“‘_It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre_” 3 “_Suddenly the girl raised her head_” 27 “_M. l’Abbé commands_” 42 “_But Gabriel had neither eyes nor ears for the priest_” 69 “‘_Wild Deer; tell Wild Deer_’” 82 “_Far away at the mouth of the inlet . . . lay three small ships_” 91 “‘_And thou wilt make me a traitor too!’ he cried_” 120 “_They sat down side by side before the empty hearth_” 131 [Illustration: “‘It is a heretic name!’ exclaimed Le Loutre.”] _There is a history in all men’s lives,_ _Figuring the nature of the times deceased;_ _The which observed, a man may prophesy,_ _With a near aim, of the main chance of things_ _As yet not come to life; which in their seeds_ _And weak beginnings lie intreasured._ —_Shakespeare, Henry IV._ GABRIEL THE ACADIAN CHAPTER I “It is the name my mother called me by,” quoth Gabriel sturdily. For a moment there was silence, save for a murmur of horror that ran through the assembled Acadians at the daring of a boy who thus defied the fierce priest; yet his bearing was perfectly respectful. “It is a heretic name!” exclaimed Le Loutre. “Pardon, _M. l’Abbé_, but it is said not. My father also bare it, and his father before him. Never willingly will I be called by any other. Did not my mother swear on the crucifix to my dying sire that his child should bear his name? And to break a holy vow—is not that of all things the most sinful, O _mon père_?” “Thy father died unshriven.” “My father was of the Protestant faith,” rejoined the boy quickly. “He died faithful to his own, though far from the land of his birth. He would have carried my mother to join the colonists in Virginia, where abide many of his kindred, but the prospect of leaving our Acadian land did not please her, and he loved her more than kin or country. My father was a good soldier and brave, monsieur; he was but true to the flag he served, and to which all we of Acadia have sworn allegiance, and daily break our vows!” He raised his eyes of English blue, and looked straight into those of the Abbé Le Loutre, black and angry as a thundercloud. A fine figure of a seventeen-year-old lad he was. At his age many an Acadian youth was beginning to dream of wife and home all his own. Tall and strongly built, his light curls tossed back from a brow whose tell-tale fairness showed through the ruddy bronze left by the suns and storms of Acadia.