days, I had not seen the lad for three years, and then but briefly. At Grand Pré, and in Quebec at school, Marc had grown up outside my roving life, and I was just opening my eyes to find a comrade in this tall son of my boyhood's love. His mother, a daughter of old Baron St. Castin by his Penobscot wife, had died while he was yet at the breast. A babe plays but a small part in the life of a ranging bush-fighter, though I had ever a great tenderness for the little lad. Now, however, I was looking upon him with new eyes.
Having blown the coals again into a heat, I returned to Marc's words, certain of which had somewhat stuck in my crop.
"But you speak with despondence, lad, of the chances of the war, and of the hope of Acadie! By St. Joseph, we'll drive the English all the way back of the Penobscot before you're a twelvemonth older. And Acadie will see the Flag of the Lilies flapping once more over the ramparts of Port Royal."
Marc shook his head slowly, and seemed to be following with his eyes the vague pattern of the shadows on the floor.
"It seems to me," said he, with a conviction which caught sharply at my heart even though I bore in mind his youth and inexperience, "that rather will the Flag of the Lilies be cast down even from the strong walls of Quebec. But may that day be far off! As for our people here in Acadie, during the last twelvemonth it has been made very clear to me that evil days are ahead. The Black Abbé is preparing many sorrows for us here in Acadie."
"I suppose you mean La Garne!" said I. "He's a diligent servant to France; but I hate a bad priest. He's a dangerous man to cross, Marc! Don't go out of your way to make an enemy of the Black Abbé!"
Again that ghost of a smile glimmered on Marc's lips.
"I fear you speak too late, Father!" said he, quietly. "The reverend Abbé has already marked me. He so far honours me as to think that I am an obstacle in his path. There be some whose eyes I have opened to his villany, so that he has lost much credit in certain of the parishes. I doubt not that he will contrive some shrewd stroke for vengeance."
My face fell somewhat, for I am not ashamed to confess that I fear a bad priest, the more so in that I yield to none in my reverence for a good one. I turned my iron sharply in the coals, and then exclaimed:
"Oh, well, we need not greatly trouble ourselves. There are others, methinks, as strong as the Black Abbé, evil though he be!" But I spoke, as I have often found it expedient to do, with more confidence than I felt.
Even at this moment, shrill and clear from the leafage at one end of the forge, came the call of the big yellow-winged woodpecker. I pricked up my ears and stiffened my muscles, expectant of I knew not what.
Marc looked at me with some surprise.
"It's only a woodpecker!" said he.
"But it's only in the spring," I protested, "that he has a cry like that!"
"He cries untimely, as an omen of the ills to come!" said Marc, half meaning it and half in jest.
Had it been anywhere on the perilous frontier, – on the Richelieu or in the West, or nigh the bloody Massachusetts line, my suspicions would have sprung up wide awake. But in this quiet land between the Habitants and the Canard I was off my guard, – and what a relief it was, indeed, to let myself be careless for a little! I thought no more of the woodpecker, but remembered that sister with the red hair. I came back to her by indirection, however.
"And how did you manage, lad, to be seeing Mistress Prudence, and her sister, and the child, and yet no others of the English? A matter of dark nights and back windows? Eh? But come to think of it, there was a clear moon this day four weeks back, when you were at Annapolis."
"No, Father," answered Marc, "it was all much more simple and less adventurous than that. Some short way out of the town is a little river, the Equille, and a pleasant hidden glade set high upon its bank. It is a favoured resort of both the ladies; and there I met them as often as I was permitted. Mizpah would sometimes choose to play apart with the child, down by the water's edge if the tide were full, so I had some gracious opportunity with Prudence. – My time being brief, I made the most of it!" he added drily. His quaint directness amused me mightily, and I chuckled as I shaped the red iron upon the anvil.
"And who," I inquired, "is this kind sister, with the even redder hair, who goes away with such a timely discretion?"
"Oh, yes," said Marc, "I forgot you knew nothing of her. She is Mistress Mizpah Hanford, the widow of a Captain Hanford who was some far connection of the Governor's. Her property is in and about Annapolis, and she lives there to manage it, keeping Prudence with her for companionship. Her child is four or five years old, a yellow-haired, rosy boy called Philip. She's very tall, – a head taller than Prudence, and older, of course, by perhaps eight years; and very fair, though not so fair as Prudence; and altogether – "
But at this point I interrupted him.
"What's the matter with the Indian?" I exclaimed, staring out across Marc's shoulders.
He sprang to his feet and looked around sharply. An Indian, carrying three shad strung upon a sapling, had just appeared on the road before the forge door. As he came in view he was reeling heavily, and clutching at his head. He dropped his fish; and a moment later he himself fell headlong, and lay face downward in the middle of the road. I remember thinking that his legs sprawled childishly. Marc strolled over to him with slow indifference.
"Have a care!" I exclaimed. "There may be some trap in it! It looks not natural!"
"What trap can there be?" asked Marc, turning the body over. "It's Red Moose, a Shubenacadie Micmac. I like not the breed; but ever since he got a hurt on the head, in a fight at Canseau last year, he has been subject to the falling sickness. Let us carry him to a shady place, and he'll come to himself presently!"
I was at his side in a moment, and we stooped to lift the seemingly lifeless figure. In an instant its arms were about my neck in a strangling embrace. At the same time my own arms were seized. I heard a fierce cry from Marc, and a groan that was not his. The next moment, though I writhed and struggled with all my strength, I found myself bound hand and foot, and seated on the ground with my back against the door-post of the forge. Marc, bound like myself, lay by the roadside; and a painted savage sat near him nursing with both hands a broken jaw. A dozen Micmacs stood about us. Leaning against the door-post over against me was the black-robed form of La Garne. He eyed me, for perhaps ten seconds, with a smile of fine and penetrating sarcasm. Then he told his followers to stand Marc up against a tree.
Chapter II
The Black Abbé
When first I saw that smile on the Black Abbé's face, and realized what had befallen us, I came nigh to bursting with rage, and was on the point of telling my captor some truths to make his ears tingle. But when I heard the order to stand Marc up against a tree my veins for an instant turned to ice. Many men – and some women, too, God help me, I then being bound and gagged, – had I seen thus stood up against a tree, and never but for one end. I could not believe that such an end was contemplated now, and that by a priest of the Church, however unworthy of his office! But I checked my tongue and spoke the Abbé fair.
"It is quite plain to me, Monsieur," said I, quietly, "that my son and I are the victims of some serious mistake, for which you will, I am sure, feel constrained to ask our pardon presently. I await your explanations."
La Garne, still smiling, looked me over slowly. Never before had I seen him face to face, though he had more than once traversed my line of vision. I had known the tireless figure, as tall, almost, as Marc himself, stoop-shouldered, but robust, now moving swiftly as if propelled by an energy irresistible,
