The Heir to Grand-Pré

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.

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.

"They have known each other from childhood," the old man continued.

"Your daughter is young, sir, and doubtless you intend to continue her education?" said Winslow.

"Marie goes to school in winter, as that season is severe here. I wish to give her as much schooling as I can. I have little to leave her when I am gone."

Marie in her radiant and beautiful maidenhood was waiting for her father at the door of Bluff Castle.

CHAPTER VII.

MARIE.

"Evangeline, sad-eyed with longing pain."

To Marie Gotro the last few weeks had been filled with events which would influence her whole existence. Every tendency of her life, every inherent impulse of her nature, every impression made upon her heart by the character of her growth and training, had been affected by something which gave new direction to her soul, and tinged her whole personality. An unknown force had developed in her life. Her existence gave her new lights and shadows and feelings as if she had entered suddenly into a new world. Hitherto no thought had ever come to her as to her future. Her young womanhood was yet pervaded with the glow and with the happy ease of an unrestrained childhood. She had lived under the influence of conditions which had made no especial demand upon her, and she had followed the direction of other wills than her own, and knew no force within herself which ruled her but for the moment. She loved her father, and lived in the life he had made for her, uninfluenced by the secret care and solicitude he often found troubling his soul for her future. She had not yet fully come out of childhood to indulge in dreams of fresh youth, or to feel the melancholy pinings of a more mature intellect and a more highly developed physical being. Of late a slight melancholy had come upon her at times, the inheritance of all her race, and the natural tendency of a nature such as hers. Yet there was nothing defined in her feelings. An exquisite emotion during such periods, without any play of intellect, gave her a vague and yet powerful feeling beyond expression in words, and potent in its influence upon her. Unknown to herself, these forces of her young soul were at the sanction of her heart and eyes ready to fix themselves upon some object which all her nature could not resist, and which henceforth would make the purpose which was lacking and which would mould her whole life. This purpose was now outlined in her soul. The strong light of desire had come to her, and gave a different value to life, and made a hope which thrilled with expectation, and created a future as if a new existence had suddenly been realized. In an object outside herself were centred all the forces of her being. She realized herself no longer as the individuality of a few days previous. She reached out to something beyond her, and at the same time out of her reach, with all the passion her heart was capable of, suddenly strengthened into the full maturity of womanhood and conscious of the whole and single desire of her life.

Unfortunately for Marie, she was not made happy by the sudden birth of love. Her nature's rapid development she was not prepared for. She found herself with feelings that were new to her. The pain was as unfamiliar as the love that caused it. She was, however, all youth, ready to be moulded, easy of influence, immature in experiences, and in the peculiar strength of her life capable of much suffering and of much happiness. The change of her life came quickly. There was no doubt of its reality, there was no hesitation in meeting it or resistance on her part to the influence that ruled her. She loved with all the strength of her being.

With her love, Marie came to the realization of a great helplessness. Greater than all the dreams and hopes are the doubts of young love. In her self-abasement she made a house of grief for herself. In silence and in secret she dwelt with her new life. Neither her father nor old Suzanne knew of the change in her life.

The presence of Winslow at Bluff Castle placed no restraint upon the members of the household, for his quiet and natural manner and unconventional mode of life soon made him intimate with Suzanne as well as with Pierre. Marie laughed less than was her wont. Pierre and Winslow were thrown more and more into each other's society as the days passed and as the young man found his strength again. The old Acadian woman was more occupied with the duties of the house. Marie wandered alone much of the time, sometimes on the beach about the island, or watched from the summit the passing of the ships coming and going with the tide. The change in Marie did not arouse attention. She seldom addressed Winslow, and at those times with a modesty and color of cheek which left on his mind the impression that Marie was extremely shy and without experience. Yet at times he saw in her eyes a depth of expression and warmth of color which left him uncertain as to what meaning they conveyed.

Pierre and Winslow in their conversation talked of the Acadians often. One evening their conversation turned to Longfellow, who had never seen Nova Scotia, and yet in his poem, "Evangeline," has described Grand-Pré so accurately. Winslow quoted some lines and was suddenly attracted by the pensive face of Marie, who, lost in thought, was following the words, her large brown eyes fixed upon him.

"It is a beautiful poem," continued Winslow, "and a sad story. What theory do you hold in regard to the origin of the story? I have known that it is a common belief that it came to Longfellow through Hawthorne, who got it from a priest. Longfellow asked the novelist for the privilege of using the story for a poem, as he did not care to make anything of it. The priest got the story from a relative of the historian Haliburton, who knew many of the returned Acadians."

"The story of a young Acadian woman," said Pierre, "who was sent away on one ship and her husband on another, and of their having wandered over the country in search of each other for years, was told among our people in the early part of this century. It was only one of the many sad tales they made current, and many homes to-day preserve traditions of the sufferings of their forefathers in those awful days."

"Then there was a kernel of fact about which the incidents of the poem, 'Evangeline,' were formed."

"The name 'Evangeline' was chosen by Longfellow in preference to 'Celestine' and 'Gabrielle.'"

"The privilege of the poet for the purpose of the poem," smiled Winslow. "It might just as well have been 'Marie,'" looking at the young woman as he spoke.

"That was indeed her name," Pierre added. "Marie Landry and Jacque Hebert. The story has been told to many generations of Acadians."

Marie blushed violently, and dropped her eyes, which until then had been fixed upon him and Pierre in turn, oblivious of herself till addressed.

"Your daughter much resembles that famous picture of Evangeline by an English painter, Thomas Faed. Indeed, I believe that the picture, while very beautiful in the suggestion of strength of character and of a high type of loving womanhood, is but the idealization of your Acadian women."

Pierre did not reply to this, but looked at his daughter intently for some time. He probably saw in her some resemblance to his dead wife.

In the silence that followed Winslow still looked at the young woman, studying her face and much struck with the wonderful beauty of it. His thoughts drifted on under the influence of her young, fresh loveliness, and he experienced an undefined and pleasant sense of something swaying him for the moment.

So, while Winslow was recovering the use of his shoulder and arm, the old man was his frequent companion, and they were being drawn into closer relationship. It was as if the house of Pierre had found a son. But in finding the son the young life of the daughter was lost, and in its place was the new life of the woman, with her days made up of the feelings and impulses, the doubts and desires of the heart.

Another fact in the changed conditions of her life was her sudden aversion to Len Lawson. Previous to the coming of Winslow she had simply felt amused or annoyed at him, according to her humor or his behaviour. The young fellow had seen with what favor his employer had been received by the inhabitants of Bluff Castle. This fact drove him to acts of attention, more or less eager, which Marie did not like. He persisted often in appearing before her when she preferred to be alone. What she had formerly received with indifference or slight vexation she now saw with fear, and she felt a consciousness of herself which was new to her, so that she shunned Len in a way that aroused in him fits of anger and upbraidings.

When Winslow was not out in Len's boat examining the shores and studying the tides and their changes, Len was often at the island to accompany him on some excursion or to receive his instructions. Winslow knew of Len's attachment for Marie, and often had opportunity to observe them both. He noted particularly the effect his presence had upon her, and to free her from his rude attentions he often sent Len off upon long trips, or took him away for days when his strength finally permitted him to undergo the exertion. Often his errands did not seem to Len to have any other purpose than to rid Marie of him. As this feeling grew, his manner changed towards his employer. There was soon in his mind another cause for this change. He began to believe that Winslow's fancy for Marie had altered her treatment of himself. At last, he began to use Winslow's name in the manner of an accusation against the young woman, and the bitter tone he indulged in often brought a flash of anger to her eyes. In this way he became more and more offensive to her, and in the end her agitation overcame her anger when she thought that by some chance Winslow should learn that he was the cause, on the part of both Len and herself, of the present difficulty.

"Why will you not sail with me, Marie?" Len would sometimes ask her.

"You are in the employ of Mr. Winslow now," she would perhaps reply.

"If you think I should do so, I will tell him you want to go sailing. He will not refuse it."

"No, no! Don't ask him," Marie would exclaim; "it is not necessary."

"Then you will go?"

"Perhaps, some time," Marie would say, glad of a chance to escape.

After a few such scenes Len's anger would break forth, and she would abruptly leave him, while he would cry after her that she was afraid of Winslow.

It was really the case after awhile. Marie feared both Len and Winslow.

In this way Marie was driven to the extremity of disliking Len and avoiding him as much as she could possibly do so.

All this made it more difficult for her to assume an easy and natural manner in the presence of Winslow. The restraint it put upon her made it impossible for her to receive him into her daily life as she might otherwise have done. It also affected her position with regard to him, and left him without a true estimate of her character, attractive as she was in feature and in the charm of her fresh youth. He was to a certain extent influenced by the halo of romance surrounding her as the daughter of his venerable friend Pierre. He was, moreover, bound to her by the bond of duty voluntarily accepted, which he was anxious to perform. As yet no woman had entered his life. His studies had been his passion both from choice and favorable opportunity.

In this way the young love of Marie began for her self-appointed guardian and the friend of her father.

CHAPTER VIII.

"BLOW-ME-DOWN."