Amy in Acadia Part 12

Priscilla, reading the inscription, wondered why she had never before heard of this man, who evidently had been so much to his own people.

Acadia is not far from Ma.s.sachusetts, and yet already she realized that this was a corner of the world of which she knew far too little. Amy, however, could tell her what she wished to know, and she hurried on to join the others, who were now far ahead.

"Amy," she cried, overtaking her friend, "tell me something about the Abbe Sigogne; I am ashamed to say that I never heard of him before."

Pierre glanced at the American girl with an expression of absolute amazement at her ignorance.

"There is so much to tell," said Amy, "that it would be too long a story for the time that we have now; yet as we walk along I can give you a little idea of his work. He was a French priest of good family, who barely escaped losing his head during the French Revolution. After fleeing from France he lived a few years in England. When he heard that the poor Acadians of Clare were without a clergyman, he decided to go to them, and from that time he made their lot his. This was in 1799, about thirty years after their return from exile, and though they had cleared the forest and built houses, they had made little progress in other ways; they were without schools and almost without religion, but the good Abbe built them a church, established schools, and made frequent visits to all the little settlements along St. Mary's Bay, often travelling along the coast in a small, open boat. He taught them many things besides religion. He made them firm in their allegiance to Great Britain, and when he died, in 1844, he was bitterly mourned by all who knew him, whether English or French."

When Amy and Priscilla and Pierre caught up with the others, they were in a large field, looking at a spot of ground on which Madame Bourque said had stood the very first house at Point a l'eglise, built after the exile. Near by was a little old graveyard, where the first generation of returning exiles had been buried. Only a few graves were marked, and these with rough stones without inscriptions. A rude arch of whalebone formed the entrance to this little enclosure. It was not very far from the point of land on which stood the lighthouse, near which, along the edge of the sea, a file of black-coated priests was walking. Though they were indistinctly seen in the distance, their large caps and flapping surtouts gave them a picturesque appearance.

A strange structure like a shrine of open slats decorated with spruce boughs attracted Martine's attention, and she insisted on making a sketch of it.

"It is a repository," explained Pierre, politely, "where the priest stands, as a station for the procession, on festival days."

When they returned to the College of St. Anne, Madame Bourque grew more and more eloquent.

"Is it not wonderful," she said, "that all this great building is restored since the fire of two years ago? You will come inside, ladies, and see how pleasant the rooms are."

"I will stay outside," replied Priscilla, "and watch the horses," she concluded rather lamely.

"Nonsense," began Amy, but looking at Priscilla, she saw that the young girl was in earnest, and so insisted no further.

"Amy," whispered Priscilla, as her friend drew near her, "I was sorry afterwards that I went into the convent yesterday, and so I would much rather not go into a priest's house."

"I had no idea that you would be so narrow," rejoined Amy.

"I don't mean to be narrow," responded Priscilla, "but I really don't feel like going inside."

So Priscilla sat down on the gra.s.s near the monument and all the others went inside the main building of the College of St. Anne. Not very long afterwards Mrs. Redmond came out again, with her sketch-book in her hand. "I thought it a good time now to make a sketch of the church. I have seen many other schools like this one, for, after all, it's only a boys' boarding-school. The girls enjoy practising their French with the Eudist Father, who is taking them about, and it will probably be some time before they are ready to leave. I think you make a mistake, Priscilla, in not joining them."

"It isn't a very old building," said Priscilla, implying that this was sufficient reason for her staying away from the party.

"It is certainly not very old," rejoined Mrs. Redmond; "the college has been established less than ten years. It is a great thing to have founded it here in the midst of the Acadians, and it has made the boys of Clare much more ambitious."

"What good is a college education to them?" asked Priscilla; "fis.h.i.+ng and farming seem to be their chief occupations."

"This is really only a preparatory school," replied Mrs. Redmond, "and the boys who are going into the Church or into the professions enter other colleges in Canada or in France. The Father told us with pride of the high standing of some of the graduates in their work in other colleges."

"If I do not care for the college," said Priscilla, "I love this church of Abbe Sigogne's; it makes me think of a New England meeting-house, with its white walls and steeple."

Mrs. Redmond's sketch was hardly finished when the others came out from the college. Madame Bourque was in her most talkative mood, as she led them across the road into the white church. This time Priscilla went with them and looked with some interest at the paintings on the wall, and the sacred emblems, and the tablet inscribed to the memory of Abbe Sigogne.

Martine, it must be admitted, found something amusing even in this church, for inside the gallery where the choir boys sat were many pictures of little boats, and even of full-rigged s.h.i.+ps scratched in deeply with a penknife, presumably by the fingers of mischievous young singers.

Pierre, who happened to be with Martine when she made this discovery, did not laugh with her, but shaking his head solemnly, said, "Ah, those pictures show what really fills the heart of the Acadian boy."

Madame Bourque was disappointed that her party of Americans did not care to visit the girls' school near by, but the hour was late, and the tired-looking horses were not likely to make speed on the way home.

"We have really seen so much," said Mrs. Redmond, "that we shall need to think it all over before seeing more, and you have been so good a guide that in our one visit to Church Point we have learned as much as most persons do in two."

"We have learned a great deal," murmured Priscilla to Amy, "but I always feel that Madame Bourque paints the Acadians as much more remarkable than they are. But I should like to have seen Father Sigogne baptizing Indian pappooses; they say that he used to wipe their faces with his gown to find a spot where he could kiss them."

"Yes, and Madame Bourque says that there are people still living who can remember great crowds of Indians filing through the woods to Church Point that they might receive Abbe Sigogne's blessing on St Anne's Day."

CHAPTER VII

DIGBY DAYS

On the way back to Little Brook Amy had a good chance to talk with little Pierre about his hopes and ambitions. She found that he was extremely fond of reading, and it was almost impossible for him to get books such as a boy loves to read. About half a mile from Madame Bourque's, Pierre pointed out a small cottage which he said was his home.

"My mother will be there now," he said, "and I hope you will come in with me to see her. She does not speak so very good English," he added apologetically, "but she can understand it."

Though Madame Rob.i.+.c.haud greeted Amy warmly and thanked her for her kindness to Pierre, there was something pathetic in her manner and appearance. She was a tall, thin woman, with a delicate, pale face that was made all the paler by her plain black gown and the _couvre-chef_ that covered her hair. Her husband, Pierre explained, was lost at sea when Pierre was five years old, and since that time she had supported them both wholly by her own labor.

Madame Rob.i.+.c.haud showed Amy with great pride some drawings nailed to the wall that Pierre himself had made,--simple drawings of s.h.i.+ps and houses that showed draughtsmans.h.i.+p rather than imagination. These suggested to Amy that Pierre had a talent that might be cultivated to greater advantage than his ambition for school-teaching.

She and Pierre parted reluctantly, and Madame Rob.i.+.c.haud promised that the little boy should be at the hotel in the morning before Amy left Little Brook.

All the travellers slept soundly that night despite the huge feather-beds that Madame Bourque had provided, as she thought, for their comfort.

In the morning they wrote their names in her visitors' book, on whose pages were inscribed the names of a number of Americans, some of them fairly well known, who at one time or another had been guests at the Hotel Paris. Pierre arrived very soon after breakfast with a great bunch of hollyhocks or _pa.s.se-rose_ for Amy. He had evidently taken a great fancy to his new friend.

"She is more beautiful even than my school-teacher," he had said to Madame Bourque; a compliment which the latter repeated as of especial value, because hitherto Pierre had considered his teacher the model of womanly perfection.

"Martine," said Mrs. Redmond, before the carriage arrived, "have you written to Yvonne?"

"Oh, no; I meant to, but now I'll wait till we reach Digby."

"I fear that Yvonne will be disappointed. She probably expected a letter to-day."

"I know it; I am ashamed of myself."

Martine's tone was penitent, but no one who knew Martine ever expected her to do promptly what she had promised. It was always a little easier to put off things to another day. Priscilla looked at her scornfully, as if to say "How fickle!"

When at last they were ready to start, all felt sad at parting with Madame Bourque and her family, for in two days they had come to seem almost like old friends. The two little Bourque girls, as the carriage drove off, looked with astonishment at the dollar bill that Mrs. Redmond had put in the hands of the elder to divide with her younger sister.

Pierre walked on a little way with Amy before she mounted her wheel, and on saying good-bye at last he knew that the American lady would really send him the books that she had promised.

Their train to Digby was not the famous "Flying Bluenose," but a local that made no pretence of hurrying; it instead gave them ample opportunity to study the scenery from the windows.

When at last they reached Digby, they were warm and dust-covered, and glad enough, too, when they found carriages waiting for them at the station.

"It's nothing but a summer resort, this Digby that we have heard so much about," complained Martine, as they drove along the main street. "Just look at those boys in golf suits, and that crowd carrying shawls and wraps as if bound for a sailboat. Why, the town doesn't even look English. It makes me think of Blue Harbor in Maine, where we spent one summer."