The Forge in the Forest

Tamin's big gun clapped like a cannon, and kicked my shoulder very vilely. But the result of the shot was all that we could desire. As I made haste to load again I noticed that the savage in the bow had fallen backward in his place, hit by a stray slug. The bulk of the charge, however, had torn a great hole in the bark, close to the water-line.

"You've done it, Father!" said Marc, in a tone of quiet exultation.

"Hein!" grunted Tamin. "They don't like the wet!"

The canoe was going down by the bow. The other two craft ranged hurriedly alongside, and took in the gesticulating crew, – all but one, whom they left in the stern to paddle the damaged canoe to land, being loth to lose a serviceable craft. With broken bow high in air the canoe spun around, and sped off up the Basin before the wind. The remaining two resumed the chase of us. We had gained a great space during the confusion, yet they came up upon us fast.

But now, ere I judged them to be within gunshot, they slackened speed.

"They think better of it!" said I, raising the gun again to my shoulder. As I did so they sheered off in haste to a safer distance.

"They are not such fools as I had hoped!" said Marc.

"I so far flatter myself as to think," said I, with some complacency, "that they won't trust themselves willingly again within range of this good barker."

By this we were come well within the wide mouth of the estuary, and a steep, wooded point thrust out upon our right. All at once I muttered a curse upon my dulness.

"What fools we are, to be sure!" I cried. "No reason that we should toil across the mountains to your good man's good boat at Shulie, my Tamin. Put her about, and we'll sail in comfort around to Chignecto; and let these fellows come in range again at their peril!"

"To be sure, indeed!" grunted Tamin; and with a lurch and great flapping we went about.

The canoes, indeed, now fled before us with excellent discretion. Our new course carried us under the gloom of the promontory, whence, in a few minutes, we shot out again into the moonlight. It was pleasant to see our antagonists making such courteous haste to give us room. I could not forbear to chuckle over it, and wished mightily that the Black Abbé were in one of the canoes.

"I fear me there's to be no work for Tamin's fishy dirk or my good whinger," sighed Marc, with a nice air of melancholy; and Tamin, with the little wrinkles thicker than ever about his eyes, yelled droll taunts after our late pursuers. In fact, we were all three in immense high feather, – when on a sudden there came a crashing bump that tumbled us headlong, the mast went overboard, and there we were stuck fast upon a sharp rock. The boat was crushed in like an egg-shell, and lay over on her side. The short, chopping seas huddled upon us in a smother. As I rose up, sputtering, I took note of Tamin's woollen cap washing away debonairly, snatched off, belike, by a taut rope as the mast fell. Then, clinging all three to the topmost gunwale, the waves jumping and sousing us derisively, we stared at each other in speechless dismay. But a chorus of triumphant screeches from the canoes, as they noted our mishap and made to turn, brought us to our senses.

"Nothing for it but to swim!" said I, thrusting down the now useless musket into the cuddy, where I hoped it might stay in case the wrecked boat should drift ashore. It was drenched, of course, and something too heavy to swim with. I emptied the slugs from my pocket. Tamin ducked his head under water and fumbled in the cuddy till I was on the point of plucking him forth, fearing he would drown, – Marc, meanwhile, looking on tranquilly and silently, with that fleeting remembrance of a smile. But now Tamin arose, gasping, with a small sack and a salted hake in his hands. The fish he passed over to me.

"Bread, M'sieu!" said he, holding up the drenched sack in triumph. "Now for the woods!"

'Twas but the toss of a biscuit to shore, and we had gained it ere our enemies were come within gunshot. Running swiftly along the strip of beach that skirted the steep, we put the shoulder of the cape between, and were safe from observation for a few minutes.

"To the woods, M'sieu!" cried Tamin, in a suppressed voice.

"No!" said I, sternly. "Straight along the beach, till I give the word to turn in! Follow me!"

"'Tis the one chance, to get out of sight now!" grumbled Tamin, running beside me, and clutching at his wet sack of bread.

"Don't you suppose he knows what he is doing, my Tamin?" interrupted Marc. "'Tis for you and me to obey orders!"

Tamin growled, but said no more.

"Now in with you to cover," I commanded, waving my salt fish as it had been a marshal's baton. At the same moment I turned, ran up the wet slope where a spring bubbled out of the wood's edge and spread itself over the stones, and sprang behind a thick screen of viburnums. My companions were beside me on the instant, – but it was not an instant too soon. As we paused to look back, there were the canoes coming furiously around the point.

Staying not long to observe them, I led the way straight into the darkness of the woods, aiming for the seashore at the other side of the point. But Tamin was not satisfied.

"Our road lies straight up yon river," said he.

"My friend," said I, "we must e'en find another road to Shulie. Those fellows will be sure to agree that we have gone that way. Knowing that I am a cunning woodsman, they will say, 'He will make them to run in the water, and so leave no trail.' And they will give hot chase up the river."

"But there be two rivers," objected Tamin.

"Bien," said I, "they will divide their party, and give hot chase up two rivers!"

"And in the meanwhile?" inquired Marc.

"I'll find the way to Shulie," said I. "The stars and the sun are guide enough! I know the main lay of all these coasts."

Chapter VI

Grûl

The undergrowth into which we had now come was thick and hindering, so there was no further chance of speech. A few minutes more and we came out upon the seaward slope of the point. We pushed straight down to the water, here sheltered from the wind and little troubled. That our footprints might be hidden, at least for a time, we ran, one behind the other, along the lip of the tide, where the water was about ankle deep. In the stillness our splashing sounded dangerously loud, and Tamin, yet in a grumbling humour, spoke of it.

"But you forget, my friend," said I, gently, "that there is noise and to spare where our enemies are, – across there in the wind!"

In a moment Tamin spoke again, pointing some little way ahead.

"The land drops away yonder, M'sieu, 'twixt the point and the main shore!" he growled, with conspicuous anxiety in his voice. He was no trembler; but it fretted him to be taking what he deemed the weaker course. "Nothing," he added, "but a bit of bare beach that the waves go over at spring tides when the wind's down the Basin!"

I paused in some dismay. But my mind was made up.

"We must go on," said I. "But we will stoop low, and lose no time in the passage. They'll scarce be landed yet."

And now, as I came to see how low indeed that strip of perilous beach was, I somewhat misdoubted of success in getting by unseen. But we went a little deeper in the tide, and bowed our bodies with great humbleness, and so passed over with painful effort but not a little speed. Being come again under shelter, we straightened ourselves, well pleased, fetched a deep breath or two, and ran on with fresh celerity.

"But if a redskin should think to step over the beach, there'd be our goose cooked!" muttered Tamin.

"Well said!" I answered. "Therefore let us strike inland at once!" And I led the way again into the darkness of the forest.

Dark as it was, there was yet light enough from the moon to enable me to direct my course as I wished. I struck well west of the course which would have taken us most speedily to Shulie, being determined to avoid the valley of the stream which I considered our pursuers were most likely to ascend. To satisfy Tamin's doubts I explained my purpose, which was to aim straight for Shulie as soon as we were over the water-shed. And I must do him the justice to say he was content, beginning now to come more graciously to my view. We went but slowly, climbing, ever climbing. At times we would be groping through a great blackness of hemlocks. Again the forest would be more open, a mingling of fir trees, and birches, and maples. Coming at last to more level ground, we were still much hindered by innumerable rocks, amid which the underbrush and wild vines prepared pitfalls for our weary feet. But I was not yet willing to call a halt for breath. On, on we stumbled, the wet branches buffeting our faces, but a cool and pleasant savour of the wild herbs which we trod upon ever exhaling upwards to refresh our senses. As we crossed a little grassy glade, I observed that Marc had come to Tamin's help, and was carrying the sack of bread. I observed, also, that Tamin's face was drawn with fatigue, and that he went with a kind of dogged heaviness. I took pity upon him. We had put, I guessed, good miles between ourselves and our pursuers, and I felt that we were, in all reason, safe for the time. At the further limit of the glade there chattered a shallow brook, whose sweet noise reminded me that I was parched with thirst. The pallor of first dawn was now coming into the sky, and the tree tops began to lift and float in an aerial grayness. I glanced at Marc, and his eyes met mine with a keen brightness that told me he was yet unwearied. Nevertheless I cried: —

"Halt, and fall out for breakfast." And with the words I flung myself down by the brook, thrust my burning face into the babbling chill of it, and drank luxuriously. Tamin was beside me in an instant; but Marc slaked his thirst at more leisure, when he had well enjoyed watching our satisfaction.

We lay for a little, till the sky was touched here and there with saffron and flying wisps of pink, and we began to see the colour of grass and leaves. Then we made our meal, – a morsel each of the salt hake which I had clung to through our flight, and some bits of Tamin's black bread. This bread was wholesome, as I well knew, and to our hunger it was not unsavoury; but it was of a hardness which the sea-water had scarce availed to mitigate.

As we ground hastily upon the meagre fare, I felt, rather than heard, a presence come behind me. I turned my head with a start, and at the same instant heard a high, plangent voice, close beside us, crying slowly: —

"Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the day of her desolation cometh."

It was an astonishing figure upon which my eyes fell, – a figure which might have been grotesque, but was not. Instead of laughing, my heart thrilled with a kind of awe. The man was not old, – his frame was erect and strong with manhood; but the long hair hanging about his neck was white, the long beard streaming upon his half-naked breast was white. He wore leathern breeches, and the upper portion of his body was covered only by a cloak of coarse woollen stuff, woven in a staring pattern of black and yellow. On his head was a rimless cap of plaited straw, with a high, pointed crown; and this was stuck full of gaudy flowers and feathers. From the point of the crown rose the stump of what had been, belike, a spray of goldenrod, broken by a hasty journeying through the obstructions of the forest. The man's eyes, of a wild and flaming blue, fixed themselves on mine. In one hand he carried a white stick, with a grotesque carven head, dyed scarlet, which he pointed straight at me.

"Do you lie down, like cows that chew the cud, when the wolves are on the trail?" demanded that plangent voice.

"It's Grûl!" cried Tamin, springing to his feet and thrusting a piece of black bread into the stranger's hand.

But the offering was thrust aside, while those wide eyes flamed yet more wildly upon me.

"They are on the trail, I tell you!" he repeated. "I hear their feet even now! Go! Run! Fly!" and he stooped, with an ear toward the ground.

"But which way should we fly?" I asked, half in doubt whether his warning should be heeded or derided. I could see that neither Marc nor Tamin had any such doubts. They were on the strain to be off, and only awaited my word.

"Go up the brook," said he, in a lower voice. "The first small stream on your left hand, turn up that a little way, and so – for the wolves shall this time be balked. But the black wolf's teeth bite deep. They shall bite upon the throats of the people!" he continued, his voice rising keenly, his white staff, with its grinning scarlet head, waving in strange, intricate curves. We were already off, making at almost full speed up the brook. Glancing back, I saw the fantastic form running to and fro over the ground where we had lain; and when the trees hid him we heard those ominous words wailed slowly over and over with the reiterance of a tolling bell: —

"Woe, woe for Acadie the Fair, for the day of her desolation cometh!"

"He'll throw them off the trail!" said Tamin, confidently.

"But how did they ever get on it?" queried Marc.

"'Tis plain that they have seen or heard us as we passed the strip of beach!" said I, in deep vexation, for I hated to be overreached by any one in woodcraft. "If we outwit them now, it's no thanks to my tactics, but only to that generous and astonishing madman. You both seemed to know him. Who, in the name of all the saints, might he be? What was it you called him, Tamin?"

"Grûl!" replied Tamin; and said no more, discreetly husbanding his wind. But Marc spoke for him.

"I have heard him called no other name but Grûl! Madman he is, at times, I think. But sane for the most part, and with some touches of a wisdom beyond the wisdom of men. The guise of madness he wears always; and the Indians, as well as our own people, reverence him mightily. It is nigh upon three years since he first appeared in Acadie. He hates the Black Abbé, – who, they say, once did him some great mischief in some other land than this, – and his strange ravings, his prodigious prophesyings, do something here and there to weaken the Abbé's influence with our people."

"Then how does he evade the good father's wrath?" I questioned, in wonder.

"Oh," said Marc, "the good father hates him cordially enough. But the Indians could not be persuaded, or bullied, or bribed, to lift a hand against him. They say a Manitou dwells in him."

"Maybe they're not far wrong!" grunted Tamin.

And now I, like Tamin, found it prudent to spare my wind. But Marc, whose lungs seemed untiring, spoke from time to time as he went, and told me certain incidents, now of Grûl's acuteness, now of his gift of prophecy, now of his fantastic madness. We came at length, after passing two small rivulets on the right, to the stream on the left which Grûl had indicated. It had a firm bed, wherein our footsteps left no trace, and we ascended it for perhaps a mile, by many windings. Then, with crafty care, we crept up from the stream, in such a fashion as to leave no mark of our divergence if, as I thought not likely, our pursuers should come that way. After that we fetched a great circuit, crossed the parent brook, and shortly before noon judged that we might account ourselves secure. Where a tiny spring bubbled beneath a granite boulder and trickled away north toward the Fundy shore, we stopped to munch black bread and the remnant of the fish. We rested for an hour, – Tamin and I sleeping, while Marc, who protested that he felt no motion toward slumber, kept watch. When he roused us, we set off pleasantly refreshed, our faces toward Shulie.

Till late that night we journeyed, having a clear moon to guide us. Coming at length to the edge of a small lake set with islands, "Here," said I, "is the place where we may sleep secure!"

We stripped, took our bundles on our heads, and swam out into the shining stillness. We swam past two islets, and landed upon one which caught my fancy. There we lay down in a bed of sweet-smelling fern, and were well content. As we supped on Tamin's good black bread, two loons laughed to each other out on the silver surface. We saw their black, watchful heads, moving slowly. Then we slept. It was high day when we awoke. The bread was now scarce, so we husbanded it, and made such good speed all day that while it wanted yet some hours of sunset we came out upon a bluff's edge and saw below us the wash and roll of Fundy. We were some way west of Shulie, but not far, Tamin said, from the house of his good friend with the good boat.

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