Earth\'s Enigmas
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Charles G. D. Roberts >> Earth\'s Enigmas
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Lower and lower fell the tide. The current was now thick and red with
the mud which it was dragging from the flats to re-deposit on some
crescent shoal at the mouth of the Canard or Piziquid. Over the dike and
down toward the waiting boats came an old man, bent with years,
supported by his son and his son's wife a middle-aged couple. The
decrepit figure in its quaint Acadian garb was one to be remembered. Old
Remi Corveau was a man of means among the Acadian peasants. His feet
were incased in high-top moccasins of vividly embroidered moose-hide,
and his legs in gaiters, or _mitasses_, of dark blue woollen homespun,
laced with strips of red cloth. His coat was a long and heavy garment of
homespun blanket, dyed to a yellowish brown with many decoctions of a
plant which the country-folk now know as "yaller-weed." A cap of coarse
sealskin covered his head, and was tied beneath his chin with a woollen
scarf of dull red. The old man clutched his stick in his mittened right
hand, muttering to himself, and seemed but half aware of what was going
on. When he came to the edge of the wet, red clay, however, he
straightened himself and looked about him. He gazed at the boats and at
the anchored ships beyond. A light of sudden intelligence flashed into
his feeble eyes. He turned half round and looked back upon the ruined
village, while his son and daughter paused respectfully.
"Hurry along there now," exclaimed one of the guards, impatiently; and
the Acadian couple, understanding the tone and gesture, pulled at their
father's arms to lead him into the boat. The old man's eyes flamed
wildly, and crying, "_J'ne veux pas! j'ne veux pas!_" he broke from them
and struggled back toward the dike. Instantly his son overtook him,
picked him up in his arms, and carried him, now sobbing feebly, down to
the boat, where he laid him on a pile of blankets. As the laden craft
moved slowly toward the ship the old man's complainings ceased. When
they went to hoist him over the ship's side they discovered that he was
dead.
And now the very last boatload was well-nigh ready to start. The parish
priest, who was staying behind to sail with the next and final ship, was
bidding his sad farewells. A young woman drew near the boat, but hardly
seemed to see the priest's kind face of greeting, so anxiously was she
fumbling in the depths of a small bag which she carried on her arm.
The bag was of yellow caribou-skin, worked by Indian fingers in
many-colored designs of dyed porcupine quills.
"What's the matter, Marie, my child?" inquired the priest, gently. "Hast
thou lost something more, besides thy country and thy father's house?"
As he spoke the girl, whose name was Marie Beaugrand, looked up with a
sigh of relief, and turned to him affectionately.
"I have found it, Father! _V'la!_" she exclaimed, holding up a gigantic
amethyst of marvellous brilliancy. "Pierrot gave it to me to keep for
him, you know," she added timidly, "because of the bad luck that goes
with it when a _man_ has it!"
This was no time to chide the girl for her belief in the superstition
which he knew was connected with the wondrous jewel. The priest merely
smiled and said: "Well, well, guard it carefully, my little one; and may
the Holy Saints enable it to mend the fortunes of thee and thy Pierrot!
Farewell; and God have thee ever in his keeping, my dear child!"
Hardly were the words well past his lips when the girl gave a scream of
dismay, and sprang forward down the slippery red incline. She had
dropped the amethyst, by some incomprehensible mischance. The priest
beheld the purple gleam as it flashed from between the girl's fingers.
Her high cap of coarse undyed French linen fell away from her black
locks as she stooped to grope passionately in the ooze which had
swallowed up her treasure. In a moment the comely picture of her dark
blue sleeves, gray petticoat, and trim red stockings was sadly
disfigured by the mud. The girl's despair was piercing; but the
impatient guards, who knew not what she had lost, were on the point of
taking her forcibly to the boat, when Colonel Winslow, who stood near
by, checked them peremptorily.
Seeing the priest gird up his cassock and step forward to help the
sobbing girl in her search; Colonel Winslow questioned of the
interpreter as to what the damsel had lost to cause such lament.
"A toy, a mere gaud, your Excellency," said the shrewd interpreter,
giving Winslow a title which he would not have employed had there been
any one present of higher rank than the New England Colonel. "A mere
gaud of a purple stone; but they do say it would be worth a thousand
pounds if one had it in London. These poor folk call it the 'Witch
Stone,' because, they say, it brings bad luck to the man that has it.
The more learned sort smile at such a superstition, and call the stone
'The Star' by reason of its surpassing beauty,--Pierrot Desbarat's star,
they call it now, since that youth picked it up last spring on Blomidon,
where it had once before been found and strangely lost again. They say
the youth gave the jewel to his betrothed yonder to keep for him, if so
she might ward off the evil fortune."
The New England colonel's high-arched eyebrows went up into his forehead
at this tale. His round and ruddy face softened with sympathy for the
poor girl's despair. Winslow was convinced of the wisdom and justice of
the orders which he was carrying out so firmly; but he wished the task
of removing the Acadians had been confided to any other hands than his.
"This affair is more grievous to me," he wrote to a friend about this
time, "than any service I was ever employed in."
Presently, remarking that the girl's efforts were fruitless, and the
tide ebbing rapidly, Winslow ordered several of his soldiers down into
the mud to assist her search. Veiling their reluctance the men obeyed,
and the ooze was explored to the very water's edge. At length, realizing
that the departure could not safely be longer delayed, Winslow ordered
the quest to cease.
As the girl turned back to the boat the colonel caught sight of the
despair upon her face; and reddening in the folds of his double chin he
slipped some gold pieces into the muddy hand of the priest.
"Be good enough, sir, to give the damsel these," he said, stiffly. "Tell
her I will have the search continued. If the stone is found she shall
have it. If any one steals it I will hang him."
As the priest, leaning over the boat-side, slipped the pieces into the
buckskin bag, Colonel Winslow turned away, and rather roughly ordered
the bespattered soldiers back to camp to clean themselves.
After the priest had bid farewell to the still weeping Marie and the
little company about her, he stood waiting to receive the other boat
which was now returning from the ship. He saw that something unexpected
had taken place. His old parishioner was lying back in the stern,
covered with a blanket, while his son and daughter lamented over him
with the unrestraint of children. On the following day, under the stern
guard of the Puritan soldiers, there was a funeral in the little
cemetery on the hillside, and the frozen sods were heaped upon the last
Acadian grave of Grand Pre village. Remi Corveau had chosen death rather
than exile.
And what was the jewel whose loss had caused such grief to Marie
Beaugrand? For generations the great amethyst had sparkled in the front
of Blomidon, visible at intervals in certain lights and from certain
standpoints, and again unseen for months or years together. The Indians
called it "The Eye of Gluskap," and believed that to meddle with it at
all would bring down swiftly the vengeance of the demigod. Fixed high on
the steepest face of the cliff, the gem had long defied the search of
the most daring climbers. It lurked, probably, under some over-hanging
brow of ancient rock, as in a fit and inviolable setting. At length,
some years before the date of the events I have been describing, a
French sailor, fired by the far-off gleaming of the gem, had succeeded
in locating the spot of splendor. Alone, with a coil of rope, he made
his way to the top of the ancient cape. A few days later his bruised and
lifeless body was found among the rocks below the height, and taken for
burial to the little hillside cemetery by the Gaspereau. The fellow had
evidently succeeded in finding the amethyst and dislodging it from its
matrix, for when next the elfin light gleamed forth it was seen to come
from a point far down the cliff, not more than a hundred feet above the
tide.
Here it had been found by Pierrot Desbarats, who, laughing to scorn the
superstitious fears of his fellow-villagers, had brought it home in
triumph. It was his purpose to go, at some convenient season, to
Halifax, and there sell the matchless crystal, of whose value the priest
had been able to give him some idea. But that very spring ill luck had
crossed the threshold of Pierrot's cabin, a threshold over which he was
even then preparing to lead Marie Beaugrand as his bride. Two of his
oxen died mysteriously, his best cow slipped her calf, his horse got a
strain in the loins, and his apple blossoms were nipped by a frost which
passed by his neighbors' trees. Thereupon, heeding the words of an old
Micmac squaw, who had said that the spell of the stone had no power upon
a woman, Pierrot had placed his treasure in Marie's keeping till such
time as it could be transformed into English gold--and from that day the
shadow of ill-fate had seemed to pass from him, until the edict of
banishment came upon Grand Pre like a bolt out of a cloudless heaven.
From the ship, on whose deck he awaited her coming, Pierrot saw the
apparently causeless accident which had befallen the gem, and watched
with dry lips and burning eyes the vain endeavors of the search. His
hands trembled and his heart was bitter against the girl for a few
moments; but as the boat drew near, and he caught the misery and
fathomless self-reproach on her averted face, his anger melted away in
pity. He took Marie's hand as she came over the bulwarks, and whispered
to her: "Don't cry about it, '_Tite Cherie_, it would have brought us
bad luck anywhere we went. Let's thank the Holy Saints it's gone."
As the ship forged slowly across the Basin and came beneath the shadow
of the frown of Blomidon, Pierrot pointed out first the perilous ledge
to which he had climbed for the vanished "star," and then the
tide-washed hollow under the cliff, where they had picked up the body of
the luckless sailor from St. Malo. "Who knows, Marie," continued
Pierrot, "if thou hadst not lost that evil stone thou might'st one day
have seen _me_ in such a case as that sailor came unto!" And then, not
because she was at all convinced by such reasoning, but because her
lover's voice was kind, the girl looked up into Pierrot's face and made
shift to dry her tears.
II.
Late in December the last ship sailed away. Then the last roof-tree of
Grand Pre village went down in ashes; and Winslow's lieutenant, Osgood,
with a sense of heavy duty done, departed with his New England troops.
Winslow himself had gone some weeks before.
For five years after the great exile the Acadian lands lay deserted, and
the fogs that gathered morning by morning on the dark top of Blomidon
looked down on a waste where came and went no human footstep. All the
while the fated amethyst lay hidden, as far as tradition tells, beneath
the red ooze and changing tides of the creek.
Then settlers began to come in, and the empty fields were taken up by
men of English speech. Once more a village arose on Grand Pre, and
cider-presses creaked on the hills of Gaspereau. Of the Acadians, to
keep their memory green on the meadows they had captured from the sea,
there remained the interminable lines of mighty dike, the old apple
orchards and the wind-breaks of tall poplars, and some gaping cellars
full of ruins wherein the newcomers dug persistently for treasure.
By and by certain of the settlers, who occupied the higher grounds back
of the village, began to talk of a star which they had seen, gleaming
with a strange violet radiance from a patch of unreclaimed salt marsh by
the mouth of the creek. In early evening only could the elfin light be
discerned, and then it was visible to none but those who stood upon the
heights. Soon, from no one knew where, came tales of "The Eye of
Gluskap," and "The Witch's Stone," and "_L'Etoile de Pierrot Desbarat_,"
and the death of the sailor of St. Malo, and the losing of the gem on
the day the ship sailed forth. Of the value of the amethyst the most
fabulous stories went abroad, and for a season the good wives of the
settlers had but a sorry time of it, cleansing their husbands' garments
from a daily defilement of mud.
While the vain search was going on, an old Scotchman, shrewder than his
fellows, was taking out his title-deeds to the whole expanse of
salt-flats, which covered perhaps a score of acres. Having quietly made
his position secure at Halifax, Dugald McIntyre came down on his
fellow-villagers with a firm celerity, and the digging and the defiling
of garments came suddenly to an end by Grand Pre Creek. Soon a line of
new dike encompassed the flats, the spring tides swept no more across
those sharp grasses which had bent beneath the unreturning feet of the
Acadians, and the prudent Scot found himself the richer by twenty acres
of exhaustlessly fertile meadow, worth a hundred dollars an acre any
day. Moreover, he felt that _he had the amethyst_. Could he not see it
almost any evening toward sundown by merely climbing the hillside back
of his snug homestead? How divinely it gleamed, with long, pale, steady
rays, just inside the lines of circumvallation which he had so cunningly
drawn about it! In its low lurking-place beside the hubbub of the
recurring ebb and flow, it seemed to watch, like an unwinking eye, for
the coming of curious and baleful fates.
But it never fell to the Scotchman's fortune to behold his treasure
close at hand. To the hill-top he had to go whenever he would gloat upon
its beauty. To the most diligent and tireless searching of every inch of
the marsh's surface it refused to yield up its implacably virginal
lustre. Sometimes, though rarely, it was visible as the moon drew near
her setting, and then it would glitter whitely and malignantly, like a
frosty spear-point.
At last the settlers began to whisper that the Star was not in the marsh
at all, but that Dugald McIntyre, after the fashion of these canny folk,
had o'er-reached himself, and run the lines of the dike right over it.
That it could continue to shine under such discouraging circumstances,
the settlement by this time scorned to doubt. To "The Eye of Gluskap"
the people were ready to attribute any powers, divine or devilish.
Whether the degree of possession to which Dugald McIntyre had attained
could be considered to constitute a legal ownership of the jewel or not
is a question for lawyers, not for the mere teller of a plain tale, the
mere digger among the facts of a perishing history. Suffice it to say
that the finger of ill-fortune soon designated Dugald McIntyre as the
man whose claim to the "Eye" was acknowledged by the Fates.
From the time of the completion of the new dike dated the Scotchman's
troubles. His cattle one year, his crops another, seemed to find the
seasons set against them. Dugald's prudence, watchfulness, and untiring
industry minimized every stroke; nevertheless, things went steadily to
the worse.
It was Destiny _versus_ Dugald McIntyre, and with true Scottish
determination Dugald braced himself to the contest. He made a brave
fight; but wherever there was a doubtful point at issue, the Court
Invisible ruled inexorably and without a scruple against the possessor
of the "Eye of Gluskap." When he was harvesting his first crop of hay
off the new dike--and a fine crop it seemed likely to be--the rains set
in with a persistence that at length reduced the windrows to a condition
of flavorless gray straw. Dugald McIntyre set his jaws grimly together,
took good hay from another meadow to mix with the ruined crop, and by a
discreet construction of his bundles succeeded in selling the whole lot
at a good price to his most gracious Majesty's government at Halifax.
This bold stroke seemed to daunt the Fates for a time, and while they
were recovering from their confusion affairs went bravely with Dugald.
When haying season came round again the weather kept favorable, and the
hay was all harvested in perfect shape. Dugald was much too prudent to
boast; but in his innermost heart he indulged a smile of triumph. That
night his barns and outbuildings were burned to the ground, and two fine
horses with them; and his house was saved hardly. This was too much even
for him. Refusing to play longer a losing game, he sold the "New Marsh"
at some sacrifice to a settler who laughed at superstition. This
sceptical philosopher, however, proved open to conviction. A twelvemonth
later he was ready almost to give the land away, and the "Eye of
Gluskap" with it. For a mere song the rich and smiling tract, carrying a
heavy crop just ready for the scythe, was purchased by a young New
Englander with an admirable instinct for business. This young man went
to Halifax and mortgaged the land and crop to their full value; and with
the cash he left to seek his fortune. Thus the "Eye of Gluskap," and the
Marsh with it, came into the possession of a widow of great wealth, on
whom the spell, it seemed, was of none effect. Her heirs were in
England, and it came to pass, in the course of a generation, that Grand
Pre knew not the owners of the fated Marsh, and could not tell what
troubles, if any, were falling upon the possessors of "The Star."
Nevertheless the star kept up its gleaming, a steady eye of violet under
the sunsets, a ray of icy pallor when the large moon neared her setting;
and at length it was discovered that the enchanted jewel had yet other
periods of manifestation. Belated wayfarers, on stormy December nights,
had caught the unearthly eye-beam when no other light could be seen in
earth or sky. When this took place the tide was always near about the
full, and beating hoarsely all along the outer dykes. Then would be
heard, between the pauses of the wind, the rattle of oars at the mouth
of the creek, and the creaking of ships' cordage, and anon the sound of
children crying with the cold. If voices came from the spot where the
"New Marsh" lay unseen and the "Star" shone coldly watchful, they were
for the most part in a tongue which the wayfarers could not understand.
But now and again, some said, there were orders spoken in English, and
then the clank of arms and the tramp of marching feet. Of course these
things were held in question by many of the settlers, but there were
none so hardy as to suffer themselves to be caught upon the "New Marsh"
after nightfall. "The Eye of Gluskap" discerned a supernatural terror in
many a heart that claimed renown for courage.
III.
A hundred years had rolled down the hillsides of the Gaspereau and out
across the Minas tides into the fogs and hollows of the past; and still
the patch of dyked land at the creek's mouth was lit by the unsearchable
lustre of the "Eye of Gluskap."
As for the various distinguished scientists who undertook to unravel the
mystery, either much study had made them blind, or the lights were
unpropitious; for not one of them ever attained to a vision of the
violet gleam. They went away with laughter on their lips.
One spring there came to Grand Pre a young Englishman named Desbra, a
long-limbed, ample-chested youth, with whitish hair and ruddy skin, and
clear, straightforward blue eyes. Desbra was resolved to learn farming
in a new country, so he bought an old farm on the uplands, with an
exhausted orchard, and was for a time surprised at the infertility of
the soil.
Gradually he made himself master of the situation, and of some more
desirable acres, and also, incidentally it seemed, of the affections of
a maiden who lived not far from Grand Pre.
Dugald McIntyre had prospered again when the "Eye of Gluskap" no longer
looked malignantly on his fortunes; and to his descendants he had left
one of the finest properties within view of Blomidon. It was Jessie
McIntyre, his great-grandchild, who had captured the heart of young
Desbra.
One rosy September afternoon, as Jessie stood in the porch where the
wild grapes clustered half ripe, the young Englishman came swinging his
long legs up the slope, sprang over the fence between the apple trees,
and caught the maiden gleefully in his arms.
"Congratulate me, Mistress McIntyre," he cried, as the girl pushed him
away in mock disapproval. "I have just made a bargain,--a famous
bargain,--a thing I never did before in my life."
"Good boy," replied Jessie, standing a-tip-toe to pat the pale brush of
her lover's well-cropped hair. "Good boy, we'll make a Blue Nose of you
yet! And what is this famous bargain, may I ask?"
"Why, I've just bought what so many of your fellow-countrymen call the
'Noo Ma'sh,'" answered Desbra. "I have got it for twenty dollars an
acre, and it's worth a hundred any day! I've got the deed, and the
thing's an accomplished fact."
Jessie looked grave, and removed herself from her lover's embrace in
order to lend impressiveness to her words. "Oh, Jack, Jack!" she said,
"you don't know what you have done! You have become a man of Destiny,
which I don't believe you want to be at all. You have bought the 'Star.'
You have made yourself the master of the 'Witch's Stone.' You have
summoned the 'Eye of Gluskap' to keep watch upon you critically. In
fact, it would take a long time to tell you all you have done. But one
thing more you must do,--you must get rid of that famous bargain of
yours without delay. I'm not superstitious, Jack, but truly in this case
I am disturbed. Bad luck, horrid bad luck, has always befallen any man
owning that piece of Marsh, for the Marsh contains the Witch's Stone,
and a spell is on the man that possesses that fatal jewel."
Jack Desbra laughed and recaptured the maiden. "All right," said he, "if
a man mustn't possess it, I shall give it away to a woman! How will that
suit you, my lady?"
Jessie looked dubious, but said anything would be better than for him to
keep it himself. Whereupon the young man continued: "Put on your hat,
then, and come down into the village with me, and I will forthwith
transfer the property, with all appurtenances thereof, to Jessie
McIntyre, spinster, of the parish of Grand Pre, County of Kings,
Province of Nova Scotia, in her Majesty's Dominion of Canada; and the
'Eye of Gluskap' will find something better to keep watch upon than me!"
To this proposal Miss Jessie, being in the main a very level-headed
young lady, in spite of her little superstitions, assented without
demur, and the two proceeded to the village.
On the way thither and back, Desbra learned all the history of the "Star
on the Marsh," as I have endeavored to unfold it in the preceding pages.
As it happened, however, there was no mention of Pierrot Desbarat's
surname in Jessie's account. Marie Beaugrand she spoke of, but Marie's
_fiance_, the last finder of the amethyst, she simply called Pierrot.
"But have you yourself ever seen the sinister glory you describe?" asked
Desbra, as they neared the McIntyre home. Jessie's story had interested
him keenly. He was charmed with the tale as constituting at least a
notable bit of folk-lore.
"Of course I've seen it," replied Jessie, almost petulantly. "I dare say
I can show it to you now. Let us go to the top of the hill yonder, where
that old poplar stands up all by itself. That tree is a relic of the
Acadians, and the 'Eye' watches it, I fancy, when it has nothing better
to look at!"
When the lovers reached the hill-top and paused beside the ancient and
decaying poplar, the sun had just gone down behind North Mountain, and a
sombre splendor flooded the giant brow of Blomidon. The girl pointed
toward the mouth of the creek. Desbra could not restrain a cry of
astonishment. From just inside the dike, in a deep belt of olive shadow,
came a pale, fine violet ray, unwavering and inexplicable. Presently he
remarked:--
"That is a fine gem of yours, my dear; and if _I_ owned such a treasure
I shouldn't leave it lying around in that careless fashion. Who knows
what might happen to it, away down there on the New Marsh? What if a
gull, now, should come along and swallow it, to help him grind his fish
bones."
"Don't be silly, Jack!" said the girl, her eyes dilating as she watched
the mystic beam. "You know you don't half like the look of it yourself.
It makes you feel uncanny, and you're just talking nonsense to make
believe you don't think there is anything queer about it!"
"Quite the contrary, I assure you, O Mistress of the Witch Stone, O
Cynosure of the 'Eye of Gluskap!'" answered Desbra. "I am, indeed, so
much impressed that I was taking pains to remind the Powers of the
transfer I have just effected! I desire to hide me from the 'Eye of
Gluskap' by taking refuge behind a certain little spinster's
petticoats!"
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