two adventures

"Oh dear," sighed Priscilla three hours later, as she strapped her valise, "I believe I'd rather stay in one place all summer than move so often. I shall miss the pier and the barnacles. When we came in from the boat at low tide the other day, it seemed like one of the caverns of fairyland—so dark and mysterious."

"Yes, and you'll miss the codfish, too. Amy and I have been going through the missing agony this morning. But I have a fish story that will please you, Puritan Prissie. Though curing codfish is a leading occupation here six days of the week, on Sunday that man is fined who even sticks a pitchfork into a helpless cod—except,—and here I am afraid that this covers a quantity,—that if there has been a week of wet weather, if Sunday is sunny, then the gentle codfish may be turned over. This is merely a humane provision for the comfort of the cod, who otherwise would become unduly weary lying so long on one side."

"We shall become unduly weary waiting for you," cried Amy, who had entered the room during the latter part of Martine's speech. "I hope that you are both ready, for it is almost train time."

"All aboard then," cried Martine. "If my hat is on straight, nothing need delay us. Let me help you with your valise, Priscilla. My luggage has gone on."

When they reached the station Mrs. Redmond and her party found that after all they had some time to spare. At five minutes past the hour they took their seats. "Standard time, Halifax time, hotel time, local time," hummed Martine. "I wonder which we're starting by."

Presently the conductor walked along the station platform to the little waiting-room, and from the open window they heard him speak to some one inside.

"Have you made up your minds yet, ladies, about going?" he asked in a polite tone.

"Oh, gracious, yes," exclaimed a shrill voice. "We were waiting for the bell;" and two elderly women hurried toward the train with their knitting in their hands. Amy had noticed them busily knitting there, in a corner, when she passed. It seemed, by the conductor's subsequent explanation, that knowing they were uncertain whether to go by that train or the next, he had patiently waited for them to decide.

Bear River was one of the places where Mrs. Redmond had planned to stay. After a short railroad journey that included a passage over some wonderful bridges, beyond which was a great extent of water, and after a drive of five or six miles, they found themselves gazing down at picturesque Bear River. The beautiful town sloped to a broad stream, its white houses and spires half hidden by trees.

"It reminds me of Switzerland," cried Martine.

"It's a dream," exclaimed Priscilla.

"I don't believe Fritz has seen anything more beautiful," added Amy.

"It deserves a more beautiful name," said Mrs. Redmond.

"But, really, mamma, it's named for Imbert, the explorer, and the name doesn't seem so bad when we think of that."

Their day in Bear River proved to be a gala day of the town. They had arrived at the height of the Cherry Carnival, and games and boat-races and other festivities had been arranged as part of the celebration. The girls were up very early that first morning, and soon after breakfast Martine was out with her camera, taking snapshots in every direction. A fat old squaw in a red jersey pretended to be afraid of the kodak, and turned her head; but there was a grin on her face as she looked around, which Martine quickly caught. Another squaw, also fat, with a little pappoose in her arms and another clinging to her skirts, begged Martine to take her.

"Where you live?" asked Martine, as if talking to a child.

"Up there," pointing vaguely in the distance.

"Where?"

"Reservation; you come see."

Martine was interested.

"Is it far?"

"Oh, no."

"What's your name?" asked Martine.

"Marie Brown. You find my house."

Though the name didn't seem to fit the Indian, Martine was glad that it was one that she could remember; for all in a moment she had made up her mind to visit the Reservation.

During the morning, while she watched the sports and chatted with the bystanders and ate dozens and dozens of the famous Bear River cherries, Martine said nothing to the others of her intention of visiting the Reservation. It would be easy enough to borrow Amy's bicycle and say that she did not care to drive with the others.

Everything happened as she planned.

"Bear River is so hilly," said Mrs. Redmond, "that you will hardly wheel very far. But yet it's a quiet little place, and there is no risk in your doing some sight-seeing by yourself."

Martine soon found herself on a road leading toward the Micmac Reservation; she had asked her way once or twice, and felt lonely as houses and shops were left behind; but though she was going in the direction of the Reservation, she saw nothing to remind her of Indians.

"Where are the wigwams? Surely with so many Indians around there must be wigwams somewhere."

Martine looked about anxiously at trees, bushes, and at one or two small wooden houses. She had been riding for half an hour, and she felt that she had not taken the wrong way. There was nothing to do but to inquire at one of the little houses. As she approached it, she realized that it was an Indian dwelling; three pappooses were playing in front of it, and a tall, thin squaw, in a purple calico gown, came out to the door as she entered the gate.

"Marie Brown," said the woman; "oh, that far away. Too far for you; you better go home; it's late."

Martine knew that this was intended as advice, not as discourtesy, but Martine was not fond of advice, and she decided that if she could not see Marie Brown she would visit the chapel, of which she had heard some one speak at dinner that day.

When she asked the way, the woman drew her one side to an open space behind the house, where, on a hill that did not look too remote, she saw a small, square building with a cross on top for a steeple; so after a little conversation with the squaw about her people and their way of living, Martine pushed on toward the hill. She soon found that she must leave her bicycle behind, as there was no good road and the path was steep, and finding a spot that was screened by bushes, she left her wheel there; so on she went on foot until she had come to the enclosure, in the centre of which stood the Micmac Chapel.

Seen at close range, it looked like a toy church, built plainly of wood, absolutely simple and bare on the outside. Martine raised herself on a ledge of wood so that she could look in through the windows. There was something almost pathetic in the tawdry attempts at decoration—the little altar draped with old lace curtains and gold lace and some faded flowers. On top there was a silver cross within a white canopy, and a small altar with a canopy in the corner. Walking around the graveyard, Martine noticed that there were French names on almost all the stones.

Suddenly she was disturbed by the barking of a dog, and, following the direction of the sound, she saw a house on a hill high above the chapel. The dog was running up and down in front of the house, and barking loudly, as if he detected the presence of a stranger near the church. Martine remembered that the Indian woman in the cabin below had spoken of the chief's house near the church, but this did not reassure her. Perhaps the chief, himself, would object to the presence of a young American girl, and she began to wonder how she should make her peace with him if he should interfere; she was less afraid of the possible chief, however, than of the very real dog, whose barking still continued. To leave the enclosure by the way she had come would bring her out in full view of the creature. To avoid this, therefore, with some difficulty she climbed a fence at the other side, believing that she was going straight in the direction of the bicycle. But alas for her miscalculations! She was in a tangled thicket of shrubbery; she tore her dress and scratched her ankles, and she could not get back to the bicycle nor even find the cabin from which she had been directed to the chapel.

When at last she reached the broad road, she sat down disconsolately by the side of a fence.

"Why was I so foolish as to borrow Amy's bicycle?" Had it been her own wheel, so reckless was Martine's disposition, she would have left it behind without a qualm. Yet though it was quite possible for her to buy a new one for Amy, it did not seem quite right to return to the hotel without it. While she was pondering, without seeing any way out of the difficulty, she heard a shrill voice crying,—

"Hi, lady, hi!"

Turning about, she saw the tall, thin Indian woman in the purple gown walking down the hill and guiding the bicycle beside her.

"Why, how did you know I was here?" asked Martine, after she had thanked her profusely.

"Oh, I could see the way you start from the chapel, and I thought you not find your wheel, so I thought I bring him."

Martine, thanking the woman warmly, gave her all the silver that she happened to have in her purse,—not a very large sum from her point of view, but magnificent from that of the Indian.

The squaw then walked with her down the hill and into the village, saying that young ladies should not go so far alone. As they walked, Martine asked several questions about Indian life, and was told that, in the summer, many were away selling baskets or fishing; they would be coming back soon, she said, and even as she spoke Martine looked toward the river on which two canoes were gliding, each containing two or three Indians and their numerous belongings.

"They are coming back for St. Anne's Day," said the woman; "great time then at the chapel."

They had not gone very far together when, turning a corner, the two came suddenly on Priscilla and Amy.

"Oh, Martine," cried the latter, "where have you been? We have had our tea, and mother is so worried about you."

"I hope it was a good tea and that you saved me some," rejoined Martine; "for now that you mention it, though I hadn't thought of it before, I realize that I'm half starved."

"But where have you been?"

"Oh, I've been a kind of babe in the woods, only there weren't any berries for me to feed on, and all that I have to show for my adventure are these tears in my gown."

"Good-bye, ladies," said the Indian woman, while Martine was talking, "and I thank you much," she concluded, holding out her hand to Martine.

In a moment she had disappeared.

"Is that another protégée?" asked Priscilla, a little sharply.

Martine did not answer. She had already plunged into a lively account of her afternoon, omitting nothing, not even her own carelessness in relation to the bicycle.

At the hotel Mrs. Redmond spoke to Martine more seriously about the danger in expeditions by herself. "I had no idea that you thought of doing anything beyond wheeling around the town," she said; "and if you had met any real mishap, it would have been very hard for Amy and me, in whose care your father and mother put you."

So Martine promised that in the future she would be less thoughtless. "Although to be honest," she added, "my thoughts are so apt to come afterwards that it is almost dangerous to promise anything."

That evening, in the little hotel parlor, when Martine narrated her adventure, an old gentleman who was a permanent boarder there told her many anecdotes of the Micmacs.

"In the early days, as you know, they were very friendly to the French. They were early baptized and became Roman Catholics, and as they began to be civilized, they liked to be known by French names, and many married with the French. The Canadian Government is very good to them, and provides for them on reservations or encourages them to own land for themselves. The children all go to school, some in reservation schools, and some attend the ordinary day schools with white children. While some of them still prefer to live by hunting, fishing, and Indian handicrafts, others work in mills and on railroads; and, on the whole, they compare well with the lower class of white citizens, for they are citizens with certain voting rights."

"I thought they'd be more picturesque and like real savages," said Martine. "I was so disappointed. There's something attractive in the name 'Micmac,' and I supposed that at least they'd live in wigwams."

"Considering the way in which you rushed in among them," interposed Mrs. Redmond, "I should think you would be glad that you met only tame Indians to-day."

"Very tame," rejoined Martine. "Only a tall, thin Indian woman in a purple calico gown."

"There are certainly not many of the original red men left in Nova Scotia," said Mr. Dolph, the gentleman who had been talking to them. "There are some collections of their legends that are interesting to read, and the names of many Nova Scotia places are of Indian origin."

"Oh, yes," said Amy; "I came across some lines to-day that I copied," and she began to recite:

"'The memory of the Red Man, How can it pass away? While their names of music linger, On each mount and stream and bay? While Musquodoboit's waters Roll sparkling to the main, While falls the laughing sunbeam On Chegoggin's fields of grain?'"

The next morning, when they were ready to leave Bear River, Amy decided to wheel rather than drive to the station. It was hardly five miles, over a main road, and she felt that she needed exercise.

"Keep us in sight, Amy."

"Oh, yes, if I don't pass you," she replied.

But Amy at first lagged behind,—there were so many lovely points of view, and she stopped several times to enjoy them to the utmost. What a curious effect, to look down on the river, or rather to look down from a hill, and see a ship apparently moored among trees! Of course the explanation was that the beautiful Bear River lay in a narrow valley, surrounded by hills that descended sharply to its very margin, with trees so close together on its banks as to produce the strange effect that Amy had noted.

The carriage was out of sight when Amy finally pushed on. Shortly she realized that pedalling required great effort. At first she ascribed her difficulty to the hills, but a slight grating of the wheel made her look at her tires, and, to her dismay, she found a small puncture. What should she do? She glanced at her watch, and was surprised to see how much time she had lost. One or two wagons had already passed her on their way to the train, and she regretted that she had not called for help. It might have been ignominious—it certainly would have been more discreet—to make her appearance at the station carried in a wagon rather than to lose her train altogether, as now appeared probable. She stopped a boy whom she met walking toward her.

"How far is it to the station?" she asked.

"Only a little way," he replied, after the fashion of boys, and she pushed on hopefully. She heard wheels in the distance, and made up her mind to humiliate herself to the extent of asking the new-comer to assist her; but when the vehicle came in sight it proved to be a narrow, one-seated buggy, and its three passengers seemed more than enough for it. A little farther on she heard an ominous whistle. The train was nearing the station. She felt indignant.

"Why should this particular train be on time on this particular day? Nova Scotia trains are not noted for hurrying."

Now she was walking and dragging her bicycle along. She met a number of persons who evidently had left the train at the Bear River station and were walking up to their homes. Then she heard the engine whistle again as the signal for starting on, and she knew that it was useless to go down to the station itself. She stood still for a moment, half paralyzed. Of course there was no special danger; her mother and the others might go on to Annapolis without her, and she could return to Bear River for the night; but it was all very mortifying. Then a sudden thought came to her; in fact, it had occurred to her when she first discovered the punctured wheel.

"If Fritz were with me, he would have found some way of mending the puncture; in fact, one man is almost necessary on an excursion." That was what Fritz himself had said to her.

She recalled his very words, and the remark with which he had ended,—"Then you'll remember me."

But there was no time for reflection now. The train was coming slowly along the bridges; Amy could see the smoke from the engine. Between her and the track lay an open space—a slight decline from the point where she stood on the road—covered with long grass and bushes. A quick impulse urged her on; at the worst she could only fail; Nova Scotia conductors were very obliging, and there was more than half a chance that she might succeed. She lifted her bicycle across her arm, managed to climb over the low fence, and was pushing her way down the hill as the train drew near. A man, probably the conductor, was standing on the platform of a car; she waved her hand violently. The train seemed to move more slowly; a man thrust his head out of the engine cab; he, too, had seen her. She was now not far from the track; the train stood still; the conductor leaped down from his post, plunged into the shrubbery, relieved her of her wheel, and she followed him without a word; then one or two passengers pulled her on board the train, the signal was given, and the engine started on.

"Lucky it wasn't a flying express," said one of the passengers.

"I guess they wouldn't do that in the States," said another.

Red-faced and crestfallen, Amy found herself a moment later in the bosom of her family.

"A punctured tire," she began.

"Yes, yes; don't try to talk."

Amy sat still.

Martine fanned her.

Priscilla brought her a glass of water.

Her mother asked for no explanation.

The passengers stared at her; the majority as if amused, though. One or two talked as if they thought their rights had been infringed.

"We were sorry," Mrs. Redmond said later, "to go without you, but it was better for you to be left than for the rest of us to lose the train; we knew you could go back to Bear River, and we could have telegraphed you what to do; we knew you would be equal to the occasion."

"So I was."

"Well, we hardly expected you to stop a train."

"Oh, the train stopped me."

"'All's well that ends well'"

Later in the day Martine came over to sit beside Amy.

"I'm afraid, Amy, that I may have punctured your tire yesterday; the road to the chapel was so very stony."

"Tires are bound to be punctured," replied Amy, "and if this hadn't happened when it did, I shouldn't have had the fun of stopping a train."

old port royal

At Annapolis, the old Port Royal, Amy and her party were to stay longer than at any other place. They had engaged rooms at a pleasant house where there were no other boarders, and when they had unpacked their trunks, began to feel as if they were really away for the summer.

"We have a fine view of the river," said Mrs. Redmond to Martine the morning after their arrival, as they looked from the windows of her room, which was at the rear of the house.

"River!" sniffed Martine; "I see nothing but red mud and green marshes; I wonder where the water is."

"You won't ask that question at high tide; you'll find water enough to float a small vessel," she replied, "and if you look a little beyond our immediate neighborhood, you can see the whole Basin, and far, far away there in the distance, I suppose, that land is Digby. I am going out to sketch immediately after breakfast; I've seen several photographs of the old fort, and I have special reasons for wishing to make a sketch of it; and you, Martine, will get plenty of inspiration for your water-colors."

Amy was in her element at Annapolis. She had already given some time to the history of the old town, and anticipated great pleasure in retracing the steps of the brave Frenchmen who had made it famous.

"More French history!" Priscilla exclaimed, when Amy began to talk about De Monts and Poutrincourt; "when shall we hear about the English?" and Priscilla, with a wry face, continued, "I'm so tired of the French."

"All in good time," responded Amy; "but now we must take things in due order and not skip about as we did. Let us go with the others into the port to-day, and while they are sketching I'll talk a little about its history."

So it was that, while Mrs. Redmond and Martine were making sketches of the sally-port and old officers' quarters, Amy, seated near them, played the part of historian and guide.

"This fort, you know, is from Vauban's plans, with four bastions and connecting curtains."

"Do you suppose there's a moat?" interrupted Priscilla; "it looks as if there should be one here."

"There used to be a wet ditch in the eighteenth century, and I suppose that was much the same thing, though it's dry now."

"Oh, I can tell you something more entertaining than that," interposed Martine. "They used to have logs on the top of the parapet ready to roll down on the heads of assailants. But tell me, Amy, I've forgotten; did Champlain build this fort?"

"My dear Martine, where is your history? Vauban and Champlain; oh, no. Champlain's fort is six miles down the river, opposite Goat Island."

"Then who first built this fort?"

"Probably D'Aunay first planned it, and it was improved by Brouillan and Subercase. You must remember that it has suffered twenty attacks and ten regular sieges. There's little good in talking about it until you know the history of the times better."

"Oh, dear," murmured Martine, "of course I knew this was to be an improving trip, and yet I do think it's hard to have to learn history in the summer."

"I'm afraid there's no escape for it," said Amy; "the fog is rolling in, and this afternoon I will tell you once for all certain things that will give you great interest in Annapolis during your stay here."

So, undisturbed by further historical information during the morning, Martine, under Mrs. Redmond's direction, completed her sketch of the officers' quarters within the fort,—a quaint old building, with its thirty-six chimneys and thirty-six fireplaces, every one of which had probably been needed in the long and cold winters of old Acadia.

As Amy had prophesied, the afternoon was foggy, and she felt little compunction in insisting that Martine as well as Priscilla should join her before her open fire while she talked to them of Port Royal history.

"Although some French," she said, "may have visited Acadia as early as 1504, our starting point is 1604, when De Monts, who was a nobleman of the Court of Henry Fourth, and Champlain, and Poutrincourt, and Pontgravé came out on a voyage of exploration. Poutrincourt seems to have been the one most anxious to make a permanent settlement here. Champlain was the geographer and map-maker of the expedition, and was also on the search for ores. The grant of the land known as Acadia had been given by Henry Fourth to De Monts. He, as well as Pontgravé had been on a previous expedition to the New World. At first they were delighted with Acadia. They saw fine opportunities for fur-trading as well as for a permanent settlement. But after visiting the shores of the Annapolis Basin, they made a mistake by going farther south to the St. Croix River, and they spent their first winter on an island some distance from its mouth. This proved a bad thing, for the climate was severe and many of the colonists died; so when the weather permitted they went back to the neighborhood of Port Royal and set up their houses and built a small fort on Goat Island.

"They found the Indians everywhere very friendly, especially the old chief, Membertou, who was said to be nearly one hundred years old.

"When their buildings were finished, De Monts sailed back for France, knowing that he could be spared until after the harvests were gathered. Pontgravé was left in charge of the colony in his absence, assisted by Champlain and Champdore. When the spring of 1606 came and De Monts had not returned, the colonists were alarmed. They needed the supplies that he had promised to bring them, and they were afraid that something had happened to him. So, late in July, Pontgravé started off to see if he could not find some fishing-vessel to take them all back to France.

"In the meantime, De Monts in France had had trouble in getting people to interest themselves in the Port Royal Colony. But Poutrincourt, who had returned with him, proved his best friend, and helped in fitting out a vessel called the 'Jonas,' and promised to return to Acadia with De Monts, and take his family with him, to establish a permanent colony.

"With them came Lescarbot, an advocate of Paris, who afterwards wrote a full account of his residence in Acadia, from which we learn many interesting details that, but for him, we would not know. Pontgravé fell in with a shallop from De Monts' vessel and all returned to Port Royal. De Monts wasn't perfectly satisfied with Port Royal for a permanent settlement, and he persuaded Poutrincourt to make a journey farther south to find a better place; but this expedition ended badly, and Poutrincourt returned, convinced that he could be better off at Port Royal than anywhere else in the New World.

"Unluckily, the merchants in France who had supplied money for this trading colony sent word that they had decided to give it up. Without money with which to trade, the colony could not prosper, and so the majority of the colonists decided to go back to France. Poutrincourt, however, was determined to come back, and he took home with him specimens of grain grown in Acadia, and various animal, vegetable, and mineral products, to show the King what could be raised in Acadia. The King encouraged him to go back, and ratified the grant of land that De Monts had given him.

"So Poutrincourt returned to Acadia, and it is greatly to the credit of the Indians he had left in charge that all the buildings were unharmed. A new crop of grain, planted by the Indians, was growing finely, and Membertou and savages welcomed him very cordially.

"The King had given him a grant of money to be used for the Church and he brought with him a Jesuit priest, who baptized the savages by wholesale.

"In the summer of 1610, Poutrincourt sent his son, Biencourt, back to France to report the conversion of the savages and the general prosperity of the colony. Things in France were not going to be very favorable now for Poutrincourt. When Biencourt arrived in Paris, it was not long after the assassination of Henry Fourth. The Jesuits were now anxious to get control of Acadia, and, to make a long story short, Madame De Guercheville obtained a grant from the King of the very land that De Monts had granted to Poutrincourt; Biencourt had to take certain Jesuits back with him to Acadia; and there was much dissension in the little colony. But what really proved its downfall was an attack made in 1613 by the Virginian Argall, who killed and captured many of the inhabitants and burnt all the buildings to the ground. Poutrincourt made no effort to re-establish Port Royal, but Biencourt, his son, remained in the woods, living, with a few companions, the life of an Indian."

"Oh, yes, it was he, was it not," said Priscilla, "who was the friend of Charles La Tour down at Fort St. Louis?"

"The very man," replied Amy. "I often think that if Biencourt had left a record of his wanderings we should have something very interesting. He and his father made a good fight for New France, but circumstances were too strong for them."

"Thank you," said Priscilla. "I understand better than I did before how the French happened to settle Port Royal."

"Why," asked Martine, "did that Virginian—Argall, I think you called him—wish to interfere with the French? Jamestown had been settled only six years when he came up here and attacked Port Royal, and there wasn't any Plymouth, then, Priscilla."

"He had no real right to interfere, but the English, even then, claimed the whole coast of North America, basing their claims on the discoveries of the Cabots; Argall himself, however, is considered little more than a pirate, and no Englishman justifies his destruction of the prosperous and peaceful colony at Port Royal.

"The next settlement here was under the auspices of Sir William Alexander, a friend of James the First. You remember that he made La Tour a Baronet of Nova Scotia. He had great plans, and his colony was near Goat Island. I am told that some people here in Annapolis still speak about the Scotch fort, some trace of which is yet to be seen.

"War between France and England finally put an end to Sir William Alexander's colony, and it was Charles La Tour who did more than any one else to make Acadia of some importance to France. He claimed that Biencourt, Poutrincourt's son, when he died in 1623, had left all his claims to Acadia to him, including the position of Governor."

"Amy," said Martine, yawning slightly, "this is all very interesting, but unless I have time to digest it I shall forget it entirely. Let us put history aside until another day and see if we cannot find something more amusing."

"I'm going downstairs for a moment," said Priscilla; "I have an idea the mail has come."

In a moment she returned with a handful of letters.

"Boston, Plymouth, two from Shelburne—where's that? I suppose that I may look at the postmarks?"

"Give, give," cried Martine, and Priscilla put a couple in her hand.

"Only one for me," said Amy, "and it's from Fritz; he's at Shelburne. Did you have one too, mamma?"

"No," replied Mrs. Redmond, who had just entered the room.

"Oh, I thought there were two Shelburne postmarks."

Priscilla noticed Martine's heightened color, and an idea that had come to her at Yarmouth now returned. As it was a matter in which she had no real right to meddle, she said nothing.

"What does Fritz say?" asked Mrs. Redmond, turning to Amy.

"That he's having the time of his life, that he and Taps have found the best fishing in the world, and like Nova Scotia so much that they may bring a party of their own here next summer. What he writes about the French of Pubnico sounds exactly like Meteghan and Church Point, so I'll skip all that; Shelburne seems more romantic, and I almost wish it had lain in our path. He says it has one of the finest harbors he ever saw, but I will read you a little in his own words.

"'Shelburne, my dear Amy, is like the ghost of a city, to one who has imagination. It was planned to be the chief city of Nova Scotia, and there is something rather tragic in looking at the broad streets that were meant for a larger city. Hardly one of the fine old houses remains. They say that twelve thousand Loyalists came here just after the Revolution, and most of them were rich and influential. The frames of large houses were brought and set up here; people tried to live as they would in a great city, with servants and every luxury. With such a great harbor they expected to have a great seaport; but the trouble was, there was nothing in the country back of them. There was no farming land, and no farmers to supply produce for the ships in the harbor to carry away in exchange for other goods. After a while people found they had used up the money they had brought with them from New York and other places. Then those who could left Shelburne. Some went away leaving their houses fully furnished, and they never came back. They went to Halifax, to Annapolis, or even back to New York and Boston after the bitter feeling over the war had gone down.

"'If you were here, Amy, you'd find plenty of material for poems in Shelburne, especially on moonlight nights like last night, when Taps and I wandered up and down the broad streets, trying to imagine what Shelburne must have been in the days of its greatness. I hope that you and the others are enjoying yourselves as much as you expected to, without me or any other masculine disturber of the peace. I haven't a doubt that your mother thinks we've been pretty badly treated. She always was an unusually sensible woman, and we'd have been useful to carry your bags, if nothing more; however, mark my words, before your journey is over you will sigh for me more than once, and the day will come when you'll really need me.'"

"He thinks enough of himself, doesn't he?" said Martine.

"Oh, he's not really conceited," replied Amy, "and I dare say that he would liven us up a little; but on the whole things are best as they are."

"Aren't you quieter than usual, Martine?" asked Amy that evening.

"Well, I had a letter from papa to-day," she said, "and he says that mamma is really very ill, and that they may have to stay abroad all summer. I have just written him about Yvonne; but of course it will be some time before I can get an answer."

"What do you want him to do?" asked Amy,—"to let you adopt her? She's almost as tall as you are."

"Well, I'm not sure what I want, but I know that if Yvonne should have her voice cultivated she'd be a great prima donna, and what a feather in my cap to have been her discoverer!"

"I fear that your father would need more than your opinion to enable him to decide a matter like that. In fact, only an expert musician could make a safe prophecy about Yvonne."

"Well, at least, I hope that he will consent to letting her go to Boston to study next winter. We could find a doctor to help her eyesight."

"Why not ask your father to invest in Alexander's gold mine?" asked Amy, with a smile; "then he could do everything for Yvonne himself."

"That isn't the point. I've really taken a great fancy to Yvonne, and I want to have her near me. Have you written to Pierre yet?"

"Oh, yes; I went out this morning and bought him a copy of Longfellow. He had never owned one himself, and was anxious to have it. I have asked him to write us so that we shall get the letter at Grand Pré."

"It's time Priscilla had a protégée," said Martine, "though she doesn't seem the kind of person to adopt anything very warmly except her own opinions."

This was a rather sharp remark for Martine to make, and it convinced Amy of something that she had tried to doubt—that the two girls were really rather far apart, "and both such charming girls," she said to herself.

Martine's letters with the Pubnico and Shelburne postmarks had given Priscilla considerable concern. Though not a meddler, she yet saw Martine's lack of frankness about those letters. Priscilla knew that neither was in the handwriting of Fritz Tomkins, and she was sure that they were written by the Freshman with him whom she knew only by the name of "Taps." She was now quite convinced, also, that it really was Martine whom Amy had seen wheeling through the streets of Yarmouth with this same youth. That it was no concern of hers she realized perfectly; and yet, she wondered if it might not be her duty to tell Mrs. Redmond what she knew. Priscilla was over-conscientious; she was always more ready to disclose her own faults than to conceal them,—to disclose, at least, faults that she herself recognized. She did not altogether realize that a certain form of censoriousness was growing upon her; that she was too much inclined to measure all people by her own standard.

Thus many little things that Martine did quite innocently and naturally seemed to Priscilla bits of affectation. Martine's hand was ever in her pocket. When it was a question of buying books or fruit or some other little thing for the traveller, Martine always managed to pay for it, and Priscilla thought that her readiness to do this came from a desire to display the size of her allowance. Priscilla herself, on the other hand, had to be careful about little expenses, and while their present trip called for no great expenditure, she hated to be obliged so often to thank Martine for small luxuries. Then, too, Martine had an extravagant way of talking that disturbed the serious Priscilla. She could not say that she had ever found Martine in a real untruth. Still, Martine's way was not her way, and instead of drawing nearer together as the journey progressed, the two girls were farther apart.

Martine, on her part, thought Priscilla rather old-fashioned, but accounted for the seriousness of her dress and her manner by the fact that she was still in mourning for her father, who had died of fever contracted in Cuba at the beginning of the late war.

Perhaps it was because she realized that her prejudices were a little unreasonable, that Priscilla hesitated about speaking to Amy or Mrs. Redmond regarding the suspicious postmarks.

The long "historical disquisition," as Martine called it, that Amy had given them on their first day at Annapolis, was not immediately followed by another. Their mornings were spent in sketching in the neighborhood, and their afternoons in driving. One day they crossed the Grandville Ferry and went down to the old fort near Goat Island. But though they all professed to see slight traces of the earthworks, it required imagination rather than eyesight to discern even a slight trace of Poutrincourt's fort.

"It's one of the ironies of history," said Amy, "that tradition should speak of this as a Scotch fort, for the Scotch were here so short a time before the French were again in power."

"What became of the Scotch?" asked Priscilla.

"It is supposed that most of them went back home, and that the few who stayed intermarried with the conquering French. Sir William Alexander and his Baronets of Nova Scotia made little impression on Acadia."

"Amy," said Martine, "of all the people you've told us about the most interesting to me is young Biencourt, wandering about in the woods and living like an Indian; I even dreamt about him the other night. How did he happen to escape when Argall destroyed the fort?"

"Oh, he and some of his companions were up there where Annapolis now is, working in their grain fields; you know they had a mill up there, and rich fields of grain. The fort itself was not in a good location,—at least for farming. It is said that Argall and the other Virginians were not aware of the existence of the mill and the fields, and when they had destroyed the fort, thought that there was nothing left for the French."

"You may be pretty sure," said Martine, "they wouldn't have let anything escape if they'd known; the English are always greedy."

"They are not a bit worse than the French," retorted Priscilla. "Just think how cruel the French were during the Reign of Terror."

"Oh, that's an entirely different kind of thing; the French are never half as anxious to grab other people's land as the English are."

"There, there," interposed Amy, "I'll have to be a Board of International Arbitration; in other words, let us have peace. There's one thing," she continued, "I feel as if young Biencourt kept alive the love of the French for Port Royal. Charles La Tour was himself only a boy like Biencourt when he first came to the New World. The King had certainly given Poutrincourt rights in Acadia, and he had passed them on to his son. Poutrincourt was killed at the Siege of Marye in 1610, scarcely three years before Argall's destruction of Port Royal."

explorations

"How very gay your attire, Martine! Do you think of paying afternoon visits?"

"No, my dear Amy, I do not, because I know no one to visit; but I'm tired of cloth skirts and a shirt-waist, and I thought I would like to see how it would feel to wear something decent."

Martine's gown was a pale blue voile, made up over a bright blue lining, with a delicate white insertion on the waist; her hat, a blue chip, trimmed with white flowers, and she carried a parasol to match.

"Is your gown quite suitable for a walk on a dusty road?"

"Perhaps it isn't," responded Martine, "but sometimes one must live up to her feelings, and this is how I feel to-day,—like wearing my very best; besides, this is nothing remarkable, this dress, but it happens to be the best I have with me."

"Very well," and Amy sighed; "it's no use to argue with you, and as soon as Priscilla comes downstairs we'll set off."

When Priscilla appeared, she, like Amy, had a short cloth skirt and shirt-waist, but she made no comment on the elegance of Martine's appearance.

There was one thing rather incongruous in Martine's aspect,—she carried a small shovel, which looked as if it had never been used; such, indeed, was the case, and as she brandished it she said cheerfully, "I hope we shall go somewhere where we can dig. I hear there's any amount of hidden treasure around Annapolis, and I am anxious to get some of it for myself."

The girls walked a good while before they saw anything likely to reward an amateur antiquarian. Then, in a field quite outside the town, Martine's sharp eyes saw something that interested her. In a moment she was over the fence, with the others following.

"There," she said excitedly, "you see these very old, gnarled apple-trees and this clump of willows; I'm perfectly sure that this used to be an Acadian farm."

"That's a safe guess," rejoined Amy, "for all the land about here was once in the hands of the Acadians."

"Yes, but I think from this little mound and that hollow beside it that there was a house on this very spot. I noticed what Dr. Gray said when he was talking to your mother last evening, and that was what decided me to do some digging for myself."

"In a blue voile dress," responded Amy, in a tone of disapproval. "Ah, Martine, you are so absurd!"

Even while Amy was speaking Martine had begun to dig,—aimlessly, of course, although in a few minutes she had made a fairly large hole. When her shovel struck something hard she was delighted, but, digging deeper, she brought up only a piece of broken brick. Undiscouraged, she dug one side of the first hole, and presently she held out to Amy what at first puzzled them both. It looked like a mere bit of rusty iron, but later they decided that it was probably part of an old lock.

"Which I shall label 'Exhibit No. 1' in my museum of curiosities," said Martine.

"Let me see what I can do," cried Amy; "you must be tired."

So Martine surrendered her shovel, and in a quarter of an hour Amy brought up an old bottle, not at all remarkable in shape, but very valuable from Martine's point of view, because it was undoubtedly an Acadian trophy.

Priscilla contented herself with some slips from an ancient willow-tree.

"It is not the best time of year for making cuttings," she said, "but these French willows cling to life as closely as the proverbial cat. I heard of a man who had a walking-stick cut from a willow-tree. It looked as hard and dry as a bone, but one day he happened to stick it in the ground near a spring and forgot all about it. Some time afterwards, when he passed, the walking-stick was sending out little shoots, and in time it became a full-fledged willow-tree."

"That's a very good story," commented Martine, "and as we know you never tell anything but the exact truth, Priscilla, neither Amy nor I would think of doubting it."

As the trio were walking back toward town they met Mrs. Redmond, driving.

"Come," she cried, "which two of you will drive with me? You slipped off this afternoon without my realizing that you were going away, and now I want company."

"I would rather stroll along," replied Amy, "but I am sure that Martine and Priscilla would enjoy the drive. Martine is turning antiquarian, and if your driver can take you to some old grave or Indian mound, she will be delighted to use her shovel."

"I don't know what I can promise in the way of graves and mounds, but if Martine comes with me I can offer her a lovely view."

"If you please, Mrs. Redmond," said Priscilla, "I would rather walk back home than drive."

Although Amy tried to make her change her mind, Priscilla was firm, and the discussion ended by Amy's getting into the carriage with Martine and Mrs. Redmond.

As she walked along the main street, where the houses were still rather far apart, Priscilla noticed a little graveyard in a corner of a garden. As the gate was open, she felt at liberty to walk inside. The stones at which she glanced were of marble, and the inscriptions were well cut. The names on two or three of them were French, and the men who bore them had evidently been officers in the English army. This interested her, and when she saw a girl of about her own age standing at the door of a cottage near by, she felt emboldened to speak to her.

"They were not really French," said the girl, in answer to her question, "but of Huguenot family, who fought for the King in the Revolution. I've heard my mother say that one of them was a cousin of her grandmother's, and they all came here together at the close of the war."

Priscilla was delighted. Here, perhaps, was a person who would tell her something about the Loyalists of the Revolution.

"Were your people Loyalists?" she asked.

"Why, of course," was the reply, as if anything else were unsupposable.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" responded Priscilla. "I've been waiting to hear more about the Loyalists."

"You are an American?" questioned the girl. "Americans are not apt to care about Loyalists; they seem to think only about the Acadians; but my ancestors were all Loyalists, and if you will just come into the house my mother would love to talk to you."

So Priscilla followed her new acquaintance indoors. Outside, the house looked small, but within she found many rooms opening one into another, none of them very large, and all of them with low ceilings.

"My mother's great-grandfather built this house when he first came from New York. He was an officer in the Loyal American Regiment. There is his commission; we framed it to hang on the wall."

"By His Excellency Sir Henry Clinton, K. B., General and Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's Forces within the Colonies lying on the Atlantic Ocean, from Nova Scotia to West Florida inclusive, etc., etc., etc.

"By Virtue of the Power and Authority in Me vested, I DO hereby constitute and appoint You to be Captain of a Company in the Loyal American Regiment commanded by Colonel Beverly Robinson."

Priscilla read the whole commission in which the duties of the newly made captain were defined, to the very end where the signature of Sir Henry Clinton still stood out clearly.

While the new acquaintance went to call her mother, Priscilla looked around the pleasant sitting-room. There was a high, old-fashioned bookcase filled with books, many of them in dingy calf bindings. The young girl returned while she was looking at them, expressing her regret that her mother was not at home.

"My grandfather brought many of these books from New York," she said; "he was a nephew of the rector of Trinity Church, and was himself a graduate of King's College, New York."

"I don't see how they had the courage to give up everything and come down here so far away. Even if they did not like the new government, I should think they would rather have stayed where most of their friends and relatives were."

"Oh, it wasn't always a matter of choice," rejoined Eunice, for this, Priscilla discovered, was her new friend's name; "some had to come, because they had been too active in the King's cause and the other side would not forgive them. Even after the Peace many were in danger of imprisonment; and then a great many had had all their property confiscated, and thought it would be easier to start over again down here than to live in poverty among their old friends and neighbors."

Priscilla looked in amazement at Eunice. She expressed herself so much more carefully than most girls of her age.

"Martine would call her quaint," thought Priscilla, looking at her, "and if she knows as much about other things as she does about history, she must be a wonder."

"I wish my mother were here," said Eunice, politely. "She gets quite worked up when she talks about the Loyalists."

"I should think she would," responded Priscilla. "They certainly had a hard time."

"She thinks that we have been cut off from things that really are our own, and now, when we have so little money that I can't even afford to go away to college, she feels more and more indignant at the injustice of it all."

Priscilla did not know exactly what to say. In her mind there was a struggle between her feeling of patriotism and her sense of justice. As Eunice had put it, it did not seem fair that the Loyalists should have lost everything, simply because they had had the courage to hold out for the King. But a phrase came into her mind that she had often heard, and for the moment it seemed the only sentiment that she could express.

"After all," she said gently, "I suppose it was the 'fortune of war' that your people suffered so much."

"Oh, yes," responded Eunice, "that is what I often say to my mother; and then I tell her too, that in one hundred and twenty-five years the family probably would have lost all the property they had before the Revolution."

Finding that the subject was getting a little beyond her, Priscilla ventured a more general remark.

"There must be many interesting historical incidents connected with Annapolis; I mean, incidents that are not French," she concluded hastily. "I am just a little tired, myself, of the Acadians."

"I don't know of many very entertaining things," responded Eunice, "but I remember one story that might amuse you. During the Revolution, the people of Annapolis were awfully afraid of attacks from Privateers. You see, after the Acadians were driven out a large colony from New England came down here. They received grants of land from the government, and were very prosperous when the war began. Many were on the side of the Yankees, but in the end England was able to hold Nova Scotia. However, the small privateering vessels were constantly coming into Nova Scotia ports, and even Annapolis wasn't perfectly safe. One night two rebel schooners came up to the mouth of the river; they had about eighty men, and landed them safely, because the sentry at the fort was asleep. They entered the houses and stirred people up immensely; they seemed more bent on making mischief than in doing any real violence. There were not many citizens here in the town then, but one of them, looking from the window when he heard a noise in the street, saw two of the rebels disputing over something they had stolen; when they saw him at the window, they dashed into his house, and a minute or two afterwards another Annapolis man, only half dressed, rushed excitedly into the room to tell his friend that the Yankees were plundering the town; this was unnecessary information, because, as I have said, two rebels were already in the house. He discovered them with their bayonets pointed at him just as he had finished telling his story, and he was so surprised that he fell backward over a cradle, with his feet in the air. His comical appearance made the rebels laugh so, that he afterwards said that this saved his life, for before they had recovered he had jumped to his feet and run away. But later he and all the other able-bodied citizens were shut up in the fort, while the men from the schooners went through the houses and carried away everything movable. They allowed the ladies to keep their shoes, though they first removed the silver buckles. The schooners disappeared in the morning, when the report was spread around that the militia of the county were gathering and coming to Annapolis. That, I believe, was the only attack on Annapolis during the Revolution. It happened two or three years before the arrival of the refugees, and the accounts of it that have been handed down always represented it as a very comical affair."

"Did you say 'Yankees'?" asked Priscilla. "Did you mean—"

"Oh, I meant schooners from New England; I've heard they were from Cape Cod," replied Eunice.

"It was pretty small business," said Priscilla, almost apologetically. "I don't believe that the men on the schooners were either soldiers or sailors. I am sure that Washington wouldn't have approved if he had known."

"You don't think that all on your side were good, do you," asked Eunice, "and that all on ours were bad?"

Priscilla hardly knew what to reply. She was getting again into deep water, for she saw that although the war was long over, Eunice was still a strong partisan. So, as a kind of peace-offering, she asked Eunice if she would not walk back home with her.

"I should like to have you meet my friends whom I am travelling with," she said. "We are going to stay in Annapolis a week or more. Mrs. Redmond is making some beautiful sketches, and her daughter Amy is just dear; she is older than Martine and I, but she never makes us feel the difference in our ages, and she knows more than almost anybody I ever saw."

"I should love to walk back with you," said Eunice, "though I cannot stay very long. What is Martine like?" she asked abruptly.

"Oh, Martine,—well, Martine is different. She always sees the funny side of things, and she doesn't care what anything costs if she happens to want it. She's perfectly devoted to the French, and I'm so terribly tired of her Acadians that I want to find out what the English did in Annapolis."

"I will be glad to do what I can to help you," responded Eunice, "only you mustn't be too touchy about things; for you see we're still all English down here."

As Priscilla walked back to the boarding-house she congratulated herself on her new friend; for although she had known Eunice so short a time, she already regarded her as much more than an ordinary acquaintance.

"I can always tell," she said to herself, "whether any one is going to wear well. Mother says that that is the only test for real friends, and I can see that Eunice and I are likely to be more than acquaintances. I feel as if I had known her a long time. Now it wasn't so with Martine, and even though we have been together so much this summer, some way I don't feel perfectly comfortable with her. I'd like to be fair, but still—"

Yes, Priscilla meant to be fair, but still—what was the trouble? It is to be feared that she had not yet learned the real meaning of tolerance. Martine's point of view was often so unlike hers that Priscilla did not make enough effort to put herself in her friend's place. While believing herself just, she certainly permitted herself to be biassed little in her judgments. Nor did she realize that Martine herself often spoke in an exaggerated tone, chiefly for the purpose of seeing to what extent she could impose on Priscilla; for Martine, discovering Priscilla's attitude toward her, liked to say things to surprise her,—"Puritan Prissie," as she called her at these times.

It would not be quite true, perhaps, to say that Priscilla distrusted Martine's interest in Yvonne, although she had a strong conviction that it was merely impulse that had led her to promise so much.

"For the day that we spent at Meteghan, Yvonne was like a new plaything to her. Had Martine been with Yvonne a week, it would have been the same; she would have lavished things on her, and would have been ready to promise her anything. But 'out of sight, out of mind;' I believe that that is always the way with her. I am not even sure that she is as fond of Mrs. Redmond and Amy as she seems to be."

Poor Priscilla! she was really borrowing trouble needlessly, and yet in more senses than one it was real trouble to her, because she was never sure just how she ought to respond to the more flippant remarks made by Martine. They were often so witty that she could not help laughing, even when she felt the greatest need of preserving her own dignity.

Another grievance was Martine's way of addressing Amy. Priscilla herself had begun by trying to say "Miss Redmond;" occasionally she slipped into "Amy," but more usually "Miss Amy" was her form of address. Martine had laughed loudly at this, and one day she said, "It is what I call too servile. Amy is not greatly our superior, but still I'd rather call her Miss Redmond. I notice that Fritz Tomkins in some of his letters says 'Miss Amy Redmond.' I wonder if that would do for us?"

"Oh, Amy—that is, Miss Redmond—explained that it was just his way of making fun of her when he says 'Miss Amy Redmond.'"

"Probably, but when I can't think of anything else I will say that, though generally Amy is good enough for me, and here she is, looking as sweet as a rose." Whereupon, without the slightest regard for the dignity with which Priscilla would have liked to hedge Amy, Martine had thrown herself upon the older girl's neck, to the destruction of something less ideal than her dignity; to wit, the freshness of her muslin stock.

Thinking of this scene, Priscilla sighed. "Eunice would never do or say anything silly." This goes to show that she did indeed regard Eunice as a kindred spirit.

a tea party

"Prissie, Prissie," said Martine, in a teasing tone, "you are altogether too enthusiastic; I don't believe in these perfect people, and your little Tory must be rather a prig, from what you say."

When Martine called her "Prissie," Priscilla knew that she meant mischief, and though in her inmost heart she admitted that Martine's teasing carried no real sting, she never stood this teasing with very good grace.

"She isn't a Tory," she replied rather sharply; "there are no Tories in these days, and Eunice Airton is not a prig."