The Raid from Beausejour; and How the Carter Boys Lifted the Mortgage Part 5

The Indian s.n.a.t.c.hed again at the bundle, this time ineffectually; and then he drew his knife as if to attack Pierre. The latter jumped back, laid his burden on the ground, and stood before it, hatchet in hand.

Seeing he was not to be intimidated, and willing to avoid a hand-to-hand struggle with one who seemed so ready for it, the savage withdrew grumbling, at the same time resolving that he would force Pierre later on to divide his booty. As soon as he was gone Pierre s.n.a.t.c.hed up his charge and sped away exultant.

The boy's design was to follow the Kenneticook to its mouth, and thence to ascend the Piziquid to the Acadian settlement, which he knew stood somewhere on its banks. He did not dare to try and find his way back to Beausejour. He knew that if he followed the trail of his party he would be captured and the child killed; and we was equally certain that if he deserted the trail he should be lost inevitably. Once at Piziquid, however, he counted on getting a fisherman to take him to Beausejour by water.

After toiling through the woods for perhaps an hour, keeping ever within hearing of the stream, Pierre set his burden on the ground and threw himself down beside her to s.n.a.t.c.h a moment's rest. The little one was in her bare feet, so it was impossible for her to walk in that rough and difficult region. Indeed, she had nothing on but a woolen nightdress, and Pierre had to keep her well wrapped up in the blanket he had brought from her bed. The little one had been contentedly sleeping in her deliverer's arms, all unconscious of the awful fate that had befallen those whom Pierre supposed to be her people. She remained asleep while Pierre was resting, nor woke till it was clear dawn.

Long ere this Pierre had found easier traveling, having come out upon a series of natural meadows skirting the stream. Beyond these meadows were wide flats, covered at high tide, and Pierre, with an Acadian's instinct, thought how fine it would be to dike them in. He had little fear now of being followed. His party would take it for granted, not finding him or his body, that he had fallen in the attack and been burnt in the conflagration. He felt that they would not greatly trouble themselves. As for those four who had seen him with his prize, two at least would not tell on him and he had strong hopes that the two Micmacs whom he had encountered would forget his prize in the confusion of the hour. Beside a rivulet, in the gray of dawn, he stopped to wash himself; that his appearance might not frighten the child on her awaking.

When the little one opened her eyes she looked about her in astonishment, which became delight as she saw the glittering brook close beside her and the many-colored sky overhead. She crept out of her blanket and stood with her little white feet s.h.i.+ning in the short spring gra.s.s. Then she stepped into the brook, but finding it too cold for her she came out again at once. Then she stood s.h.i.+vering till Pierre, after drying her feet on his blanket, once more wrapped her up and seated her on a fallen tree beside him. The child kept up a continual prattle, of which, of course, Pierre understood not a word. He could only smile and stroke the little fair head. When he spoke to her in his own language the child gazed at him in wide-eyed wonder, and at last laughed gleefully and began to pat his face, talking a lot of baby gibberish, such as she imagined Pierre was addressing to her.

By and by Pierre remembered he was hungry. Taking some barley bread and dried meat out of the bag he carried at his waist, he offered the choicest bits to his tiny companion, and the two made a good breakfast.

Out of a strip of birchbark the lad twisted a cup and gave the child to drink. Then, lifting her to his shoulder, he resumed his journey.

As the sun rose and the day grew warm Pierre let the child walk by his side; but the tender little feet were not used to such work, and almost immediately she cried to be taken up again. On this Pierre improvised her a clumsy pair of moccasins, made of strips of his blanket.

These the little one regarded at first with lofty contempt, but when she found they enabled her to run by her protector's side she was delighted.

It was necessary to stop often and rest long, so our travelers made slow progress; but at noon, climbing a bluff which overlooked the river for miles in either direction, Pierre was delighted to find himself within two or three miles of the mouth. He marked, moreover, a short cut by which, taking advantage of the curve in the main river, he could cut off five or six miles and strike the banks of the Piziquid without difficulty or risk.

"By this time to-morrow, if all goes well, we'll be safe in Piziquid, cherie!" he cried joyously to the child, who responded with a mirthful stream of babble. Pierre's conversation she regarded as a huge and perpetual joke.

That night Pierre built a rough lean-to under the shelter of a great white plaster-rock, and there in a heap of fragrant branches, the child wrapped closely in the lad's arms, the lonely pair slept warm and secure.

The next day was mild and our travelers found their path easy. Ere noon they arrived within sight of Piziquid.

They were on a hill with the Acadian village stretched out before them far below, but a broad river rolling between them and their destination.

Pierre had forgotten about the St. Croix, but he recognized it now from description. He saw, to his disappointment, that he would have to make a long detour to pa.s.s this obstacle, so he sat down on the hill to rest and refresh his little companion. The little one was now so tired that she fell instantly to sleep, and Pierre thought it wise to let her sleep a good half hour. Even he himself appreciated well the delay; and the view that unrolled beneath him was magnificent.

Right ahead, in the corner of land between the Piziquid River and the St. Croix, rose a rounded hill crowned with the English post of Fort Edward. Beyond to right and left expanded plains of vivid emerald, with a line of undulating uplands running back from Fort Edward and dividing the marshes of the St. Croix from those of the Piziquid. The scene was one of plenty and content. Pierre concluded that it would be necessary for him to avoid being seen by the garrison of the fort, lest he should be suspected of being one of the raiders. He decided to seek one of the outermost houses of the settlement about nightfall and there to tell his story, relying upon the good faith of one Acadian toward another. The child, he made up his mind must stay in his care and go with him to Beausejour. Having risked and suffered so much for her, he already began to regard her with jealous devotion and to imagine she was indeed his own.

The child woke as joyous as a bird. Hand in hand the quaint-looking pair--a seeming Indian with a little white-skinned child in a flannel nightgown--trudged patiently up the stream, till in the middle of the afternoon they came to a spot where Pierre thought it safe to wade across.

By this time the little one's feet were so sore that she had to be carried all the time; and it was well after sunset when Pierre set his armful down at the door of an outlying cottage of Piziquid, well away from the surveillance of the fort.

In answer to Pierre's knock there came a woman to the door, who started back in alarm. With a laughing salutation, however, Pierre followed her into the blaze of firelight which poured from the heaped-up hearth.

In spite of his disguise he was at once recognized by the man of the house as an Acadian, and the wanderers found an instant and hearty welcome. Over a hot supper (in the midst of which the tired child fell asleep with her head in her plate, and was carried to bed by the motherly good wife) Pierre told all his story.

"We shall have to keep you hidden till we get you away!" said the villager, one Jean Breboeuf by name. "You see, their eyes are open at the fort. They got word at Halifax, somehow, that our precious abbe (whom may the saints confound!) was planning some deviltry, and messages were sent to the different posts to guard the outlying settlements.

It's a wonder you didn't find English soldiers at Kenneticook, for a company started thither. However, if the English catch you in this dress they won't take long deciding what to do with you."

Pierre was greatly alarmed.

"Can't you give me something to wear?" he cried.

"O, yes!" answered the host, "we'll fix you all right in the morning so n.o.body will ever suspect you. Then I'll get Marin--he's got a good boat--to start right off and sail you round to Beausejour. But what about the little one?"

"O, she goes wherever I go!" said Pierre, decidedly.

"Yes, yes! But she's got to be kept out of sight," replied Breboeuf "She looks English, every inch of her; and if the people at the fort get eyes on her there'll be an investigation sure!"

"Can you speak English?" queried Pierre.

"Well enough!" replied his host.

"There'll be no trouble then," continued Pierre. "You can tell her to keep quiet and keep covered up when we're taking her to the boat.

She'll mind, I'll answer you. And then, if Madame Breboeuf can give her a little homespun frock and cap, we'll pa.s.s her off all right should anyone see her. And when we get to Beausejour my father will make it all right for the clothes."

"He won't do anything of the sort," answered both Breboeuf and his wife in one breath. "We all know Antoine Lecorbeau, and we're proud to do his son a service. If we poor Acadians did not help each other, I'd like to know who'd help us, anyway!"

It was with a light heart that Pierre slept that night, and joyfully in the morning he put away the last trace of his hated disguise.

His little charge showed plainly that she considered the change an improvement. The child told Breboeuf (whom she understood with difficulty) that her name was Edie Howe. At this Breboeuf was surprised, for, as he said to Pierre, there were no Howes at Kenneticook. When the Acadian tried to question Edie more closely, her answers became irrelevant, which was probably due to the deficiencies of Monsieur Breboeuf's English.

Pierre kept indoors most of the morning, as the little one would not let him out of her sight, and he dared not be seen with her. Soon after noon the tide was all ready for a departure, and not behindhand was the fisherman, Marin, with his stanch Minas craft. Marin had brought his boat up the St. Croix and into a little creek at some distance from the fort, because at the regular landing place there were always some English soldiers strolling about for lack of anything better to do.

It was with some trepidation that Pierre set out for the creek. The little girl walked between her dear protector and their host, holding a hand of each, and chattering about everything she saw, till with great effort Breboeuf got her to understand that if she didn't keep quite quiet, and not say a word to anybody till they got safely away, in the boat, something dreadful might happen to her Pierre. She was dressed like any of the little Acadian maidens of Piziquid, and her blue cap of quilted linen was so tied on as to hide her sunny hair and much of her face; but the danger was that she might betray herself by her speech.

Before the party reached the boat they had a narrow escape from detection.

They were met by three or four soldiers who were strolling across the marsh. In pa.s.sing they gave Breboeuf a hearty good-day in English, and one of them called Edie his "little sweetheart." The child looked up with a laugh, and cried, coquettishly, "Not yours! I'm Pierre's." Then, as Breboeuf squeezed her hand sharply, she remembered his caution and said no more, though her small heart was filled with wonder to think she might not talk to the nice soldiers.

"Why, where did the baby learn her English?" asked the soldier in a tone of surprise. "_You_ never taught her, I'll be bound."

"Her mother taught her. Her mother speaks the English better than you yourself," was Breboeuf's ready reply. Later in the day that soldier suddenly remembered that the good wife Breboeuf did not speak a word of English, and he was properly mystified. By that time, however, Pierre and the little one were far from Piziquid. With a merry breeze behind them they were racing under the beetling front of Blomidon.

On the day following they caught the flood tide up Chignecto Bay, and sailed into the mouth of the Au Lac stream, almost under the willows of Lecorbeau's cottage. The joy of Pierre's father and mother on seeing the lad so soon returned was mingled with astonishment at seeing him arrive by water, and with a little English child in his care. The little one, with her exciting experiences behind her, did not dream of being shy, but was made happy at once with a kind welcome; while Pierre, the center of a wondering and exclaiming circle, narrated the wild adventures of the past few days, which had, indeed developed him all at once from boyhood to manhood. As he described the ma.s.sacre, and the manner in which he had rescued the yellow-haired la.s.sie, his mother drew the little one into her arms and cried over her from sympathy and excitement; and the child wiped her eyes with her own quilted sunbonnet. At the conclusion of the vivid narrative Lecorbeau was the first to speak.

"n.o.bly have you done, my dear son," he cried, with warm emotion.

"But now, where are your companions of that dreadful expedition?

Not one has yet arrived at Beausejour!"

CHAPTER VII.

PIERRE'S LITTLE ONE.

This question which Lecorbeau asked, all Beausejour was asking in an hour or two. That night an Indian, sent from Le Loutre, who was lying in exhaustion at Cobequid, arrived at the fort and told the fate of the expedition.

As already stated, the English authorities in Halifax had been warned of the movements of the Indians--though they could only guess the part that Le Loutre had in them. Without delay they had sent small bands of troops to each of the exposed settlements, but that dispatched to Kenneticook arrived, as we have seen, too late. When the breathless soldiers, lighted through the woods by the glare of the burning village, reached the scene of ruin, of all who had that night lain down to fearless sleep in Kenneticook there remained alive but one, the little child whom Pierre had s.n.a.t.c.hed from death.

When the English emerged from the woods and saw the extent of the disaster, they knew they were too late. Not a house, not a building of any kind, but was already wrapped in a roaring torrent of flame, and against the broad illumination could be seen the figures of the savages, fantastically dancing. The English captain formed his line with prudent deliberation, and then led the attack at a run.

Never dreaming of so rude an interruption, the raiders were taken utterly by surprise and made no effective resistance. A number fell at the first volley, which the English poured in upon them in charging.

Then followed a hand-to-hand fight, fierce but brief, which Le Loutre didn't see, as he had wisely retired on the instant of the Englishmen's arrival. He was followed by two of the Acadians, and two or three of the more prudent of the Micmacs; but the rest of his party, fired with blind fury by the liquor which they had found among the village stores, remained to fight with a drunken recklessness and fell to a man beneath the steel of the avengers.

Left masters of the field, the rescue party gazed with horror on the ruin they had come too late to avert. With a grim, poetic justice they cast the bodies of their slain foes into the fires which had already consumed the victims of their ferocity. While this was going on the leader of the party, a young lieutenant, stood apart in deepest dejection.

"What's the matter with the general?" inquired a soldier, pointing with his thumb in the direction of his sorrowing chief.

"I'm afeard as how that little niece of his'n, as you've seed him a-danderin' many a time in Halifax, was visitin' folks here. If so be what I've hearn be true, them yellin' butchers has done for her, sure pop. I tell ye, Bill, she was a little beauty, an' darter of the cap'n they murdered last September down to Fort Lawrence."