Amy in Acadia Part 18

"Well, I had a letter from papa to-day," she said, "and he says that mamma is really very ill, and that they may have to stay abroad all summer. I have just written him about Yvonne; but of course it will be some time before I can get an answer."

"What do you want him to do?" asked Amy,--"to let you adopt her? She's almost as tall as you are."

"Well, I'm not sure what I want, but I know that if Yvonne should have her voice cultivated she'd be a great prima donna, and what a feather in my cap to have been her discoverer!"

"I fear that your father would need more than your opinion to enable him to decide a matter like that. In fact, only an expert musician could make a safe prophecy about Yvonne."

"Well, at least, I hope that he will consent to letting her go to Boston to study next winter. We could find a doctor to help her eyesight."

"Why not ask your father to invest in Alexander's gold mine?" asked Amy, with a smile; "then he could do everything for Yvonne himself."

"That isn't the point. I've really taken a great fancy to Yvonne, and I want to have her near me. Have you written to Pierre yet?"

"Oh, yes; I went out this morning and bought him a copy of Longfellow.

He had never owned one himself, and was anxious to have it. I have asked him to write us so that we shall get the letter at Grand Pre."

"It's time Priscilla had a protegee," said Martine, "though she doesn't seem the kind of person to adopt anything very warmly except her own opinions."

This was a rather sharp remark for Martine to make, and it convinced Amy of something that she had tried to doubt--that the two girls were really rather far apart, "and both such charming girls," she said to herself.

Martine's letters with the Pubnico and Shelburne postmarks had given Priscilla considerable concern. Though not a meddler, she yet saw Martine's lack of frankness about those letters. Priscilla knew that neither was in the handwriting of Fritz Tomkins, and she was sure that they were written by the Freshman with him whom she knew only by the name of "Taps." She was now quite convinced, also, that it really was Martine whom Amy had seen wheeling through the streets of Yarmouth with this same youth. That it was no concern of hers she realized perfectly; and yet, she wondered if it might not be her duty to tell Mrs. Redmond what she knew. Priscilla was over-conscientious; she was always more ready to disclose her own faults than to conceal them,--to disclose, at least, faults that she herself recognized. She did not altogether realize that a certain form of censoriousness was growing upon her; that she was too much inclined to measure all people by her own standard.

Thus many little things that Martine did quite innocently and naturally seemed to Priscilla bits of affectation. Martine's hand was ever in her pocket. When it was a question of buying books or fruit or some other little thing for the traveller, Martine always managed to pay for it, and Priscilla thought that her readiness to do this came from a desire to display the size of her allowance. Priscilla herself, on the other hand, had to be careful about little expenses, and while their present trip called for no great expenditure, she hated to be obliged so often to thank Martine for small luxuries. Then, too, Martine had an extravagant way of talking that disturbed the serious Priscilla. She could not say that she had ever found Martine in a real untruth. Still, Martine's way was not her way, and instead of drawing nearer together as the journey progressed, the two girls were farther apart.

Martine, on her part, thought Priscilla rather old-fas.h.i.+oned, but accounted for the seriousness of her dress and her manner by the fact that she was still in mourning for her father, who had died of fever contracted in Cuba at the beginning of the late war.

Perhaps it was because she realized that her prejudices were a little unreasonable, that Priscilla hesitated about speaking to Amy or Mrs.

Redmond regarding the suspicious postmarks.

The long "historical disquisition," as Martine called it, that Amy had given them on their first day at Annapolis, was not immediately followed by another. Their mornings were spent in sketching in the neighborhood, and their afternoons in driving. One day they crossed the Grandville Ferry and went down to the old fort near Goat Island. But though they all professed to see slight traces of the earthworks, it required imagination rather than eyesight to discern even a slight trace of Poutrincourt's fort.

"It's one of the ironies of history," said Amy, "that tradition should speak of this as a Scotch fort, for the Scotch were here so short a time before the French were again in power."

"What became of the Scotch?" asked Priscilla.

"It is supposed that most of them went back home, and that the few who stayed intermarried with the conquering French. Sir William Alexander and his Baronets of Nova Scotia made little impression on Acadia."

"Amy," said Martine, "of all the people you've told us about the most interesting to me is young Biencourt, wandering about in the woods and living like an Indian; I even dreamt about him the other night. How did he happen to escape when Argall destroyed the fort?"

"Oh, he and some of his companions were up there where Annapolis now is, working in their grain fields; you know they had a mill up there, and rich fields of grain. The fort itself was not in a good location,--at least for farming. It is said that Argall and the other Virginians were not aware of the existence of the mill and the fields, and when they had destroyed the fort, thought that there was nothing left for the French."

"You may be pretty sure," said Martine, "they wouldn't have let anything escape if they'd known; the English are always greedy."

"They are not a bit worse than the French," retorted Priscilla. "Just think how cruel the French were during the Reign of Terror."

"Oh, that's an entirely different kind of thing; the French are never half as anxious to grab other people's land as the English are."

"There, there," interposed Amy, "I'll have to be a Board of International Arbitration; in other words, let us have peace. There's one thing," she continued, "I feel as if young Biencourt kept alive the love of the French for Port Royal. Charles La Tour was himself only a boy like Biencourt when he first came to the New World. The King had certainly given Poutrincourt rights in Acadia, and he had pa.s.sed them on to his son. Poutrincourt was killed at the Siege of Marye in 1610, scarcely three years before Argall's destruction of Port Royal."

CHAPTER X

EXPLORATIONS

"How very gay your attire, Martine! Do you think of paying afternoon visits?"

"No, my dear Amy, I do not, because I know no one to visit; but I'm tired of cloth skirts and a s.h.i.+rt-waist, and I thought I would like to see how it would feel to wear something decent."

Martine's gown was a pale blue voile, made up over a bright blue lining, with a delicate white insertion on the waist; her hat, a blue chip, trimmed with white flowers, and she carried a parasol to match.

"Is your gown quite suitable for a walk on a dusty road?"

"Perhaps it isn't," responded Martine, "but sometimes one must live up to her feelings, and this is how I feel to-day,--like wearing my very best; besides, this is nothing remarkable, this dress, but it happens to be the best I have with me."

"Very well," and Amy sighed; "it's no use to argue with you, and as soon as Priscilla comes downstairs we'll set off."

When Priscilla appeared, she, like Amy, had a short cloth skirt and s.h.i.+rt-waist, but she made no comment on the elegance of Martine's appearance.

There was one thing rather incongruous in Martine's aspect,--she carried a small shovel, which looked as if it had never been used; such, indeed, was the case, and as she brandished it she said cheerfully, "I hope we shall go somewhere where we can dig. I hear there's any amount of hidden treasure around Annapolis, and I am anxious to get some of it for myself."

The girls walked a good while before they saw anything likely to reward an amateur antiquarian. Then, in a field quite outside the town, Martine's sharp eyes saw something that interested her. In a moment she was over the fence, with the others following.

"There," she said excitedly, "you see these very old, gnarled apple-trees and this clump of willows; I'm perfectly sure that this used to be an Acadian farm."

"That's a safe guess," rejoined Amy, "for all the land about here was once in the hands of the Acadians."

"Yes, but I think from this little mound and that hollow beside it that there was a house on this very spot. I noticed what Dr. Gray said when he was talking to your mother last evening, and that was what decided me to do some digging for myself."

"In a blue voile dress," responded Amy, in a tone of disapproval. "Ah, Martine, you are so absurd!"

Even while Amy was speaking Martine had begun to dig,--aimlessly, of course, although in a few minutes she had made a fairly large hole. When her shovel struck something hard she was delighted, but, digging deeper, she brought up only a piece of broken brick. Undiscouraged, she dug one side of the first hole, and presently she held out to Amy what at first puzzled them both. It looked like a mere bit of rusty iron, but later they decided that it was probably part of an old lock.

"Which I shall label 'Exhibit No. 1' in my museum of curiosities," said Martine.

"Let me see what I can do," cried Amy; "you must be tired."

So Martine surrendered her shovel, and in a quarter of an hour Amy brought up an old bottle, not at all remarkable in shape, but very valuable from Martine's point of view, because it was undoubtedly an Acadian trophy.

Priscilla contented herself with some slips from an ancient willow-tree.

"It is not the best time of year for making cuttings," she said, "but these French willows cling to life as closely as the proverbial cat. I heard of a man who had a walking-stick cut from a willow-tree. It looked as hard and dry as a bone, but one day he happened to stick it in the ground near a spring and forgot all about it. Some time afterwards, when he pa.s.sed, the walking-stick was sending out little shoots, and in time it became a full-fledged willow-tree."

"That's a very good story," commented Martine, "and as we know you never tell anything but the exact truth, Priscilla, neither Amy nor I would think of doubting it."

As the trio were walking back toward town they met Mrs. Redmond, driving.