The Forge in the Forest Part 20

"And are the ladies in good health?" I asked.

"The little Miss looks rugged, and her eyes are like stars," said Tamin; "but Madame-- Ah, she is pale, and her eyes are heavy."

Tamin's own eyes almost hid themselves in a network of little wrinkles as he spoke, scrutinizing my face. "She weeps for the child. She said perhaps _you_, Monsieur, would find him in your travels, and bring him back to her!"

My heart sank at the word. I could not go to Canard,--I could not face Mizpah again, till I could go to her with Philip in my arms. I had hoped that he was restored to her ere this. What had happened? Had Big Etienne deceived me? And Xavier, too? I could not think it. Yet what else could I think?

"Ah, my friend," said I, with bitterness, "she will be grievously disappointed in me. She will say I promise much, and perform little.

And alas, it seems even so. I have not seen or heard of the child.

But has Big Etienne come back? _Surely_ he has not come back without the child?"

Tamin, it was plain, had heard the whole story from Marc, for he asked no questions, and showed no surprise.

"No," said he, "they're both away, Big Etienne and Xavier, gone nigh onto four months. Some says to Gaspe; some says to Saguenay. Who knows? They're Injuns!" And Tamin shrugged his shoulders, while his honest little eyes grew beady with distrust.

But I no more distrusted, and my heart lightened mightily. They had been checked, baffled perhaps, for weeks; but I felt that they were faithful and would succeed. I resolved that the moment this enterprise of de Villiers' was accomplished I would go to help them. But I had yet more questions for Tamin.

"And the Black Abbe?" I asked. "Where is he?"

"At Baie Verte, minding his store, or at Cobequid with his red lambs,"

replied Tamin, puckering his wide mouth drolly. "He is little at Chignecto since he met you there, Monsieur. And he has not been seen at Canard since Giraud's cabin grew so hospitable. But Grul is much in the neighbourhood. I think the Black Abbe fears him."

Remembering the awful scene on the cliffs of the des Saumons, I felt that Tamin's surmise was fairly founded; and I blessed the strange being who thus kept watch over those whom I loved. But I said nothing to Tamin of what was in my mind, thinking it became me to keep Grul's counsel.

Chapter XXI

The Fight at Grand Pre

On the 23d day of January, 1747, we set out from Chignecto, four hundred tried bush fighters, white and red,--some three score of our men being Indians. We went on snow-shoes, for the world was buried in drifts. There was much snow that winter, with steady cold and no January thaw. On the marsh the snow lay in mighty windrows; but in the woods it was deep, deep, and smotheringly soft. The branches of fir and spruce and hemlock bent to the earth beneath the white burden of it, forming solemn aisles and noiseless fanes within. We marched in column. The leaders, who had the laborious task of tramping the unbroken snow, would keep their place for an hour, then fall to the rear, and enjoy the grateful ease of marching in the footsteps of their fellows. Sometimes, as our column wound along like a huge dark snake, some great branch, awakened by our laughter, would let slip its burden upon us in a sudden avalanche. Sometimes, in crossing a hidden watercourse, the leading files would disappear, to be dragged forth drenched and cursing and derided.

But there were as yet no enemies to beware of; so we marched merrily, and cheered our nights with unstinted blaze of camp fires.

On our fourth evening out from Chignecto, when we had halted about an hour, there came visitors to the camp. My ear was caught by the sentry's challenge. I went indifferently to see what the stir was all about.

"Monsieur, we are come!" cried a glad voice which I keenly remembered; and Xavier, his face aglow in the firelight, sprang forward to grasp my hand. Behind him, standing in moveless dignity, was Big Etienne, and at his feet a light sledge, with a bundle wrapped in furs.

My heart gave a great bound of thankful joy; and I stepped forward to seize the tall warrior's hand in both of mine.

"He is well! He sleeps!" said Big Etienne, gravely. In dealing with men, I pride myself on knowing what to say and how to say it. But at this moment I was filled with so many emotions that words were not at my command. Some sort of thanks I stammered to express,--but the Indian understood and interrupted me.

"You thank me moons ago, brother," he said, in an earnest voice. "You give me my boy. Now I give you yours. And we will not forget. That's all."

"We will never forget, indeed, my brother," said I, fervently, and again I clasped hands with him, thus pledging a comrades.h.i.+p which in many a strait since then has stood me in good stead.

During the rest of that long mid-winter march, Philip remained in the care of young Xavier, to whom, as well as to Big Etienne, he was altogether devoted; and I saw a new side of the red man's character in the tenderness of the stern chief toward the child. For my own part I lost no time in bidding for my share in Philip's affections. My love went out to the brave-eyed little fellow as if he had been the child of my own flesh. And moreover I was fain to win an ally who would help me to besiege his mother's heart.

Big Etienne had spoken within the mark in saying the child was well.

His cheeks were dark with smoke and with forgetfulness of soap and water; but the red blood tinged them wholesomely. His long yellow hair was tangled, but it had the burnished resilience of health. His mouth, a bow of strength and sweetness,--his mother's mouth,--wore the scarlet of clean veins; and the great sea-green eyes with which he stirred my soul were unclouded by fear or sickness. Before our march brought us to the hills of Gaspereau, Philip had admitted me to his favour, ranking me, I think, almost as he did Xavier and Big Etienne. More than that I could not have dared to hope.

At sundown of the ninth of February, the seventeenth day of our march from Chignecto, we halted in a fir wood only three miles from the Gaspereau mouth. We lit no camp fires now, but supped cold, though heartily. We had been met the day before by messengers from Grand Pre, who told de Villiers the disposition of the English troops. With incredible carelessness they were scattered throughout the settlement.

About one hundred and fifty, under Colonel n.o.ble himself, were quartered along a narrow lane, which, running at right angles to the main street, climbed the hillside at the extreme west of the village.

For my own part, though de Villiers' senior in military rank, I was but a volunteer in this expedition, and served the chief as a kind of informal aide-de-camp and counsellor.

Together we formed the plan of attack. It was resolved that one half our company, under de Villiers himself, should fall upon the isolated party in the lane and cut them to pieces. That left us but two hundred men with whom to engage the remaining three hundred and fifty of the New Englanders,--a daring venture, but I undertook to lead it. I undertook by no means to defeat them, however. I knew the fine mettle of these vinegar-faced New Englanders, but I swore (and kept my oath) that I would occupy them pleasantly till de Villiers, making an end of the other detachment, should come to my aid and clinch the victory.

The plan of attack thus settled, I turned my attention to Philip. Nigh at hand was a cottage where I was known,--where I believed the folk to be very kindly and honest. I told Big Etienne that we would put the child there to sleep, and after the battle take him to his mother at Canard.

"And, my brother," said I, laying my hand on his arm, and looking into his eyes with meaning, "let Xavier stay with him, for he will be afraid among strangers."

"Xavier must fight," replied the tall warrior. But his eyes s.h.i.+fted from mine, and there was indecision in his voice.

"Xavier is but a boy yet, my brother," I insisted. "And this is a night attack. It is no place for an untried boy. No glory, but great peril, for one who has not experience! For my sake bid Xavier stay with the child."

"You are right, brother. He shall stay," said the Indian.

And Xavier was not consulted. He stayed. But his was a face of sore disappointment when we left him with Philip at the cottage,--"to guard with your life, if need be!" said I, in going. And thus gave him a sense of responsibility and peril to cheer his bitter inaction.

It had been snowing all day, but lightly. After nightfall there blew up a fitful wind, now fierce, now breathless. At one moment the air would be thick with drift, and the great blasts would buffet us in the teeth. At another, there would seem to be in all the dim-glimmering world no movement and no breathing but our own. It was far past midnight when we came upon the hill-slope overlooking Grand Pre village; and the village was asleep. Not a light was visible save in one long row of cottages at the extreme east end, close by the water side. Thither, at our orders, the villagers had quietly withdrawn before midnight. The rash New England men lay sleeping, with apparently no guards set. If there were sentries, then the storm had driven them indoors.

The great gusts swirled and roared past their windows, piling the drift more deeply about their thresholds. If any woke, they turned perchance luxuriously in their beds and listened to the blasts, and praised G.o.d that the Acadian peasants builded their houses warm. They had no thought of the ruin that drew near through the drifts and the whirling darkness. I have never heard that one of them was kept awake with strange terrors, or had any prevision, or made special searching of his soul before sleep.

It would seem as if Heaven must have forgotten them for a little. Or perhaps the saints remembered that the English were not a people to take advice kindly, or to change their plans for any sort of warning that might seem to them irregular. But among us French, that night, there was one at least who was granted some prevision.

Just before the two columns separated, Tamin came to me and wrung my hand. He was with de Villiers' detachment. There was a certain awe, a something of farewell, in his manner, and it moved my heart mightily.

But I clapped him on the back. "No forebodings, now, my friend," said I; "keep a good heart and your eyes wide open."

"The snow is deep to-night, Monsieur!" said he gravely, as he turned away.

"True," I answered; "but the apple trees are at the other end of the village; and who ever heard that the Black Abbe was a prophet?"

Even as I spoke my heart smote me, and I would have given much to wring the loyal fellow's hand once more. But I feared to add to his depression.

My men all knew their parts before I led them from the camp. Once in the village, only a few whispered orders were necessary. Squad by squad, dim forms like phantoms in the drift, filed off stealthily to their places.

I, with two dozen others, Big Etienne at my elbow, took post about the centre of the village, where three large houses, joined together, seemed to promise a rough bout. Then we waited. Saints, how long we waited, as it seemed! The snow invaded us. But the apple trees were many, and we leaned against them, gnawing our fingers, and protecting our primings with the long flaps of our coats. At last there came a musket-shot from the far-off lane, and straightway thereupon a cras.h.i.+ng volley, followed by a dreadful outcry--shouts and screams, and the yelling of the Indians.

Our waiting was done. We sprang forward to dash in the nearest windows, to batter down the nearest doors. Lights gleamed. Then came crashes of musketry from the points where I had placed my several parties, and I knew they had found their posts. The fight once begun, there was little room for generals.h.i.+p in that driven and shrieking dark. I could see but what was before me. In those three houses there were brave men, that I knew. Springing from sleep in their s.h.i.+rts, they seemed to wake full armed, and were already firing upon us as we tried to force our way in through the windows. The main door of the biggest house we strove to carry with a rush, but that, too, belched lead and fire in our faces, and we came upon a barrier of household stuff just inside. By the light of a musket flash, I saw a huge, sour-faced fellow in his s.h.i.+rt, standing on the barrier, with his gun-stock swung back. I made at him nimbly with my sword. I reached him, and the uplifted weapon fell somewhere harmless in the dark. The next moment I felt a sword point, thrusting blindly, furrow across my temple, tearing as if it were both hot and dull, and at the same instant I was dragged out again into the snow. Three of us, however, as I learned afterwards, stayed on the floor within.

It was Big Etienne who had saved me. I was dizzy for a moment with my wound, the blood throbbing down in a flood; but I ordered all to fall back under the shelter of the apple trees, and keep up a steady firing upon the doors and windows. The order was pa.s.sed along, and in a few minutes the firing was steady. Then winding my kerchief tightly about my temples, I bade Big Etienne knot it for me, and for the time I thought no more of that sword-scratch.

Though my men were heavily outnumbered, the enemy could not guess how few we were. Moreover, we had the shelter of the trees, and our fire had their windows to converge upon. We held them, therefore, with no great loss, except for those that fell in the first onslaught, which was b.l.o.o.d.y for both sides. Presently a tongue of flame shot up, and I knew that they had set fire to one of the houses on the lane. The shouting there, and the yelling, died away, but a scattering crackle of musketry continued. Then another building burst into flame. The night grew all one red, wavering glare. As the smoke clouds blew this way and that, the shadows rose and fell. The squalls of drift blurred everything; but in the lulls men stood out suddenly as simple targets, and were shot with great precision. Yet we had shelter enough, too; for every house, every barn and shed, cast a block of thick darkness on its northern side. Then men began to gather in upon the centre. Here a squad of my own fellows--yelling and cheering with triumph, if they were Indians, quietly exultant if they were veterans--would come from the conquest of a cottage. There a knot of half-clad English, fleeing reluctantly and firing over their shoulders as they fled, would arrive, beat at the doors before us, and be let in hastily under our fire, leaving always some of their number on the threshold. It was like no other fight I had ever fought, for the strange confusion of it; or perhaps my wound confused me yet a little. At length a louder yelling, a sharper firing, a wilder and mightier clamour, arose in the direction of the lane. Our own firing slackened. All eyes turned to watch a little band which, fighting furiously, was forcing its way hither through a swarm of a.s.sailants. "The vinegar-faces can fight!" I cried, "but we must stop them. Come on, lads!" And with a score at my back I rushed to meet the new-comers. Rushed, did I say? But I should have said struggled and floundered. For, the moment we were clear of the trampled area, and found ourselves in the open fields, the snow went nearly to our middles. Yet we met the gallant little band, which having shaken off its a.s.sailants, now fell upon us with a welcome of most earnest curses. Men speak of the b.l.o.o.d.y ferocity of a duel in a dark room. It is nothing to the blind, blundering, reckless, snarling rage of that struggle in the deep snow, and under that swimming delusive light. Having emptied my musket and my pistols, I threw them all away, and fell to playing nimbly with my sword. Big Etienne I saw close beside me, swinging his musket by the barrel. Suddenly its deadly sweep missed its object. The tall warrior fell headforemost, carried off his uneasy balance by the force of the blow. Ere he could flounder up again a foeman was upon him with uplifted sword. But with a mighty lunge, hurling myself forward from the drift that held my feet, I reached the man's neck with my own point, and fell at his feet.

He came down in a heap on top of me. His knee, as I suppose it was, struck me violently on the head. Perhaps I was already weakened by that cut upon the temple. The noise all died suddenly away. I remember thinking how warm the snow felt against my face. And the rest of the fight was no concern of mine.