Evangeline: a Tale of Acadie

Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, / Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public; / Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung / Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows / Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. / Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred / Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick. / Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive, / Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English. / Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion, / Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike. / He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children; / For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest, / And of the goblin that came in the night to water the horses, / And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who unchristened / Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers of children; / And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked in the stable, / And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a nutshell, / And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horseshoes, / With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. / Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the blacksmith, / Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his right hand, / "Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, "thou hast heard the talk in the village, / And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships and their errand. " / Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary public, -- / "Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never the wiser; / And what their errand may be I know not better than others. / Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil intention / Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why then molest us? " / "God's name! " shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible blacksmith; / "Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore? / Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the strongest! " / But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary public, -- / "Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice / Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often consoled me, / When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port Royal. " / This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to repeat it / When his neighbors complained that any injustice was done them. / "Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember, / Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice / Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand, / And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided / Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the people. / Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the balance, / Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine above them. / But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted; / Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty / Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman's palace / That a necklace of pearls was lost, and erelong a suspicion / Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household. / She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold, / Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of Justice. / As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended, / Lo! o'er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the thunder / Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand / Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance, / And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie, / Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was inwoven. " / Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the blacksmith / Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no language; / All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, as the vapors / Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter.

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the table, / Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with home-brewed / Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the village of Grand-Pre; / While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and inkhorn, / Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the parties, / Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in cattle. / Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were completed, / And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the margin. / Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the table / Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver; / And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the bridegroom, / Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their welfare. / Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and departed, / While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside, / Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its corner. / Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention the old men / Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuver, / Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was made in the king-row / Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's embrasure, / Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the moon rise / Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows. / Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, / Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.