The Forge in the Forest.

by Charles G. D. Roberts.

Part I

Marc

The Forge in the Forest

A Foreword

Where the Five Rivers flow down to meet the swinging of the Minas tides, and the Great Cape of Blomidon bars out the storm and the fog, lies half a county of rich meadow-lands and long-arcaded orchards. It is a deep-bosomed land, a land of fat cattle, of well-filled barns, of ample cheeses and strong cider; and a well-conditioned folk inhabit it.

But behind this countenance of gladness and peace broods the memory of a vanished people. These ma.s.sive d.y.k.es, whereon twice daily the huge tide beats in vain, were built by hands not suffered to possess the fruits of their labour. These comfortable fields have been scorched with the ruin of burning homes, drenched with the tears of women hurried into exile. These orchard lanes, appropriate to the laughter of children or the silences of lovers, have rung with battle and run deep with blood. Though the race whose bane he was has gone, still stalks the sinister shadow of the Black Abbe.

The low ridge running between the d.y.k.elands of the Habitants and the d.y.k.e-lands of the Canard still carries patches of forest interspersed among its farms, for its soil is sandy and not greatly to be coveted for tillage. These patches are but meagre second growth, with here and there a gnarled birch or overpeering pine, lonely survivor of the primeval brotherhood. The undergrowth has long smoothed out all traces of what a curious eye might fifty years ago have discerned,--the foundations of the chimney of a blacksmith's forge. It is a mould well steeped in fateful devisings, this which lies forgotten under the creeping roots of juniper and ragged-robin, between the diminished stream of Canard and the yellow tide of Habitants.

The forest then was a wide-spreading solemnity of shade wherein armies might have moved unseen. The forge stood where the trail from Pereau ran into the more travelled road from the Canard to Grand Pre. The branches of the ancient wood came down all about its low eaves; and the squirrels and blue jays chattered on its roof. It was a place for the gathering of restless spirits, the men of Acadie who hated to accept the flag of the English king. It was the Acadian headquarters of the noted ranger, Jean de Mer, who was still called by courtesy, and by the grace of such of his people as adhered to his altered fortunes, the Seigneur de Briart. His father had been lord of the whole region between Blomidon and Grand Pre; but the English occupation had deprived him of all open and formal lordship, for the de Briart sword was notably conspicuous on the side of New France. Nevertheless, many of Jean de Mer's habitants maintained to him a chivalrous allegiance, and paid him rents for lands which in the English eye were freehold properties. He cherished his hold upon these faithful folk, willing by all honest means to keep their hearts to France. His one son, Marc, grew up at Grand Pre, save for the three years of his studying at Quebec. His faithful retainer, Babin, wielding a smith's hammer at the Forge, had ears of wisdom and a tongue of discretion for the men who came and went. Once or twice in the year, it was de Mer's custom to visit the Grand Pre country, where he would set his hand to the work of the forge after Babin's fashion, playing his part to the befooling of English eyes, and taking, in truth, a quaint pride in his pretended craft. At the time, however, when this narrative opens, he had been a whole three years absent from the Acadian land, and his home-coming was yet but three days old.

Chapter I

The Capture at the Forge

It was good to be alive that afternoon. A speckled patch of sunshine, having pushed its way through the branches across the road, lay spread out on the dusty floor of the forge. On a block just inside the door sat Marc, his lean, dark face,--the Belleisle face, made more hawklike by the blood of his Pen.o.bscot grandmother,--all aglow with eagerness.

The lazy youngster was not shamed at the sight of my diligence, but talked right on, with a volubility which would have much displeased his Pen.o.bscot grandmother. It was pleasant to be back with the lad again, and I was aweary of the war, which of late had kept my feet forever on the move from Louisbourg to the Richelieu. My fire gave a cheerful roar as I heaved upon the bellows, and turned my pike-point in the glowing charcoal. As the roar sighed down into silence there was a merry whirr of wings, and a covey of young partridges flashed across the road. A contented mind and a full stomach do often make a man a fool, or I should have made shift to inquire why the partridges had so sharply taken wing. But I never thought of it. I turned, and let the iron grow cool, and leaned with one foot on the anvil, to hear the boy's talk. My soul was indeed asleep, lulled by content, or I would surely have felt the gleam of the beady eyes that watched me through a c.h.i.n.k in the logs beside the chimney. But I felt those eyes no more than if I had been a log myself.

"Yes, Father," said Marc, pausing in rich contemplation of the picture in his mind's eye, "you would like her hair! It is unmistakably red,--a chestnut red. But her sister's is redder still!"

I smiled at his knowledge of my little weakness for hair of that colour; but not of a woman's hair was I thinking at that moment, or I should surely have made some question about the sister. My mind ran off upon another trail.

"And what do the English think they're going to do when de Ramezay comes down upon them?" I inquired. "Do they flatter themselves their tumble-down Annapolis is strong enough to hold us off?"

The lad flushed resentfully and straightened himself up on his seat.

"Do you suppose, Father, that I was in the fort, and hobn.o.bbing with the Governor?" he asked coldly. "I spoke with none of the English save Prudence and her sister, and the child."

"But why not?" said I, unwilling to acknowledge that I had said anything at which he might take offence. "Every one knows your good disposition toward the English, and I should suppose you were in favour at Annapolis. The Governor, I know, makes much of all our people who favour the English cause."

Marc stood up,--lean, and fine, and a good half head taller than his father,--and looked at me with eyes of puzzled wrath.

"And you think that I, knowing all I do of de Ramezay's plans, would talk to the English about them!" he exclaimed in a voice of keen reproach.

Now, I understood his anger well enough, and in my heart rejoiced at it; for though I knew his honour would endure no stain, I had nevertheless feared lest I should find his sympathies all English. He was a lad with a way of thinking much and thinking for himself, and even now, at twenty year, far more of a scholar than I had ever found time to be. Therefore, I say, his indignation pleased me mightily.

Nevertheless I kept at him.

"Chut!" said I, "all the world knows by now of de Ramezay's plans.

There had been no taint of treachery in talking of them!"

Marc sat down again, and the ghost of a smile flickered over his lean face. Though free enough of his speech betimes, he was for the most part as unsmiling as an Indian.

"I see you are mocking me, Father," he said presently, relighting his pipe. "Indeed, you know very well I am on your side, for weal or ill.

As long as there was a chance of the English being left in peaceable possession of Acadie, I urged that we should accept their rule fully and in good faith. No one can say they haven't ruled us gently and generously. And I feel right sure they will continue to rule us, for the odds are on their side in the game they play with France. But seeing that the game has yet to be played out, there is only one side for me, and I believe it to be the losing one. Though as a boy I liked them well enough, I have nothing more to do with the English now except to fight them. How could I have another flag than yours?"

"You are my own true lad, whatever our difference of opinion!" said I.

And if my voice trembled in a manner that might show a softness unsuited to a veteran of my training, bear in mind that, till within the past three days, I had not seen the lad for three years, and then but briefly. At Grand Pre, 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 Pen.o.bscot 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 Pen.o.bscot 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 Abbe 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 Abbe!"

Again that ghost of a smile glimmered on Marc's lips.

"I fear you speak too late, Father!" said he, quietly. "The reverend Abbe 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 Abbe, 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 leaf.a.ge at one end of the forge, came the call of the big yellow-winged woodp.e.c.k.e.r. I p.r.i.c.ked up my ears and stiffened my muscles, expectant of I knew not what.

Marc looked at me with some surprise.

"It's only a woodp.e.c.k.e.r!" 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 b.l.o.o.d.y Ma.s.sachusetts 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.r, 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?"