Read Ebook: The Heir to Grand-Pré by Herbin John Frederic

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Ebook has 663 lines and 40723 words, and 14 pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The garnet dulse and glistening curls of weed."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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