During the revolutionary war a number of Acadians left the New England States for Canada, preferring monarchic to republican rule. The British authorities provided for these twice-exiled refugees with liberality, giving them free grants of lands and the necessary tools and implements, also supplying them from the nearest military posts with provisions for three years, by which time they would be self-sustaining. Some half dozen families asked for and received lots in the county of Huntingdon and settled together on the shore of the St Lawrence. Accustomed to boating and lumbering in their old Acadian homes, they found profitable exercise in both pursuits in their new, and after making small clearances left their cultivation to the women, while they floated rafts to Montreal or manned the bateaux which carried on the traffic between that place and Upper Canada. The shanty of one of these Acadians, that of Joseph Caza, occupied a point that ran into the great river near the mouth of the LaGuerre.
It was a sunny afternoon towards the end of September and the lake-like expanse of the river, an unruffled sheet of glassy blue, was set in a frame of forest already showing the rich dyes of autumn. It was a scene of intense solitude, for, save the clearance of the hardy settler, no indication of human life met the gaze. There was the lonely stretch of water and the all-embracing forest, and that was all. Playing around the shanty were two sisters, whose gleeful shouts evoked solemn echoes from the depths of the forest, for they were engaged in a game of hide-and-seek amid the rows of tall corn, fast ripening in the sunshine. They were alone, for their father and brothers were away boating and their mother had gone to the beaver-meadow where the cows pastured. Breathless with their play the children sat down to rest, the head of the younger falling naturally into the lap of the older.
“Archange, I know something you don’t.”
“What is it?”
“What we are to have for supper. Mother whispered it to me when she went to milk. Guess?”
“Oh, tell me; I won’t guess.”
“Wheat flour pancakes. I wish she would come; I’m hungry.”
“Let us go and meet her.”
The children skipped along the footpath that led through the forest from the clearance to the pasture and had gone a considerable distance before their mother came in sight, bearing a pail.
“Come to meet your mother, my doves! Ah, I have been long. The calves have broken the fence and I looked for them but did not find them. Archange, you will have to go or they may be lost. Marie, my love, you will come home with me.”
“No, mother, do let me go with sister.”
“No, you will get tired; take my hand. Remember the pancakes.”
“I won’t be tired; I want to go with Archange.”
“Ah, well; the calves may not have strayed far; you may go. But haste, Archange, and find them, for the sun will soon set.”
The children danced onwards and the mother listened with a smile to their shouts and chatter until the sounds were lost in the distance. On entering the house she stirred up the fire and set about preparing supper.
The sun set, leaving a trail of golden glory on the water, and she was still alone. The day’s work was done and the simple meal was ready. The mother walked to the end of the clearance and gazed and listened; neither sight nor sound rewarded her. She shouted their names at the highest pitch of her voice. There was no response, save that a heron, scared from its roost, flapped its great wings above her head and sailed over the darkening waters for a quieter place of refuge.
“It is impossible anything can have befallen them,” she said to herself; “the calves could not have gone far and the path is plain. No, they must be safe, and I am foolish to be the least anxious. Holy mother, shield them from evil!”
Returning to the house, she threw a fresh log on the fire, and placing the food where it would keep warm she closed the door, casting one disconsolate look across the dark water at the western sky, from which the faintest glow had departed. Taking the path that led to the pasture, she hastened with hurried step to seek her children. She gained the pasture. The cows were quietly grazing; there was no other sign of life. Her heart sank within her. She shouted, and her cries pierced the dew-laden air. There was no response. She sank upon her knees and her prayer, oft repeated, was, “Mother of pity, have compassion on a mother’s sorrow and give me back my little ones!”
The thought suddenly seized her that the children had failed to find the calves and, in returning, had not taken the path, but sought the house by a nigh cut through the woods. She sprang to her feet and hastened back. Alas! the door had not been opened, and everything was as she left it.
“My God!” she cried in the bitterness of her disappointment, “I fear me the wolf garou has met and devoured my children. What shall I do? Marie, my pretty one, wilt thou not again nestle in thy mother’s bosom nor press thy cheek to mine? Holy Virgin, thou who hadst a babe of thine own, look on me with compassion and give back to me my innocent lambs.”
Again she sought the pasture, and even ventured, at her peril, to thread in the darkness the woods that surrounded it, shouting, in a voice shrill with agony, the names of the missing ones, but no answering sound came. Heedless of her garments wet with dew, of her weariness, her need of food and sleep, she spent the night wandering back and forth between house and pasture, hoping to find them at either place, and always disappointed. The stars melted away one by one, the twitter of the birds was heard, the tree-tops reddened, and the sun again looked down upon her. She resumed the search with renewed hope, for now she could see. With the native confidence of one born in the bush she traversed the leafy aisles, but her search was in vain. There was only a strip of bush to be examined, for a great swamp bounded it on one side as the St Lawrence did on the other, and into the swamp she deemed it impossible the children could have gone. She was more convinced than before that a wild beast had killed them and dragged their bodies to its lair in the swamp. Stunned by this awful conjecture, to which all the circumstances pointed, her strength left her, and in deep anguish of spirit she tottered homewards. On coming in sight of the shanty she marked with surprise smoke rising from the chimney. Her heart gave a great leap. “They have returned!” she said joyfully. She hastened to the door. A glance brought back her sorrow. She saw only her husband and her eldest son.
“What ails thee? Your face is white as Christmas snow. We came from Coteau this morning and found nobody here. What is wrong?”
“Joseph,” she replied in a hollow voice, “the wolf garou hath devoured our children.”
“Never! Thou art mad. There is no wolf garou.”
“I leave it all with the good God: I wish there was no wolf garou.” Then she told him of the disappearance of the children and of her vain search. Husband and son listened attentively.
“Pooh!” exclaimed Caza, “they are not lost forever to us. Get us breakfast and Jean and I will track them and have them back to thee before long. You do not know how to find and follow a trail.”
An hour later, shouldering their rifles, they set forth. The day passed painfully for the poor mother, and it was long after sunset when they returned. They had found no trace of the wanderers. They had met the calves, which, from the mud that covered them, had evidently been in the swamp and floundered there long before they got back to solid land at a point distant from the pasture. The father’s idea was that the children had been stolen by Indians. Next day the search was resumed, the neighbors joining in it. At nightfall all returned baffled, perplexed and disheartened; Caza more confident than before that the Indians were to blame. After a night’s rest, he set off early for St Regis, where he got no information. Leaving there, he scoured the forest along Trout River and the Chateaugay, finding a few hunting-camps, whose dusky inmates denied all knowledge of the missing girls. He pursued his toilsome way to Caughnawaga and came back by the river St Louis without discovering anything to throw light on the fate of his children. The grief of the mother who had been buoying herself with the expectation that he would bring back the truants, is not to be described; and she declared it would be a satisfaction to her to be assured of their death rather than longer endure the burden of suspense. Again the father left to scour the wilderness that lies between the St Lawrence and the foot-hills of the Adirondacks, hoping to find in some wigwam buried in forest-depths the objects of his eager quest. On reaching Lake Champlain he became convinced that the captors were beyond his reach, and, footsore and broken-hearted, he sought his home, to make the doleful report that he had not found the slightest trace.
The leaves fluttered from the trees, the snow came in flurries from the north, the nights grew longer and colder, and, at last, winter set in. When the wind came howling across the icy plain into which the St Lawrence had been transformed, and the trees around their shanty groaned and wailed, the simple couple drew closer to the blazing logs and thought sadly of their loved ones, pinched with cold and hunger, in the far-away wigwams of their heartless captors.
“They will grow up heathens,” murmured the mother.
“Nay, they were baptized,” suggested the father, “and that saves their souls. I hope they are dead rather than living to be abused by the savages.”
“Say not that, my husband; they can never forget us, and will watch a chance to come back. Archange will sit on thy knee again, and I will once more clasp my Marie to my bosom.”
When bedtime came they knelt side by side, and in their devotions the wanderers were not forgotten.
Time rolled on, and Caza and his wife became old people. Each year added some frailty, until, at a good old age, the eyes of the mother were closed without having seen what she longed for—the return of her children. The husband tarried a while longer, and when he was laid to rest the sad and strange trial of their lives grew fainter and fainter in the memories of those who succeeded them, until it became a tradition known to few—as a mystery that had never been solved.
Archange, holding Marie by the hand, on reaching the pasture, followed the fence to find where the calves had broken out, and then traced their footprints, which led to the edge of the swamp. Here she hesitated. “Marie, you stay here until I come back.”
“No, no; I will go with you; I can jump the wet places, you know.”
“Yes, and get tired before you go far. Wait; I’ll not be long in turning the calves back.”
Marie, however, would not part from her sister, and followed her steps as she picked her way over the swamp; now walking a fallen tree and anon leaping from one mossy tussock to another. The calves were soon sighted, but the silly creatures, after the manner of their kind, half in play and half in fright, waited until the children drew near, when they tossed up their heels and ran. In vain Archange tried to head them. Cumbered by Marie, who cried when she attempted to leave her, she could not go fast enough, and when it became so dark that it was difficult to see the sportive animals, she awakened to the fact that she must desist.
“Marie, we will go home and leave the calves until morning.”
“But if we don’t get them they will have no supper.”
“Neither will you; let us haste home or we will not see to get out of the swamp.”
“There is no hurry; I am tired,” and with these words Marie sat down on a log, and, pouting at her sister’s remonstrances, waited until the deepening gloom alarmed Archange, who, grasping the little hand, began, as she supposed, to retrace the way they had come. Marie was tired, and it now being dark, she slipped repeatedly into the water, until, exhausted and fretful, she flung herself on the broad trunk of a fallen hemlock and burst into tears. Archange was now dreadfully alarmed at their situation, yet it was some time before she was able to persuade her sister to resume their journey. They moved on with difficulty, and, after a while, the sight of solid green bush rising before them gladdened their strained eyes. “We have passed the swamp!” joyfully exclaimed Archange. They reached the ridge and scrambled up its side. The heart of the elder sister sank within her for she failed to recognize, in the starlight, a single familiar landmark. Could it be that, in the darkness, she had pursued the reverse way, and, instead of going towards home, had wandered farther away and crossed an arm of the swamp?
“Are we near home, Archange? I’m hungry.”
“My darling, I fear we will have to stay here until daylight. We’ve lost our way.”
“No, no; mother is waiting for us and supper is ready; let us go.”
“I wish I knew where to go, but I don’t. We are lost, Marie.”
“Will we have no supper?”
“Not tonight, but a nice breakfast in the morning.”
“Yes, I will clasp you and keep you warm.”
“I want my own bed, Archange,” and the child broke down and softly wept.
Finding a dry hemlock knoll, Archange plucked some cedar brush, and lying down upon it, folded Marie in her arms, who, wearied and faint, fell asleep. It was broad daylight when they awoke, chilled and hungry. Comforting her sister as best she could, Archange descended to the swamp, confident that they would soon be home. She had not gone far, until she was bewildered. The treacherous morass retained no mark of their footprints of the night before, and she knew not whither to go. Long and painfully they struggled without meeting an indication of home, and the fear grew in Archange’s breast that they were going farther and farther away from it. Noon had passed when they struck another long, narrow, stony ridge, which rose in the swamp like an island. Gladly they made for it, and seeking an open space, where the sunshine streamed through the interlacing foliage, enjoyed the heat, as it dried their wet garments and soothed their wearied limbs.
“If we only had something to eat,” said Marie, wistfully.
“Oh, we will get plenty of nuts here. See, yonder is a butternut tree,” and running; to it Archange returned with a lapful, which she broke with a stone as Marie ate them. They satisfied her craving, and laying her head on the sunny bank she fell asleep from fatigue. As soon as her breathing showed that she was sleeping soundly her sister stole from her side to explore the ridge and try to discover some trace of the way home. She found everything strange, and the conviction settled upon her mind that they were lost and that their sole hope of escape was in the searching-party, which she knew must be out, finding them. Little did she know that the morass their light steps had crossed would not bear the weight of a man, and that they were hopelessly lost and doomed to perish in the wilderness. Had she been alone she would have broken down; the care of her sister sustained her. For her she would bear up. On returning, she found her still asleep, and as she bent over her tear-stained face and lightly kissed it, she murmured, “I will take care of Marie and be her little mother.”
The thought of home and mother nigh overcame her. Repressing the rising lump in her throat, she busied herself against her sister’s waking. She increased her store of butternuts, adding beechnuts and acorns as well and broke them and arranged the kernels on basswood leaves, as on plates. She drew several big branches together and covered them with boughs which she tore from the surrounding cedars, and when the bower was complete she strewed its floor with dried ferns. She had finished and was sitting beside Marie when the little eyes opened and were greeted with a smile.
“Oh, I have been waiting ever so long for you, Marie. We are going to have a party. I have built a bower and laid out such a nice supper. We will play at keeping house.”
The child laughed gleefully on seeing the arrangements, and the forest rang with their mirth as the hours sped on. When evening approached Marie grew wistful; she wanted her mother; she wanted to go home, and Archange soothed her with patient care.
“Look at the bower, Marie! See what a nice bed; won’t you lie down on it? And what stories you will have to tell mother of our happy time here!”
The child, charmed by the novelty, crept in, and laying down her curly head fell asleep to the crooning of her sister. The stars as they hung over the tree-tops gazed downwards in pity on the little girls clasped in each others’ arms in the sleep of innocence, and the soft south wind sighed as it swept by, sorrowing that it could not save them. A murmuring was heard in the pine-tops.
“Must they perish?” asked the guardian angel.
“They must; no help can reach them,” answered Nature with a sigh. “Unwittingly they have strayed from the fold into the wilderness, these poor, helpless lambs, and must suffer. Only to man is given the power to help in such extremity.”
“Can you do nothing?” pleaded the angel.
“Yes; I shall lighten their last hours, give them a speedy death, and prevent the tooth of ravenous beast or crawling worm touching their pure bodies. Think me not cruel. I cannot perform the acts allotted to mankind, but am not, therefore, as some deem me, cruel and stolid; my spirit is tender, and what is in my power I’ll do.”
Sad of countenance the angel turned and glided to the side of the sleeping children. Stooping over them he whispered in their ears, and they smiled in their sleep and dreamt of home, of dancing on their father’s knee, of being tossed to the rafters by their brothers, and they felt the touch of their mother’s hand and heard the sound of her voice, and they were very happy.
* * * * *
When they awoke the song of a belated greybird, perched overhead, greeted them, and they lay and listened and watched the movements of a brilliantly colored woodpecker, as it circled the trunk of a spruce. Looking into the face of her sister, Archange saw that it was pale and pinched and that her smile was wan and feeble.
“Will father be here today?”
“I hope so, Marie; are you tired of me?”
“Oh, no; I do love you so, but I do want mother and—and—a drink of warm milk and a piece of bread.”
“Well, perhaps you will get them soon, and we will be happy until they come.”
They rose and Archange busied herself in setting forth breakfast, but both, though very hungry, now loathed the sight of nuts. Wandering, hand in hand, to find something more acceptable, they found in a raspberry thicket a bush with a scant crop of second-growth berries. Making a little basket of the bark of the white birch they nearly filled it, and returning to their bower, sat down to enjoy them, fashioning out of reeds make-believe spoons and asking each other if they would have cream and sugar. The play went on and faint laughter was heard. When the last berry was gone, the gnawing hunger re-awoke and the feverish heat of tongue and palate, which the acid juice had allayed, returned. Marie would not be comforted. She wanted to go home; she wanted her mother; she wanted food, and burying her face in her sister’s lap sobbed as if her heart would break and she would not be comforted. Archange felt as if she must give way to despair, but she repressed the feeling and bore up bravely. The trials and responsibilities of the past thirty-six hours had aged her, and, child as she was in years, she acted like a woman towards her sister, whom she alternately soothed and tried to divert. While leaning over her, in affected sportive mood, something soft brushed past her face and crept between them. It was a grey squirrel. Marie opened her weeping eyes, looked wonderingly for a moment, and then, with delighted gesture, grasped the little creature, and beaming with joy, pressed it to her lips.
“It is Mignon; my own clear little Mignon! What caused you to run away from me, you naughty boy?”
It was a tame squirrel, Marie’s pet, which, a week before, had scampered off to the woods. There was no doubt as to his identity, for beside its evident recognition of Marie, it retained the collar of colored yarn she had braided and tied round his neck. Hunger, home and mother were forgotten in the delight of recovering her pet, for whom she busied herself in getting breakfast, and he was soon sitting before her gravely disposing of the nuts she handed him, one by one.
“Cannot Mignon guide us home?” she suddenly asked.
“Oh, yes; Mignon knows the way; but we would have to follow him over the trees. I am afraid you could not jump from branch to branch; I know I could not.”
“Oh, I will tie a string to him and make him walk before us,” and with pretty prattle she entered into a conversation with the squirrel, telling him how they were lost and he was to guide them home, for she wanted to take dinner with mother. Mignon gravely listened and nodded his head as if he understood it all. Then he ran up a tree or two by way of exercise, frisked with another squirrel, peeped at Marie from all sorts of unexpected places, and ended his capers by jumping on to her shoulder when she was not expecting him, and pretended he was going to nibble her chin. Marie was delighted; Mignon had diverted her mind from her sufferings and Archange assisted by suggesting they should make a little house for him. Of sticks and reeds they framed it and plucking from the swamp lapfuls of ripe cat-tails they lined it with them, making a nest soft as velvet. This done, they had to fill a larder for him, and had a great hunting for all manner of nuts, and in this part of their work Mignon took great interest and pretended to assist, tho’, despite all warnings from Marie, he persisted in clasping in his forepaws the biggest butternuts and running away to bury them in out-of-the-way places. When she became tired with her exertions, Marie took a nap and Mignon curled himself up on her breast and snoozed with one eye open.
Weak in strength and sick from hunger, Archange, no longer requiring to keep up appearances, flung herself down near by and wept bitterly. Why did not father come? Were they to die there alone and from want of food? Should she not try again to find the way home? She stood up, as if to consider which way to try, when her head grew dizzy and she sank down and knew no more until she was aroused by Marie climbing over her and kissing her. She knew by the sun that it was late in the day, and rising, the sisters walked slowly and unsteadily seeking berries. They found a few only and they again tried to eat nuts. They could not. Tracing the edge of the swamp they looked for blueberries, but their season was past. Suddenly a low bush, dotted with red berries, caught their sight. They found the berries small and of so peculiar a taste that, had they not been ravenous for food, they could not have eaten them. They picked the bush bare and went to their bower, where they ate them. A feeling of satisfaction followed, and Marie grew quiet and contented.
“Sing to me, Archange: do?” and the little maid laid her down to rest and listen. Her sister sang one after another the chansons her parents had brought with them from Acadia. She ceased and marked the satisfied expression that had overspread Marie’s countenance. Her eyes were closed and her hands folded. “Sing the Cedars’ song?” she whispered, in the voice of one about to sleep. By that name was meant a hymn Archange had heard at Christmas tide, when for the first time to her knowledge she had been in a church, having accompanied her father to the small village of the Cedars. She knew not the words of the hymn, but had carried away the tune. High and clear rose in the air and floated far away across the desolate swamp the song in which so many generations of believers have expressed their love for the Holy Babe—the ancient Latin hymn, Adeste Fidelis. She sang the strain over and over again until a strange torpor crept upon her, and her voice grew fainter until it ceased and her head sank beside that of Marie’s.
All nature was hushed. The remains of trees, long since burned, now gaunt and white, stood in the swamp as sentinels to guard the sleeping babes, and the giant pines, beneath whose cover they rested, seemed to lift up their hands to Heaven in silent pleading. Slowly yet surely the berries of the dread ground-hemlock did their work; stealthily as juice of mandrake or of poppy. The leaden hours of the long September night passed and inky clouds blotted out the stars, and when the sun rose he shot out a shaft of purplish light, which revealed the faces of the sisters, calm and cold in death, with Mignon whisking his head against the whitened cheek of his sweet mistress.
There was a roll of distant thunder; nearer and nearer it came; it grew darker and the air was hot and stifling. The forest groaned, and then there was an appalling crash and a blaze of lightning clad the scene in dazzling sheen. There was the red glow of fire; the bolt had struck a dead pine and instantly the surrounding trees, covered with withered leaves, that caught like tinder, were in a blaze. The storm shrieked, the thunder made the earth tremble, the rain fell in torrents, but higher and higher mounted the flames. It was the funeral pyre of Archange and Marie, and when it died out not a vestige of them was to be found.