“Give me a drink of water, I pray you!” said I to divert him, fearing lest that swift and succinct narrative had come to an end. He gave it to me, and in a moment began again. “So Beauséjour fell,” said he. “La Garne left early, for him the English wanted to hang. The rest marched out with honours of war. The English found them an inconvenience as prisoners, and sent them to Louisbourg. And Beauséjour is now Fort Cumberland.” “So fades the glory of France from Acadie—forever!” I murmured, weighed down with prescience. “Just as it was fading,” continued Grûl, with a hint of the cynic in his voice, “your cousin, Marc de Mer, came from Quebec with despatches. The garrison was marching out. He, being already out, judged it unnecessary to go in. He took boat down Chignecto water, and up through Minas to Grand Pré. Here he busied himself with your uncle’s affairs, laying aside his uniform and passing unmolested as a villager. “For a little there was stillness. Then the great doom fell. “To every settlement went English battalions. What I saw at Grand Pré is what others saw at Annapolis, Piziquid, Baie Verte. An English colonel, one Winslow, smooth and round and rosy of countenance, angry and anxious, little in love with his enterprise, summoned the men of Grand Pré to meet him in the chapel and hear the last orders of the king. There had been “last orders” before, and they had exploded harmlessly enough. The men of Grand Pré went—and your cousin Marc, having a restless curiosity, went with them. Thereupon the doors were shut. They were as rats in a trap, a ring of fire about them. “They learned the king’s decree clearly enough. They were to be put on ships,—they, their families, such household gear as there might be place for,—and carried very far from their native fields, and scattered among strangers of an alien speech and faith. “Well, the mountains had fallen upon them. Who could move? They lay in the chapel, and their hearts sweat blood. Daily their weeping women, their wide-eyed children, came bringing food. But the ships were not ready. The agony has dragged all summer. At last two small ship-loads are gone; the crowd is less in the chapel; some houses stand empty in the village, waiting to burn. The year grows old; the task is nearly done.” There was a dark silence. “Has my cousin Marc gone yet?” I asked heavily. “He waits and wastes in the chapel.” “And my almost-father, Father Fafard?” “No,” said Grûl, “his trouble is but for others. He has ever counselled men to keep their oaths. He has opposed a face of steel to Quebec intrigue. The English reverence him. He blesses those who are taken away. He comforts those who wait.” Of Yvonne I had no excuse for asking more. What more I would know I must go and learn. To go and learn I must get strong. To get strong I must sleep. I turned my face to the wall. Chapter XXII Grûl’s Case