The incident at the forge, as it seemed to me, was one to scatter effectually any rumours of my connection with Vaurin, and I congratulated myself most heartily upon it. It could not fail, I thought, to look well in Yvonne’s eyes. It confirmed me in my resolve to go to Canard that afternoon, and perhaps to Pereau, getting my uncle’s business off my hands, and not returning to De Lamourie Place till I might be sure that the circumstances had been heard and well digested there. Having this course settled in my mind, I passed the church, entered the gate between its flowering lilac-bushes, and hastened up the narrow path to Father Fafard’s door. Ere I could reach it the good priest stood upon his threshold to greet me, both hands out, his kind grey eyes half closed by the crowding smiles that creased his round and ruddy face.
“My boy!” he said. “I have looked for you 78all the morning. Why didn’t you come to me last night?”
His voice, big, yet low and soft, had ever quaintly reminded me of a ripe apple in its mellow firmness.
Both hands in his, I answered, bantering him:
“But, father, the church gave me work to do last night. Could I neglect that? I had to see that the Reverend Father La Garne did not turn aside from his sacred ministrations to burn down the houses of my friends.”
The kind face grew grave and stern.
“I know! I know!” he said. “This land of Acadie is in an evil case. But come, let us eat, and talk afterwards. I have waited for you far past my hour.”
He turned into his little dining-room, a very plainly furnished closet off the kitchen.
I was hungry, so for a space there was no talk, while the fried chicken and barley cakes which the brown old housekeeper set before us made rapid disappearance. Then came sweet curds with thick cream, and sugar of the maple grated over them,—a dish of which delectable memories had clung to me from boyhood. This savory and wholesome meal done, Father Fafard brought out some dark-red West Indian rum which smelled most pleasantly. As he poured it for me he tapped the bottle and said:
“This comes to us by way of Boston. These 79English have an excellent judgment in liquor, Paul. It is one of our small compensations.”
I laughed, thinking of the scant concern it was to Father Fafard, ever, for all his fineness of palate, one of the most abstemious of men. As we sat at ease and sipped the brew he said:
“I hear you faced down the Black Abbé last night, and fairly drove him off the field.”
“I had that satisfaction,” said I, striving to look modest over it.
“He gave way to you, the Black Abbé himself, who browbeats the commandant at Beauséjour, and fears no man living,—unless it be that mad heretic Gr?l, perchance! And he yielded to your authority, my boy? How do you account for the miracle?”
Now it had not hitherto seemed to me so much of a miracle, and I was a shade nettled that it should seem one to others. I was used to controlling violent men, and why not meddling priests?
“I suppose he saw I meant it. Perhaps he respected the king’s commission. I know not,” said I with indifference.
Father Fafard smiled dryly.
“I grant,” said he, “that you are a hard man to cross, Paul, for all your graciousness. But La Garne would risk that, or anything; and he cares for the king’s commission only when it suits him to care for it. Oh, no! If he gave way to you he 80believed you were doing his work, and he would not interfere. What is your errand to Acadie, Paul?” he added, suddenly leaning forward and searching my face.
I felt myself flush with indignation, and half rose from my seat. Then I remembered that he knew nothing of my reasons for coming, and that his question was but natural. This cooled me. But I looked him reproachfully in the eyes.
“Do you think me a conspirator and a companion of cut-throats?” I asked. “I have no public business to bring me here to Grand Pré, father. I got short leave from my general, my first in two years, and I have come to Acadie for my own pleasure and for no reason else. My word!”
He leaned back with an air of relief.
“It is, of course, enough, Paul,” said he heartily. “But in these bad days one knows not what to expect, nor whence the bolt may fall. There is distrust on all sides. As for my unhappy people, they are like to be ground to dust between the upper stone of England and the lower stone of France.” He sighed heavily, looking out upon his dooryard lilacs as if he thought to bid them soon farewell. Then the kindly glance came back into his eyes, and he turned them again upon me.
“But why,” he inquired, “did you go first to Monsieur de Lamourie’s, instead of coming, as of old, at once to me?”
81I hesitated; then decided to speak frankly, so far as might seem fitting.
“Gr?l warned me,” said I, “that Mademoiselle de Lamourie was in danger. I dared not delay.”
“Why she in especial?” he persisted, gravely teasing, as was his right and custom. “Were not monsieur and madame in like peril of the good abbé’s hand?”
“It was her peril that most concerned me,” I said bluntly.
He studied my face, and then, I suppose, read my heart, which I made no effort to veil. The smile went from his lips.
“I fear you love the girl, Paul,” said he very gently. “I am sorry for you, more sorry than I can say. But you are too late. Were you told about the Englishman?”
“I met him,” said I, with a voice less steady than I desired it to be, for my heart was straightway in insurrection at the topic. “Madame told me, incidentally. But it is not too late, father! I may call it so when she is dead, or I.”
“It is your hurt that speaks in haste,” said he rebukingly. “But you know you are wrong, and such words idle. Indeed, my dear, dear boy, I would you had her, not he. But her troth is solemnly plighted, and he is a good man and fair to look at; though I like him not over well. As he was a Protestant, I long stood out against him; 82but Giles de Lamourie is now half English at heart, and Yvonne is wilful. Why were you not here to help me a half year back, my boy?”
“Ay! why not?” I exclaimed bitterly, gripping my pewter mug till it lost all semblance of a mug. “And why was I a fool, a blind, blind dolt, when I was here, two years back? But I am here now. And you shall see I am not too late!”
“You speak rashly, Paul,” said he, with a trace of sternness. “You may be sure, however much I love you, I will not help you now in your wicked purpose. Would you make her false to her word?”
“Her word was false to her heart, that I know,” said I. “Better be false for a little than for a lifetime, and two lives made as one death for it.”
The round, kindly face smiled ironically at the passion which had crept into my voice.
“You speak now as a poet, I think, Paul,” said he. “I suppose I must allow for some hyperbole and not be too much alarmed at your passion. Yet I must confess you seem to me too old for this child-talk of life and death, as if they were both compassed in a woman’s loving or not loving.”
“I speak with all sobriety, father,” said I, “and I speak of that which I know. Forgive me if I suggest that you do less.”
The priest’s eyes shaded as with sorrowful remembrance, 83and he looked out across the apple-trees as he answered:
“You think I have always been a priest,” said he; “that I have always dwelt where the passions and pains of earth can touch me only as reflected from the hearts of others—the hearts into which I look as into a mirror. How should I understand what I see in such a mirror, if I had not myself once known these things that make storm in man’s life? I have loved, Paul.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Enough,” said he, “to lose her for her own good. I was a poor student with no prospects. She was beautiful and good, and her duty to her family required that she should marry as they wished. I had no right to her. I could not have her. For her love I vowed to live single—and I have come to know that the love of a woman is but one small part of life.”
“Plainly,” said I, watching him with interest, “there was no resistless compulsion in that love. But you are right; of most lives love is but an accident, the plaything of propinquity. It dimly feels its insignificance in the face of serious affairs, and gives place, as it should. But there is a love which is different. Few, indeed, are they who are born to endure the light of its uncovered face; but all have heard the dim tradition of it. I cannot make you understand it, father, any more than I 84could teach a blind man the wonder of that radiating blue up there. That old half-knowledge of yours has sealed your eyes more closely than if you had never known at all. I can only tell you there is a love to which life and death must serve as lackeys.”
As he listened, first astonishment marked his face; for never before had I spoken to him save as a boy to his trusted master. Then indignation struggled with solicitude. Then he seemed to remember that I was not a boy, but a man well hardened in the school of stern experience. Therefore he seemed to decide that I must be treated with mild banter. He lay back in his chair, folded his well-kept hands on his ample stomach, and chuckled indulgently before replying.
“The fever is upon you, Paul,” said he. “Poet and peasant alike must have it. In this form it is not often more dangerous or more lasting than measles; but unlike measles, alas, one attack grants no immunity from another!”
I loved him well, and his jibes stung me not at all. I fell comfortably into his mood.
“A frontier fighter must be his own physician,” I said lightly. “You shall see how I will medicine this fever.”
“I will trust Yvonne de Lamourie’s plighted word,” he said gravely, after a pause of some moments. Then a wave of strong feeling went over 85his face, and he broke out with a passion in his voice:
“Paul, do not misjudge me. I love you as my own son, and there is no one else in the world whom I love as I love Yvonne de Lamourie. Not her own father can love her as I do, a lonely old man to whom her face is more than sunshine. Do I not desire with all my heart that you should have her—you whom I trust, you whom I know to be a true son of the church? But as I must tell you again, though it grieves me to say it, you have come too late. The Englishman’s faithful and unselfish devotion has won her promise. She will keep it, and she will bring him into the church. Moreover, she owes him more than she can ever repay. Giles de Lamourie has long been under the suspicion of the English government, who accused him, unjustly, of having had a hand in the massacre of the New Englanders here. His estates were on the very verge of confiscation; but Anderson saved him and made him secure. That there is some dreadful fate even now hanging over this fair land I feel assured. What it may be I dare not guess; but in the hour of ruin George Anderson will see that the house of De Lamourie stands unscathed. For, Paul, I know that Heaven is with the English in this quarrel. Our iniquity in high places has not escaped unseen.”
86“Gr?l’s prophecy touches even you,” I remarked, rising. “But I must go, father. I have errands across the dyke, for my uncle; and I would be back for the night, if possible, to ease the fears of Monsieur de Lamourie. And as for her—be assured I will use none but fair means in the great venture of my life.”
“I am assured of it, Paul,” said he, grasping my outstretched hand with all affection. “And I am assured, too, that you will utterly and irremediably fail. Therefore I am the less troubled, my dear boy, though my heart is sore enough for you.”
“I can but thank God,” I retorted cheerfully, retreating down the path between the lilacs, “that the offices of priest and prophet do sometimes exist apart.”
As I looked back at him, before turning down the lane, his kind, round, ruddy face was puckered solicitously over a problem which grew but the harder as he pondered it.