Kitabı oku: «The Forge in the Forest», sayfa 11
Chapter XXI
The Fight at Grand Pré
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 comradeship 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 Pré, 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 Noble 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 shifted 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 Pré 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 God 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 Abbé 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 crashing 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 generalship 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 shirts, 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 shirt, 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 passed 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 bloody 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 assailants. "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 assailants, now fell upon us with a welcome of most earnest curses. Men speak of the bloody 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.
Chapter XXII
The Black Abbé Strikes in the Dark
I was awakened to consciousness by some one gently lifting me. I struggled at once to my feet, leaning upon him. It was Big Etienne.
"You much hurt?" he queried, in great concern.
"Why, no!" said I, presently. "Head feels sore. I think I'll be all right in a minute."
It was in the red and saffron of dawn. The snow had stopped falling. The muskets had stopped clattering. The battle was apparently at an end. All around lay bodies, or rather parts of bodies; for they were more or less hidden in the snow. Close by me just a pair of knees was visible, thrust up through a drift into which the man had plunged in falling.
The snow was all mottled with blood and powder, a very hideous colour to look upon. I stood erect and stretched myself.
"Why, brother," I exclaimed, in great relief, "I am as good as new. Where is the commander?"
Big Etienne pointed in silence to the street before the three houses. There I saw our men drawn up in menacing array. In and behind the houses were crowded the dark masses of the New Englanders, punctuated here and there with the scarlet of an officer's coat.
De Villiers greeted me as one recovered from the grave. I asked eagerly how he had sped, and how the matter now rested.
"Success, everywhere success, Briart!" he answered, with a sort of controlled elation. "You held these fellows, while we wiped out those yonder. But it was a cruel and bloody affair, and I would the times, and the straits of New France, required not such killing in the dark. But they set fire to a house and barn that they might fight in the light, and so a band of them escaped us and cut their way through here, – what was left of them, at least, after they got done with you! And now their remnant is hemmed in yonder."
"We've got them, then," said I.
"Surely," he answered. "But it will cost our best blood to end it. They have fought like heroes, though they kept guard like fools. And they will battle it out, I think, while a man of them stands."
"Yes, 'tis the breed of them!" said I, looking across with admiration at the silent and dangerous ranks. "But they have done all that brave men could do. They will accept honourable terms, I think; and such we may offer them without any touch of discredit. What do you say?"
This was, indeed what de Villiers had in his heart. He withdrew his troops some little distance, that negotiations might be the less embarrassed; and I myself, feeling a fresh dizziness, retired to a cottage where I might have my wound properly tended. But barely had I got the bandage loosened, – a black-eyed Acadian maid standing by, with face of deep commiseration and holding a basin of hot water for me, – when there broke out a sudden firing. I clapped the bloody bandage to my head, and ran forth; but I saw there was no need of me. The English had sallied with a fierce heat, hoping to retrieve their fortunes. But the deep snow was like an army to shut them in. Before they could come at us they were exhausted, and our muskets dropped them swiftly in the drifts. Sullenly they fell back again upon their houses. I turned to my basin and my bandaging.
"That settles that!" said I to the damsel.
"Settles what, Monsieur?" she asked. But as she spoke I saw a look of sudden concern cross her face, a faintness came over me, and I lay down, feeling her arm support me as I sank.
Sleep is the best of medicines for me. I woke late in the afternoon to find my head neatly bandaged, and the dizziness all gone. Men came and went softly. I found that de Villiers was lying in the same house, having got a serious wound just after I left him. La Corne, a brave Canadian, was in command. The English had capitulated toward noon, and had pledged themselves to depart for Annapolis within forty-eight hours, not to bear arms again in Acadie within six months. We had redeemed at Grand Pré our late failure at Annapolis.
My first act was to send a runner, on snow-shoes, to Canard, with a scrawled note to Mizpah. Explaining nothing, I merely begged that she and Prudence, with Marc and Father Fafard, should meet me at the Forge about noon of the following day. In the case of Marc not being yet strong enough to journey so far, I prayed Mizpah herself, in any event, to come without fail. My next was to send a messenger for Xavier and Philip. My heart had fallen to aching curiously for the child, – insomuch that I marvelled at it, till at length I set it down as a mere whimsical counterfeit of my longing for his mother.
Being now refreshed and altogether myself again, I went to visit the lane wherein the fight had opened. The very first house, whose shattered door and windows, blood-smeared threshold, and dripping window-sills, showed that the fight had there raged long and madly, had one great apple tree beside its garden gate. A chill of foreboding smote me as I marked it. I approached with a curious and painful expectancy, the words of the Black Abbé ringing again in my ears. At the foot of the apple tree the snow was drifted deep. It half covered a pitifully huddled body.
I lifted the body. It was Tamin.
He had been shot through the lungs, and his blood, melting the snow, had gathered in a crimson pool beneath him. Here was one grim prophecy fulfilled. Carrying him into the house, I laid him gently on a bed. Then I turned away with a very sorrowful heart; for there was much to do, and the dead are not urgent.
Even as I turned, my heart jumped with a new and sickening dread. Xavier stood before me – Xavier, with wild eyes, and face darkly clotted with blood. The next instant he threw himself at my feet.
"The child!" he muttered, covering his face. "They have carried him away. They have carried Philip away!"
"What do you mean?" I cried, in a voice which my fear made harsh, while at the same time I dragged him to his feet. "Who have carried him away? Who?"
But I knew the answer ere he could speak it, – I knew my enemy had seized the chances of the battle and the night.
"The Black Abbé," wailed the lad, in a voice of poignant sorrow. "He came in the night, with two Chepody Acadians dressed up like Indians, and seized me asleep, and bound me."
"But Philip!" I cried. "Where have they taken him?" And even as I spoke I was planning swiftly.
"The Abbé started westward with him," answered Xavier. "From what I heard say, he would go to Pereau; but which way after, I could not find out."
"Come!" I ordered roughly, "we must follow them!" But as I spoke I saw the lad totter. I caught him by the arm and held him up, perceiving now for the first time how he was both wounded and utterly spent.
"Let us go first to your father," I said more gently, leading him, and putting what curb I could upon the fierceness of my haste.
"How did you get here?" I asked him presently.
A gleam came into the lad's faint eyes.
"The Chepody men stayed till morning," said he, "and then set out on the road toward Piziquid, taking me with them. They thought I was nothing but a boy. As we went, I got my hands loose, so, – and waited. At noon one man went into a house, – and – so! – I was free, and had the other dog by the throat. He make no noise; but he fight hard, and hurt me. I got away, and left him in the snow, and ran back all the way to tell you the Black Abbé – "
But here the poor lad's voice failed, and he hung upon me with all his weight. He had fainted, indeed; and now that I thought of his wound, his hunger, his grief, and his prodigious exertions, I wondered not at his swooning. Picking him up in my arms, I carried him to the cottage where the kind damsel had so compassionately tended my own bruises.
As I entered the thronged cottage with my burden, men came about me with many questions; but I kept my own counsel, not knowing whom I could trust, or where the Black Abbé might not have his spies posted. Moreover, I was so distracted with anxiety about the child, that I had small patience wherewith to take questioning civilly. Every bed and every settle being occupied with our wounded, I laid Xavier on the floor, with his head upon a blue petticoat which the kind damsel – who came to me as soon as she saw me enter – fetched from a cupboard and rolled up deftly for me. After a careful examination I found no wound upon the lad save two shallow flesh cuts, one across his forehead and one down his chest. I thereupon concluded that exhaustion, together with the loss of blood, had brought him to this pass, and that with a few days' care he would be altogether restored. Having put some brandy between his lips, and seen his eyelids tremble with recovering consciousness, I turned to the maiden and said: —
"Take care of him for me, Chérie. He deserves your best care; and I trust him to your good heart. Give him something to eat now, – soup, hot milk, at first. And I will come back in two days from now, at furthest."
"But Monsieur must rest!"
"No rest for me to-night!" I interrupted, in a low voice, as I straightened myself up. "Do you know where I may find the lad's father, the chief, Big – "
But there was no need for me to finish the question. There, close behind me, stood the tall Indian, looking down at Xavier, with trouble in his eyes. He had just entered, in his silent fashion.
"There is no danger! He is worn out!" I whispered. "He has done all a brave man could do; but the child is stolen! Come outside with me."
Big Etienne stooped quickly and laid his hand upon the lad's breast, and then, most gently, upon his lips. A second later he had followed me out into the deepening twilight.
In few words I told him what had happened, and my purpose of going instantly in pursuit. Without a word he strode off toward a small cabin about a stone's throw from the cottage which we had just left.
"Where are you going?" I asked, astonished at this abruptness.
"My snow-shoes!" he replied. "And bread. I go with you, my brother!"
This, in very truth, was just what I had hoped for. But, in my haste, I had forgotten the need of eating; and, as for my snow-shoes, usually strapped at my back, they had been left at the outskirts of the village the night before in order that my sword arm might have the freer play. It was no time now to go back for them. I slipped into the cottage, borrowed a pair, and was presently forth again to meet Big Etienne. The Indian, instead of bread, had brought a goodly lump of dried beef. Side by side, and in silence, we set out for the cabin on the Gaspereau where Philip and Xavier had been captured.
We found the place deserted. Either the man of the house had been a tool of La Garne, or he feared that I would hold him responsible. Which it was, I know not to this day; and, at the time, we gave small thought to the question, merely commending the fellow's wisdom in removing himself from our indignation. What engaged our concern was a single snow-shoe track making westward, followed by the trail of a little sledge.
"Yes," said I; "Xavier is surely right. The Abbé has gone to cross the Habitants and the Canard where they are little, and will then, belike, turn down the valley to Pereau!"
"Very like!" grunted my companion; and, at a long lope, we started up the trail.
This pace, however, soon told upon me, and brought it into my mind that I had, that day, eaten nothing but a bowl of broth. We halted, therefore, and rested half an hour in the warmth of a dense spruce coppice, and ate abundantly of that very savoury beef. Then, much revived, we set out again. Treading one behind the other, we marched, in silence, through the glimmering dark; for Big Etienne was no talker, while I, for my part, was gnawing my heart with rage, and hope frustrated, and the picture of Mizpah's anguish. We never stayed our pace till we came, at the edge of dawn, to the spot where the trail went over the dwindled upper current of the Habitants.
Here, to our astonishment, the trail turned eastward, following down the course of the river.
I looked at the Indian in wondering consternation. "What can it mean?" I cried. "Can there be any new plot of his hatching at Canard?"
"Maybe!" said Big Etienne.
At thought of further perils threatening Mizpah and Marc, the weariness which had been growing upon me vanished, and I sprang forward as briskly as if we had but just set out. Even Big Etienne, though he had no such incentive as mine, seemed to win new vigour with the contemplation of this new coil of the enemy's. If, indeed, he appeared somewhat fresher than I throughout the latter half of this hard march, it is but justice to myself to say that he bore no wound from the late battle.
At last, when it was well past ten of the morning, the trail led us out upon the main Canard track, and turned toward the settlement.
"Yes," said I, with bitter conviction; "he has gone to Canard. He would never go there had he not some deep scheme of mischief afoot. God grant we be in time!"
In less than half an hour we came within sight of the Forge in the Forest. To my astonishment, the smoke was pouring in furious volume from the forge chimney.
"What can Babin be about? Or can Mizpah and Marc be there already?" I wondered aloud; but got no answer from my companion. A moment later, a turn of the track brought us to a post of vantage whence we could see straight into the forge. The sight which met our eyes brought us to an instant stop from sheer amazement.
