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Four times
the sun had risen and set; and now on the fifth day
Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the
farmhouse.
Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and
mournful procession,
Came from the neighboring
hamlets and farms the Acadian women,
Driving in
ponderous wains their household goods to the sea-shore,
Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their
dwellings,
Ere they were shut from sight by the
winding road and the woodland.
Close at their sides
their children ran, and urged on the oxen,
While in
their little hands they clasped some fragments of
playthings.
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they
hurried; and there on the sea-beach
Piled in
confusion lay the household goods of the peasants.
All day long between the shore and the ships did the
boats ply;
All day long the wains came labouring down
from the village.
Late in the afternoon, when the sun
was near to his setting,
Echoed far o'er the fields
came the roll of drums from the churchyard.
Thither
the women and children thronged. On a sudden the church
doors
Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching
in gloomy procession
Followed the long-imprisoned,
but patient, Acadian farmers.
Even as pilgrims, who
journey afar from their homes and their country,
Sing
as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and
wayworn,
So with songs on their lips the Acadian
peasants descended
Down from the church to the shore,
amid their wives and their daughters.
Foremost the
young men came; and, raising together their voices,
Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic
Missions: -
"Sacred heart of the Saviour! O
inexhaustible fountain!
Fill our hearts this day with
strength and submission and patience!"
Then the old
men, as they marched, and the women that stood by the
wayside,
Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in
the sunshine above them
Mingled their notes
therewith, like voices of spirits departed.
Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in silence,
Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of
affliction, -
Calmly and sadly waited, until the
procession approached her,
And she beheld the face of
Gabriel pale with emotion.
Tears then filled her
eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him,
Clasped she
his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder, and
whispered, -
"Gabriel! be of good cheer! for if we
love one another
Nothing, in truth, can harm us,
whatever mischances may happen!"
Smiling she spake
these words; then suddenly paused, for her father
Saw
she slowly advancing. Alas! how changed was his aspect!
Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his
eye, and his footstep
Heavier seemed with the weight
of the weary heart in his bosom.
But with a smile and
a sigh, she clasped his neck and embraced him,
Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort
availed not.
Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on
that mournful procession.
There disorder
prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking.
Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion
Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too
late, saw their children
Left on the land, extending
their arms, with wildest entreaties.
So unto separate
ships were Basil and Gabriel carried.
While in
despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her father.
Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and
the twilight
Deepened and darkened around; and in
haste the refluent ocean
Fled away from the shore,
and left the line of the sand beach
Covered with
waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery seaweed.
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the
wagons,
Like a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a
battle,
All escape cut off by the sea, and the
sentinels near them,
Lay encamped for the night the
houseless Acadian farmers.
Back to its nethermost
caves retreated the bellowing ocean,
Dragging adown
the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving
Inland
and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors.
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from
their pastures;
Sweet was the moist still air with
the odour of milk from their udders;
Lowing they
waited, and long, at the well-known bars of the
farmyard, -
Waited and looked in vain for the voice
and the hand of the milkmaid.
Silence reigned in the
streets; from the church no Angelus sounded,
Rose no
smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from the
windows.
But on the shores meanwhile the evening
fires had been kindled,
Built of the driftwood thrown
on the sands from wrecks in the tempest.
Round them
shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were gathered,
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying
of children.
Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth
to hearth in his parish,
Wandered the faithful
priest, consoling and blessing and cheering,
Like
unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate seashore.
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with
her father,
And in the flickering light beheld the
face of the old man,
Haggard and hollow and wan, and
without either thought or emotion,
E'en as the face
of a clock from which the hands have been taken.
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to
cheer him,
Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not,
he looked not, he spake not,
But, with a vacant
stare, ever gazed at the flickering firelight.
"Benedicite!"
murmured the priest in tones of compassion.
More he
fain would have said, but his heart was full, and his
accents
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet
of a child on a threshold,
Hushed by the scene he
beholds, and the awful presence of sorrow.
Silently,
therefore, he had laid his hand on the head of the
maiden,
Raising his eyes, full of tears, to the
silent stars that above them
Moved on their way,
unperturbed by the wrongs and sorrows of mortals.
Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in
silence.
Suddenly rose from the south a light, as
in autumn the blood-red
Moon climbs the crystal walls
of heaven, and o'er the horizon
Titan-like stretches
its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow,
Seizing
the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows
together.
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the
roofs of the village,
Gleamed on the sky and the sea,
and the ships that lay in the roadstead.
Columns of
shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the
quivering hands of a martyr.
Then as the wind seized
the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting,
Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a
hundred house-tops
Started the sheeted smoke with
flashes of flame intermingled.
These things
beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on
shipboard.
Speechless at first they stood, then cried
aloud in their anguish,
"We shall behold no more our
homes in the village of Grand-Pre!"
Loud on a sudden
the cocks began to crow in the farmyards,
Thinking
the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of cattle
Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs
interrupted.
Then rose a sound of dread, such as
startles the sleeping encampments
Far in the western
prairies or forests that skirt the Nebraska,
When the
wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed of the
whirlwind,
Or the loud-bellowing herds of buffaloes
rush to the river.
Such was the sound that arose on
the night, as the herds and the horses
Broke through
their folds and their fences, and madly rushed o'er the
meadows.
Overwhelmed with the sight, yet
speechless, the priest and the maiden
Gazed on the
scene of terror that reddened and widened before them;
And as they turned at length to speak to their silent
companion,
Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and
stretched abroad on the seashore
Motionless lay his
form, from which the soul had departed.
Slowly the
priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden
Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her
terror.
Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her
head on his bosom.
Through the long night she lay in
deep, oblivious slumber;
And when she woke from the
trance, she beheld a multitude near her.
Faces of
friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing upon
her,
Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest
compassion.
Still the blaze of the burning village
illumined the landscape,
Reddened the sky overhead,
and gleamed on the faces around her,
And like the day
of doom it seemed to her wavering senses.
Then a
familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people: -
"Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier
season
Brings us again to our homes from the unknown
land of our exile,
Then shall his sacred dust be
piously laid in the churchyard."
Such were the words
of the priest. And there in haste by the seaside,
Having the glare of the burning village for funeral
torches,
But without bell or book, they buried the
farmer of Grand-Pre.
And as the voice of the priest
repeated the service of sorrow,
Lo! with a mournful
sound like the voice of a vast congregation,
Solemnly
answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.
'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of
the ocean,
With the first dawn of the day, came
heaving and hurrying landward.
Then recommenced once
more the stir and noise of embarking;
And with the
ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the harbour,
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the
village in ruins.
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