he was about to spring into his buggy and drive away, when Bidiane came sauntering back to him.

"I am forgetting the duties of hospitality," she said, stiffly. "Will you not come into the house and have something to eat or drink after your long drive?"

"Bidiane," he said, in a low, eager voice, "I am not a harsh man."

"Yes, you are," she said, with a catching of her breath. "You are against me, and the whole Bay will laugh at me,—and I thought you would be pleased."

"Bidiane," he muttered, casting a desperate glance about him, "I am frantic—oh, for permission to dry those tears! If I could only reveal my heart to you, but you are such a child, you would not understand."

"Will you do as I wish you to?" she asked, obstinately.

"Yes, yes, anything, my darling one."

"Then you will take Mr. Greening's place?"

"Oh, the baby,—you do not comprehend this question. I have talked to no one,—I know nothing,—I am not one to put myself forward."

"If you are requested or elected to-night,—or whatever they call it,—will you go up to Halifax to 'make the laws,' as my aunt says?" inquired Bidiane, smiling slightly, and revealing to him just the tips of her glittering teeth.

"Yes, yes,—anything to please you."

She was again about to leave him, but he detained her. "I, also, have a condition to make in this campaign of bribery. If I am nominated, and run an election, what then,—where is my reward?"

She hesitated, and he hastened to dissipate the cloud overspreading her face. "Never mind, I bind myself with chains, but I leave you free. Go, little one, I will not detain you,—I exact nothing."

"Thank you," she said, soberly, and, instead of hurrying away, she stood still and watched him leaving the yard.

Just before he reached Weymouth, he put his hand in his pocket to take out his handkerchief. To his surprise there came fluttering out with it a number of bills. He gathered them together, counted them, found that he had just forty-five dollars, and smiling and muttering, "The little sharp-eyes,—I did not think that she took in my transaction with Father Duvair," he went contentedly on his way.