Book »xli 1913 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT THE STORY OF EVANGELINE "long at her father's door EVANGELINE stood" — Page J/p EVM^GELINE ADAPTED from: /lewu,wlL01^GFEL/I^0^?5^t BY CLAYTON EDWARDS 1 Copyright, IQ13, by Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights resewed September, IQ13 0^ ^ O )CI.A35183 6 ft0 / 0^ FOREWORD The purpose of this narrative is threefold, — to give a direct prose rendering of Longfellow's poem, "Evange- line," to awaken interest in the poem itself, and to pre- serve, so far as possible, the spirit of the original poetry for those who prefer their romances in prose. The text follows the poem closely and uses many of Longfellow's own words and phrases as being eminently the best fitted to the scenes that are described. In the brief historical and legendary introduction the writer is largely indebted to Arthur Wentworth Hamilton Eaton's "The History of Kings County," and to "Acadian Legends and Lyrics" by the same author. For Longfellow's biography the following books have also been consulted : "The Life of Longfellow" by Erin S. Robertson, "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" by Thomas Wadsworth Higginson, and "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" by Samuel Longfellow. CONTENTS THE STORY OF EVANGELINE PAGE Foreword v Introduction . i Part I .............. 37 Part II . . .... .87 EVANGELINE A TALE OF ACADIE Part I 137 Part II • • . 197 ILLUSTRATIONS "In the Twilight Gloom of a Window's Embrasure, Sat the Lovers" Cover ^ "Long at Her Father's Door Evangeline Stood" ^ Frontispiece TACINQ PAGE 'This is the Forest Primeval" ...;.. ,,, ... . 20 ^ ■'Down the Long Street She Passed" . . .... 40 j^ 'There at the Door They Stood With Wondering Eyes to Behold Him" 70 iX 'Close at her Father's Side Was the Gentle Evan- geline Seated" 100 ^' 'And Anon With His Wooden Shoes Beat Time to THE Music" 130 ^- 'Halfway Down to the Shore Evangeline Waited IN Silence" 160 -^ 'Lovely the Moonlight Was as It Glanced and Gleamed on the Water" 190"^ 'There in an Arbor of Roses" ....... 220 -' 'Silent With Wonder and Strange Surprise Evan- geline Listened" 240 ^' 'Thus Many Years She Lived as a Sister of Mercy" 250 xy THE STORY OF EVANGELINE INTRODUCTION Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in the city of Portland, February 27, 1807. His father, Stephen Longfellow, was a lawyer who held a prominent place in the New England of his day and was greatly respected, both for his ability and his character. Stephen Longfel- low had taken honors at Harvard college and was consid- ered a man of extraordinary fineness of nature both by his professors and his classmates; he came swiftly to the front in the profession of law and was prominent at the Cumberland bar. In politics he belonged to the Feder- alist party and went to the legislature as representative in 1814. He was also a member of the National Con- gress a year later. There was little about the admirable figure of this old-fashioned New England gentleman, however, to make it seem probable that any of his son's poetic qual- ities were inherited from him. The poet undoubtedly owed to his father the composure of character and manli- ness of principle that have made his name, with those of Whitman and Browning, stand forward so sturdily [I] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE among the names of poets of the Nineteenth Century, but the gifts that won his popularity and fame must have come to him from the nature of his mother, who delighted in music and showed a keen appreciation of poetry. An invalid in her later years, she was active as well as beauti- ful in her youth, fond of dancing and of the society of her friends and possessed of a great love of nature — able, as Samuel Longfellow says of her, "to sit by a window dur- ing a thunderstorm enjoying the excitement of its splen- dors." Zilpah Longfellow was a daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth and Elizabeth Bartlett, coming from a fam- ily of Americans who were famous for patriotic service. Her brother, Henry Wadsworth, a young naval lieuten- ant, perished in 1804 when the fire ship Intrepid was blown up before Tripoli on the night of September fourth, and her father commanded a company of minute men and saw active service in the Revolution. Longfellow was the second son. As a boy he is de- scribed as decidedly attractive in character and appear- ance, fond of all outdoor sports — except that of shooting, to which his elder brother Stephen was devoted — sensi- tive, dreamy, quick to anger but affectionate, and with a [2] INTRODUCTION strong and an unusual dislike of all loud noises, a trait that followed him through life. When he was three years old his parents began to live in the house on Congress Street that has since been associated with the scenes of his youth and childhood. It was built by his grandfather, General Wadsworth, and was celebrated as being the first brick house in Portland. The poet's mother had spent her girlhood and celebrated her wedding there and she returned to the old house to make her permanent home soon after her marriage. From his earliest years Longfellow had the use of his father's excellent library and has left in his own words a record of the books that fascinated him most. Washing- ton Irving's "Sketch Book" was read by him "with an ever increasing wonder and delight," and in his address before the Massachusetts Historical Society on the occa- sion of Irving's death he declared that the old fascination had always remained for him. After some desultory schooling which began at what would seem to-day the preposterous age of three years, Longfellow was sent to the Portland Academy, where as a little boy he excited remark on the part of his teach- ers for the same industry and good habits that later grad- [3] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE uated him from Bowdoin almost at the head of one of the largest classes that up to that time had entered the young college. Idling was never encouraged in the Longfellow household, where the father governed his family with kindly firmness, teaching them, as is recorded, "habits of industry, personal honor and an abiding fear of debt." Samuel Longfellow and other of Longfellow's bi- ographers have told at some length of his first printed production which appeared in the poet's corner of the Portland Gazette when he had barely passed his thir- teenth birthday. It was entitled "The Battle of Lov- ell's Fond," and while it bears the marks of immaturity and is hardly remarkable when compared with the work that some other poets had produced at the same early age, it is, in a certain way characteristic of much of his later work. Lo veil's Pond in the neighborhood of Port- land was once the scene of an Indian fight whose details excited Longfellow's awakening imagination. The poem resulted and was duly printed in the Gazette un- der the signature of "Henry," exciting no comment what- ever from the young poet's parents who were doubtless unaware of its authorship. Longfellow had kept his ef- fort a secret that only his little sister shared, but on the [4] INTRODUCTION evening of the day that the poem was published he visited the house of his father's friend, Judge Mellen, whose son, Frederick, was one of his own early companions. The talk in the sitting-room chanced, unfortunately for Long- fellow, to include poetry, for the Judge said: "Did you see the piece in to-day's paper? Very stiff, remarkably stiff; moreover it is all borrowed, every word of it." The cruel disappointment at this reception of his earliest flight did not, however, prevent ''Henry" from repeating his performance and publishing other poems, all more or less crude, over the same signature. Grad- ually the secret of their authorship leaked out among his friends. His mother encouraged him in his "poetic effu- sions" as she called his writings and Portland became the scene of a schoolboy literary union that included four or five other lads besides Longfellow. In the meanwhile he attended strictly to his studies and was ready for col- lege when fourteen years old, passing his entrance ex- aminations for Bowdoin in 1821. Stephen Longfellow, was one of the trustees of that little college that has since then had upon its honor roll such names as Longfellow, Hawthorne and Peary; and it was characteristic of him that he decided to send both [5] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE his sons to the young and struggling institution, feeling himself in duty bound to do so. Longfellow entered col- lege in the same year with his elder brother, Stephen, mak- ing the acquaintance of Nathaniel Hawthorne who chanced to be in his class. In their college years, how- ever, the two never became the closest of friends, al- though they were fond of taking walks together in the Brunswick woods and of reading and conversing on liter- ary subjects. Longfellow studied hard at Bowdoin and wrote con- stantly. Although the quality of most of his earliest poems was far from being remarkable, they showed suf- ficient flashes of inspiration to awaken in his own mind a passionate desire to direct his life work in the field of lit- erature. Bryant was becoming famous then, and a paper known as the United States Literary Gazette had the unique distinction of printing, often on the same page, the early poems of Bryant and Longfellow, while it was claimed that the quality of this verse with that of other contemporaries was of a higher order than the work of any previous American poets. "With Bryant and Longfel- low it would therefore seem that the permanent poetic literature of the nation began," says Higginson — a small [6] INTRODUCTION beginning, certainly when considered with the work that was being done on the other side of the Atlantic at that time, where the poems of Keats, Shelley, Byron and Wordsworth were ringing! Bryant's poetry in those early days was considered far superior to that of his younger rival and Longfellow has admitted that much of his verse was involuntarily bor- rowed from Bryant's, for which he had the highest admira- tion. He discarded the major part of it in his later life with the apology, that all had been written before he was nineteen years old. Seventeen pieces were contributed by Longfellow to the Gazette during his college course and only five of them were considered by him to be suf- ficiently good for subsequent publication. His future career commenced to become a problem to him, occupying his mind to a marked degree during the year of his graduation, and he wrote frequently to his father asking advice. He confessed himself averse to tak- ing up any profession and expressed the desire to spend a year abroad at Cambridge to study the polite languages. He declared that of all the things in the world he had a strong desire to win distinction in literature, and that in the field of letters alone did he believe that he could be [7] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE successful. That Longfellow's father did not have great confidence in his son's literary gifts is decidedly apparent in the tone of his answering letters. He said among other things that America did not then possess wealth enough to encourage purely literary men ; that while the life of an author must be very pleasant, it required sufficient means to dissolve the thought of the necessity of self-support and that as he had never lived with the intention of amass- ing wealth for his children but rather to cultivate their minds in the best possible manner, his own income did not allow his son's taking such a course. He would be glad, however, he added, to bear the expenses of the trip abroad, which he had always believed might be beneficial to his son. While the young poet was thus wrestling with his first real problem, the event occurred which it is generally conceded forced the trend of his genius and directed the course of his entire life — perhaps was even responsible for his having continued in literature, although this seems hardly probable. In college his ability as a scholar had attracted such attention at Bowdoin that although he was only nineteen years old when he graduated the trus- tees promptly chose him to fill a new position made by the [8] INTRODUCTION establishment of a chair of modern languages through a gift by Mrs. Bowdoin. This entailed a year's study abroad to gain a mastery of modern languages and it is needless to say that Longfellow was delighted with the marvelous opportunity which fell in so happily with his own wishes. He accepted it at once — ^but with the de- mand that he be made a professor instead of filling the position of instructor as was expected of him. The point was acceded by the trustees and Longfellow sailed for France. Europe in those days had about it a glamour for Amer- icans that was enhanced in Longfellow's eyes through the stimulus to his active imagination in the studying of dif- ferent peoples and customs and the visiting of historic and romantic places. His letters home bear ample wit- ness to the effect of his first travels. He was faithful to the purpose with which he had gone abroad, however, and in the time allowed him gained a knowledge of French, German, Spanish and Italian. He had well fulfilled his mission when he returned to take up his duties at Bow- doin, where so short a time before he had been a student. Longfellow's life as a professor of languages in the little rural college was uneventful, but he soon became [9] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE known not only in Brunswick but generally throughout the country for his capability as a teacher. He applied himself to his work with great devotion and earnestness, preparing text books and foreign classics for the benefit of his pupils and doing everything in his power to attain a stimulating influence over them. In 1831 he married a Portland girl named Mary Storer Potter, a second daughter of Barrett Potter who was a neighbor and friend of Longfellow's own family. She had scholarly tastes and, what was perhaps more im- portant in the wife of a young professor, was able suc- cessfully to administer her husband's household affairs on the slender income that the Bowdoin trustees considered an adequate salary. In addition to the sum of eight hun- dred dollars a year for his professional work Longfellow received an extra hundred for his duties as college li- brarian. His labors were by no means light, and he found the sum that he received meager enough to meet his grow- ing expenses, while he was obliged to rise early each morn- ing to perform his literary work. And even then there ap- peared to be nothing about this work to indicate the rise of a great poet. It consisted mostly of prose, a large part of which was sketches of his European experiences, [10] INTRODUCTION written after the manner of Washington Irving. These sketches were published in the New England Magazine under the title of "The Schoolmaster." Many writers and biographers have commented on the fact that wdth the exception of his very earliest poems his first work was scant in verse production and that he seemed to show no particular talent or even inclination for poetry. As a teacher, however, his ability was evident from the first. Three years after he had taken up his work in Bowdoin he had won a reputation of the first order that resulted in his receiving a letter from Josiah Quincy of Harvard College, informing him that Professor Ticknor had given notice of his coming resignation as Smith Pro- fessor of Modern Languages and asking Longfellow to take his place. The letter implied that a preliminary stay in Europe for further study would be advisable, and Longfellow promptly accepted both the hint and the position, preparing at once for a second foreign tour in which his wife was to accompany him. He sailed with her in the spring of 1835, going first to London, where he met Thomas Carlyle; thence after a brief stay to Sweden and from there to Holland. In Holland there came to Longfellow the first real [II] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE sorrow that he had ever experienced, for his young wife died in Amsterdam after an illness of several weeks. What this meant to him, alone and among strangers, can be imagined — especially as his married life had been the happiest conceivable. His letters, which strove to put on a brave front, had a note of the utmost despondency, but he remained abroad and went on with his work probably from a sense of duty to the college he was about to enter. That winter he spent in Heidelberg, studying deeply and meeting several men that greatly interested him, among them the poet Bryant, who was hitherto unknown to him, although he had molded so much of Longfellow's early writing. In 1836 Longfellow returned to America and took up his residence in Cambridge as a Harvard professor. He boarded in the old Craigie house which had been built almost a hundred years before and which was used as Gen- eral Washington's headquarters during the siege of Bos- ton in the Revolution. This old house was naturally famous in Cambridge and one of its most interesting land- marks even before it gained the added fame of being the residence of Longfellow. The house is said to have been built in 1759 by Colonel John Vassal and was taken by [12] INTRODUCTION Washington as headquarters and residence. Later it was purchased by Andrew Craigie who had served as surgeon- general in the Continental army. He became an elab- orate entertainer and is reported to have had among his guests no less personages than the famous Talleyrand and Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, Queen Victoria's father. Mrs. Craigie still lived in the old house when Longfellow went to Cambridge and was exceedingly loath to take him as a lodger until she found out who he was. But when he declared himself the author of "Outre Mer," a book of European sketches then recently published, a copy of which was lying on her sideboard at the time of Longfellow's call upon her, the good lady promptly re- lented, showed him through the house and taking him into a pleasant chamber announced to him that it had been General Washington's once and that he could have it for his own. Longfellow published his second book, the novel, "Hyperion," soon after he commenced his duties at Har- vard. The previous book that had made such an impres- sion upon his landlady had been running in magazine form before his second European tour. He was also pub- lishing in the Knickerbocker Magazine a number of short: [13] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE poems among which was "The Psalm of Life," that at first appeared anonymously. It received wide attention throughout the country with so much speculation as to its authorship that Longfellow decided to republish it under his own name, bringing it out with a number of other verses in 1839 in a little book that he called "Voices of the Night," most of the poems in it being reprinted from the Knickerbocker Magazine. "Hyperion" had appeared two or three months ear- lier and according to some biographers Longfellow has been criticized for the apparent lack of taste that he ex- hibited in it. The main purpose of the book, it has been claimed, was nothing else than the wooing of Miss Frances Elizabeth Appleton, a lady that Longfellow had met some years before in Switzerland. Certainly she is obviously the heroine, Mary Ashburton, while the author's own experiences and emotions are but thinly veiled under the romantic narrative. The experiment did not fail, or rather Longfellow succeeded in spite of it. Four years later he married Frances Appleton, a remarkable and charming woman who was to become identified in a large measure with much of his later work, for the poet's second wife had es- [14] INTRODUCTION sentially the nature best fitted to aid her husband in his creative labors, and entered with all her heart into his lit- erary life. Before Longfellow's second marriage, however, and after the publication of "Hyperion," he produced some of his most distinctive and characteristic work. "The Skeleton in Armor," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "Excelsior," and the much discussed and somewhat se- verely criticized "Poems on Slavery," had all been pub- lished. These last cost Longfellow for a time a consider- able part of his popularity, a loss that in no way affected his composure, although the poems were criticized not only on account of the issue with which they dealt but for reasons of poetic inferiority. Even those reformers who had largely induced Longfellow to employ his pen on this dynamic and highly explosive subject felt that his note was somewhat too slight for the magnitude of his theme, and compared his verse unfavorably with that of Whit- tier. It is known and mentioned, however, that Whittier himself wrote to Longfellow expressing his appreciation of the poems, declaring that they had rendered important service to the Liberty movement; and certainly the criti- cism that fell on Longfellow was shared and shared gen- [15] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE erously by Whittier, Emerson and all others who were writing against slavery. In 1843 Longfellow published "The Spanish Stu- dent," a dramatic poem of no particular merit that en- joyed almost equal popularity, however, with some of his better work that had preceded it. By this time his fame was national and well established, and he was beginning to make the peculiar and general appeal in the homes of Americans that has fallen to the lot of no other writer, either of verse or prose, while his strong tendency toward Americanism was becoming broader and deeper. It seemed, indeed, at this time in Longfellow's career, as if Fortune could not do too much for her favorite, who throughout his life, with the exception of the one great tragedy of his later years, was destined to enjoy so large an amount of happiness. His second wife was not only a woman who in every way could awaken his inspiration, but she was possessed of a sufficient fortune so that the thought of poverty need never trouble him or his family. His position in the university and in the nation was even then assured. He was still young, and in spite of his academic duties had sufficient time at his command to de- [16] INTRODUCTION velop his growing genius and to satisfy the poetic craving of his nature. A scholarly work on the poets and the poetry of Europe, written jointly by Longfellow and Professor Fel- ton was published in 1845. It was composed of several hundred translations of poems in various languages from Icelandic to Portuguese with critical commentaries and introductions and it showed Longfellow's tremendous versatility in and acquaintance with foreign tongues. In the same year there appeared notes in his diary showing that already he was considering the long, hexameter poem, "Evangeline." In 1846 he published "The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems," which included many of his popular favorites, among them "The Arrow and the Song." Then came "Evangeline" on which he had been working for some time and which was destined to be the most popular of any of his poems. He had never been to Nova Scotia, or Acadia, to acquaint himself with the scenes of his new literary venture, but the description, on the whole, rings true in spite of minor inconsistencies. Robertson tells us a curious story of "Evangeline's" [17] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE inception — how Longfellow one day was dining at his home with Nathaniel Hawthorne and a clergyman who told the poet of a subject in which he was endeavoring without success to awaken Hawthorne's interest. He then related the history of a young Acadian girl who had been driven into exile with all the rest of her people dur- ing the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755; how she be- came separated from her lover and wandered for many years in search of him until she found him in a hospital at the point of death. "That Longfellow at once took the lovely legend," writes Robertson, "is not so striking a fact, as that Hawthorne, true to the strange taste of his 'miasmatic conscience' felt the want of a sin to study in the story and so would have none of it." The success of "Evangeline" was rapid and so uni- versal that thirty-seven thousand copies were sold in the first ten years. The effect of the poem upon Nova Scotia and French Canada is still evident. It is said that the French Canadians hold Longfellow higher than any other poet and that many of them have learned English just for the pleasure of reading Evangeline in the orig- inal. Evangeline herself has been portrayed upon the pamphlets and time-tables of Canadian railroads that [18] INTRODUCTION have been prompt to see the advertising possibilities in the poem. The poem itself has been translated into ten foreign languages, and to-day it is still read widely. "Kavanagh" followed "Evangeline" — a novel for which Americans seem to have little inclination, and after its publication there was a lull in Longfellow's lit- erary output. But "The Seaside and the Fireside" was published in Boston in 1850 and "The Golden Legend" in 1851. Then, in 1855, appeared what to many people will always stand as the high-water mark of Longfel- low's genius, "The Song of Hiawatha" in which the spirit and traditions of the Indians were so thoroughly portrayed, with such fresh and delightful simplicity, that it stands high and alone as the poetic expression of the Indian legend. For some time past Longfellow had been working on this Indian adventure and from the entries regarding it that we read in quotations from his journal we can see that it fascinated and delighted him. Finally it was put on press in a first edition of 5000 copies and the response was immediate and enthusiastic on the part of the reading public. Violent controversies arose among the critics but on the whole their judgment was favorable. Emerson [19] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE read the poem with interest and sent to Longfellow a let- ter of tempered praise. Bayard Taylor wrote in the same manner, though on the whole more warmly. Hawthorne and Parsons joined in commending it and letters of ap- preciation and criticism poured on the poet who had ap- parently awakened the entire nation through the original application of his verse. By this time Longfellow had resigned his professor- ship in order to be entirely free for literary effort. Even if he had not been comparatively wealthy he would then have been in a position to earn a comfortable income from his writing. He was paying the pleasant penalty of his fame in the host of visitors and the curious that besieged him constantly and in the ceaseless incoming tide of let- ters from all over the country, many of which he tried to answer in his own hand. But although he had given him- self completely to writing it was three years after "Hia- watha" had taken the country by storm before "The Courtship of Miles Standish" was published and five years later before "Tales of a Wayside Inn" was given to the press. In those five years, however, there had come to Long- fellow a sudden and hideous tragedy. Early in July, [20] 'this is the forest primeval" — Page i^j INTRODUCTION 1861, Mrs. Longfellow, while with her children in the library of Craigie House, was burned to death from the accidental falling of a match and Longfellow himself re- ceived severe burns in his efforts to rescue her. The hor- ror and pity of this event were indescribable and for a long time afterward Longfellow could not speak of the anguish that he had experienced. He never completely recovered from the shock and though in time he resumed his writing, it seemed as if his greatest work had been completed. 'Tlower de Luce," "The New England Tragedies" and a translation of Dante's "Divine Comedy" appeared successively in the years from 1867 to 1870 and "Christus, a Mystery" followed them two years later in an effort to consummate what Longfellow believed to be "a higher strain" of poetry. The different parts of this poem had already been published, "The Divine Tragedy," "The Golden Legend" and "The New Eng- land Tragedies" forming the whole. From this time on new tributes were constantly given to Longfellow. In 1868 he visited Europe again and was presented to Queen Victoria and to a large number of England's greatest men. Degrees and honors were con- [21] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE ferred on him by foreign universities. He was accorded respect and admiration wherever he went. From the time of his return to America, his life was quiet and even until the day of his death. "Aftermath," "The Masque of Pandora and Other Poems," "Poems of Places," "Keramos," "Ultima Thule," "In the Harbor" and "Michael Angelo" were the new and collected issues of his writings. He died in 1882 and two years later his bust was placed in the poets' corner of Westminster Abbey, an honor that had been conferred upon no other American poet. The land of Acadia, that is now called Nova Scotia, is the scene of many stories and events in history that have made it a fitting place to have become the back- ground of a narrative so romantic as that of the Acadian exile and of the lifelong separation of Evangeline from her lover, Gabriel; for the earliest tale that deals with this country is nearly a thousand years old, dating back hundreds of years before Columbus to the time when the savage and adventurous Norsemen sailed in open boats into unknown seas and came to a land that they called Markland, lying far in the western ocean. This land is [22] INTRODUCTION believed to have been discovered by a Viking captain named Leif Ericsson, who sailed into the west from the shores of Greenland coming at last to a strange and mar- velous country that seems to have been no other than Acadia itself; but for nearly five hundred years after- ward no white man is known to have visited its shores to confirm the tales of Ericsson and his comrades concerning it. In that time, however, and perhaps for thousands of years before, Acadia was the home of a tribe of Indians called Micmacs, who came and went across the Basin of Minas in their birch canoes and who hunted moose and beaver in the Acadian forests. Like the white settlers that followed them, the Micmacs appear to have been un- der the spell of the country where they lived and to have believed in many legends concerning it. Some of these legends claim that they were created by the sun itself, and it is certain that they worshiped the sun as their chief god and life giver; but other stories tell how they were made in human form by their hero-god, the mighty Gloos- cap, who shaped them from the ash-tree and who also turned his uncle, the turtle, into a man, finding him a wife from the tribe that he had just created. The Mic- [23] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE macs believed too in a demon called Mendon who exer- cised his baleful powers upon them in many ways and whom they tried to appease by prayers and sacrifices whenever evil came upon them, although Glooscap, their chief hero, was supposed to watch over them and protect them from all harm. Glooscap was loved by the Micmacs above all other gods and spirits and they claim to have beheld him in visible form striding far and wide throughout the coun- try of Acadia. His favorite dwelling place was on the crest of the lofty cape, Blomidon, not far from the spot where the Acadians built their village — a cape that is almost a mountain, where he would sit for days at a time to watch over his people. He gave to them the bea- ver and the moose, the wolf and fox, and bear and marten — all the animals that ran in the forest, and he con- quered many of the formidable monsters that inhabited the country when he came there. With his bow and ar- rows he slew the terrible giant, Chenoo, of whom every living creature had been afraid, and he captured and bound the great Wind-Bird, the Wuchowsen. Glooscap fought and vanquished the numerous giant sorcerers that had troubled the land of Acadia for centuries, and he [24] INTRODUCTION turned into rattlesnakes certain hostile Indians that strove to oppose his will. In sport he created the elves and fairies that lived in the brooks and thickets of the wilderness, and one of his favorite pleasures was to force the whales of the ocean to do his bidding, for he would leap upon their backs and ride far into the open sea, compelling them to obey his will and carry him where he chose as though they had been trained to a bit and bridle all their lives. Every bird and beast of the land became his slave to do with as he chose, and the water- fowl, the loon, whose weird laughter can still be heard upon the Acadian lakes and rivers, became the messen- ger of Glooscap and flew with gladness on his errands. Before this mighty god had come to the Acadian land, the beavers were gigantic beasts, greater in size even than the whales that he rode out to sea, for they had built a dam straight across the bay that is now called the Basin of Minas, which had become a salt water lake of vast extent with no connection with the outer ocean^ Glooscap was so powerful that he broke the dam with a wave of the wand he carried, allowing the huge tides of the Bay of Fundy to rush upon the shores and to over- flow the streams and rivers until their waters flooded the [25] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE surrounding country as they have continued to do to this day in certain places, while in others the white settlers have been forced to build dykes to protect their meadows against the inroads of the sea. After he had destroyed the labor of the beavers, Glooscap beheld one of their num- ber that sought to hide, and to frighten the beast still further he threw several handf uls of earth in its direction. His strength was so great, and the volume of earth that he lifted was so vast, that when it fell it became five islands that have remained in the Bay of Fundy ever since. Many other wonders were believed by the Micmacs to have been performed by the mighty Glooscap, but be- fore the French settlers came to their country he deserted his people and sought a new home in the west where he built his wigwam beyond the setting sun and made vast quantities of arrows for the Indians to use in a future and glorious battle against their enemies. Before he went away from them, however, he held a great feast on the seashore to which all the birds of the air and the animals of the forest were invited. All these animals up to the time of that feast had possessed the gift of speech and one and all they came at the bidding of Glooscap to feast with him until late in the night. All the wolves and [26] INTRODUCTION foxes, moose and beavers, martens and turtles, white owls and loons — all the animals that ever lived in the land of Acadia were present, and they conversed with Glooscap and each other just as human beings would do to-day. But there was little merriment at the feast, for they knew that their master was going away from them, and they ate and drank together sadly until the late moon rose and cast a beam of silver light on the high Cape Blomidon, where Glooscap had made his home. Then he rose and left the feast, passing swiftly through the forest to the place where his great canoe was drawn high on the shore. He bade "the tide to return to the ocean and as it did so launched his canoe upon the waters and sailed away, singing a song of the utmost sadness that was heard by all the animals that he had left behind him at the feast. As they heard his song they suddenly lost the gift of speech and were unable to live in friendship with each other any longer, so they rose from the place where they had been feasting and fled into the wilderness. The loons that Glooscap had loved and that had been his mes- sengers, cried sadly on the lakes and rivers and the great white owl in the depths of the forest mourned and wailed for its lost master. The Indians too knew that Gloos- [27] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE cap's reign was over and were grieved at his departure, but they believe that he will return to them and occupy once more his ancient home on Blomidon. Some of them once said that they had found the wigwam of their hero in the land beyond the setting sun after searching for seven years and that they themselves had from his own lips heard his faithful promise to return to his own peo- ple. But the top of Blomidon is still deserted and what are left of the Micmac Indians still await the home-com- ing of Glooscap. The first explorer who actually set foot on Acadian soil was the great pioneer, Champlain, who had served in Brit- tany in the army of King Henry the Fourth of France and who sailed up the Saint Lawrence river in 1603. The next year he returned and with two other pioneers named DeMonts and de Poitrincourt, sailed into the Bay of Fundy to explore its upper portion, disembarking at a place called "Mines," because a quantity of amethysts were found there in the sands. DeMonts and de Poit- rincourt were aided by Champlain in founding the town of Port Royal, and afterward he journeyed onward to establish the first white settlement at Quebec and to dis- [28] INTRODUCTION cover the great lake that bears his name. The little town that his fellow-explorers labored to establish lived only for six years, and in 1613 the English colonists made a descent upon the French settlers in Acadia, claiming that the country belonged to them by right of the discoveries of John Cabot, who had sailed along the Acadian coast seven years after Columbus had discovered the West Indies. In this raid the greater number of the earliest Acadians were driven froru their homes and the town of Port Royal was left deserved. No other white explorers tried to form a colony in Acadia until 1621, when an English nobleman named Sir William Alexander obtained a grant for the entire coun- try from King James the First of England, who com- manded that the country be called thereafter Nova Scotia instead of Acadia which was the name that had been given it by the French. Soon after, however, a treaty between France and England gave the country back to its former owners, and French settlers were again established there, but fierce feuds broke out among them and in 1654 a force sent out by Oliver Cromwell took possession once more in the name of the English. This time the English kept the land for thirteen years when it was again restored to [29] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE France by the treaty of Breda. In spite of this, how- ever, there were continual small wars between the Eng- lish and French settlers, and in 1704 the English, under Colonel Benjamin Church, who was a famous Rhode Is- land Indian fighter, visited Port Royal and Minas Basin to punish the inhabitants. This English commander, who had fought the French before, was known to be ut- terly without pity or forbearance, and the Acadians were made to regret his visit keenly, for the English cut the dykes that they had built to protect their meadows against the Fundy tides and burned their barns and dwellings, killing several of their number and slaughter- ing whatever sheep and cattle they could lay their hands on. Six years later the final conquest of the country was effected by the English, who sailed up the Basin of Minas with a fleet of six warships and twenty-nine transports commanded by General Francis Nicholson. Port Royal was captured and the French were obliged to consent to a treaty by which they renounced all further rights to the country that Champlain had discovered. Nor did they know what treatment to expect from the hands of their conquerors before the treaty was drawn up, providing [30] INTRODUCTION that they might keep their farms and homesteads and en- joy their religion unmolested on the sole condition that they should become loyal British subjects. In spite of the mastery by the English, however, and the acknowledged submission of the Acadian French, a great deal of bitter feeling still was manifest among the rival settlers and some fighting took place between them. The English believed that the French were inciting the Indians against them and were angry because the Indians held traffic with the French garrison of Louisburg in Cape Breton Island, sending them the produce of their farms. War continued between France and England and Louisburg was finally captured by Sir William Pepperell in 1745. This was one of the strongest for- tresses that the French possessed in America, and desperate at its loss they dispatched a fleet from France to recapture it and to take the whole of Acadia as well. The English became afraid that they could not hold the land against the force that was being sent against them, and Lieu- tenant Governor Mascarene appealed for aid to Gover- nor Shirley of Massachusetts, who sent five hundred volunteers to aid the small number of English troops that were already in Acadia. The command of these volun- [31] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE teers was given to Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Noble, who had been one of the English officers that distinguished themselves at the capture of Louisburg. Noble's company of volunteers set sail from New England in 1747 and landed at Port Royal late in the au- tumn of that year. They marched from there to the vil- lage of Grand-Pre from which Evangeline and her coun- trymen were driven into exile a few years later, and finding it too late in the year to build a blockhouse, quar- tered at Minas in twenty-four private dwellings that they secured from the Acadians for the purpose. In an encampment not far off there were a number of French troops under the command of an officer named Ramesay, and learning of the arrival of the English troops at Minas, they determined to surprise and destroy them. The French were all the more determined to put an end to the invaders because they knew that Colonel Noble intended to attack them in the spring of the follow- ing year. In January therefore in bitter cold when the snow lay deep on the land, the French marshaled their men and marched toward the English encampment, think- ing to surprise them utterly by an attack at such an unex- pected time. They reached the village at nightfall and [32] INTRODUCTION rushing upon the houses where the English were asleep caught them completely off their guard and killed a large number as they sallied half asleep from their quarters. Colonel Noble shared the fate of many of his soldiers and was shot down fighting in his shirt, while those of his men that escaped were driven away from the village, and retreated to Port Royal. Fighting continued for the next eight years until the most northerly of all the Acadian strongholds fell into the hands of the English in 1755, giving them complete control over the entire country. In the following year the Acadians were required to swear allegiance to the English king, but were unwilling to assent to this because such an oath might compel them to bear arms against their own countrymen at some future time. Therefore depu- ties from all the Acadian villages went to the town of Halifax that was the chief stronghold of the English, and told Governor Lawrence that they were unwilling to take the oath that had been required of them. As soon as they left the town and returned to their homes, steps were taken to drive them all from the country, Governor Lawrence declaring that either they must submit or he would rid his entire province of such disloyal subjects. [33] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE In this way the events came about that are narrated in the poem of Evangeline, and in spite of the continual warfare between the early settlers there is much to show that the Acadians were indeed the happy, thrifty and peace-loving people that Longfellow has described them. To-day the traveler to the site of the village of Grand- Pre will find the same rich and beautiful meadows and the same air of quiet repose that he reads of in Long- fellow's poem, and he may even discover traces of the old Acadians, while the name of Evangeline is a household word throughout the entire land. [34] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE THE STORY OF EVANGELINE THE FIRST PART IN the land of Acadia the little village called Grand- Pre once stood near to the shore of the blue and pleasant bay named Minas Basin. It was built by the French people who were known as Acadians and who named their village from the vast and fertile meadows that stretched to the eastward, giving pasture to countless flocks of sheep and cattle. The Acadians were thrifty and industrious farmers, proud of the fertile country that they created from the wilderness, and they took especial delight in the rich fields and meadowlands that formerly had been no more than a desolate waste of marsh. For the country where they lived had once been flooded in many places by the waters of the Bay of Fundy where the ocean tides sweep in with mighty power, rising as high as the tops of houses and rolling into the streams and rivers U7^ THE STORY OF EVANGELINE until they too must rise and overflow their banks ; and the Acadians had built great dykes to guard against the tides in the manner of the people of Holland, draining the water from the marshes and allowing the land to dry be- neath the sun and wind until it had become so rich and green, with such delicious and abundant grass that cattle fattened there more quickly than anywhere else and the cows that were driven forth at dawn to graze upon those meadows returned at milking time with their udders filled almost to bursting. Dykes and meadows, however, were not the only signs in that fair country of the in- dustry and labor of the Acadians. They had planted fields of flax and orchards that in springtime sent the per- fume of their blossoms over all the land, and they made the valley that they lived in so trim and peaceful that it seemed to frighten away the fogs and storms of the North Atlantic. Clouds of mist from the ocean would often hover on the crests of the mountains about the valley, but never descended to blight the crops of the villages, and the storms of winter seemed to visit the farms of the Acadians less roughly than the homes of their neighbors in the country surrounding them. [38] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE The Acadians built their houses in the manner of their former homes in Europe with thatched roofs and dormer windows and frames of sturdy oak and chestnut wood, so that a stranger passing through their village,, might have fancied himself in Normandy or Brittany whence they came. Only one thing was lacking and this would have caused a stranger to wonder greatly, for they had neither locks to their doors nor bars for their win- dows, feeling not the slightest need to guard against their neighbors and with minds wholly free from fear and malice in all things. What belonged to one was shared by all his friends and everybody was so happy and con- tented that people to-day would have good reason to wish themselves equally fortunate. Every evening the maids and matrons of the village gathered in their doorways, spinning flax, exchanging gossip and greeting affection- ately the village priest when he came forth to walk among his people, and every evening, too, the laborers would be summoned from their work in the fields by the church bells ringing the Angelus. Then, as the sun was setting the blue smoke would rise in a hundred columns from the cottages to tell the entire countryside of cheer- [39] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE ful homes and pleasant hearths of the happy Acadian farmers. Wealthiest of them all was Benedict Bellefontaine, a hale and hearty old man of seventy winters with snow- white hair and cheeks as brown as oak leaves. He was greatly respected in the village, not only because he was honest and kind and had amassed great riches, but be- cause his daughter, Evangeline, was the most beautiful maiden that the Acadians had ever seen. Her eyes were as black as thorn berries, yet tender and of starry bright- ness; her hair was a soft, glossy brown, lovely to look upon. As she bore the flagons of home-brewed ale to the harvesters in the fields there was something about her even fairer than her beautiful eyes and hair, something that the harvesters could not have described, but that caused them to rest on their scythes and gaze after her when she passed, and on Sundays, when the tone of the church bell was in the air, she seemed even lovelier as she walked down the long village street with her chaplet of beads and her missal, clad in her Norman cap and her blue kirtle and wearing the earrings that had been brought from France in days long gone by and that had [40] r B M -* '-,ri I ^^-M t k r ) "down the long street she passed" — Page 142 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE been handed down from mother to daughter for genera- tions. On Sundays there appeared to rest about Evan- geline a celestial brightness, something holy and of saint- like radiance, and when she walked homeward serenely after confession it would seem like the ceasing of ex- quisite music when she had passed. The home of Evangeline and her father was the very sort of dwelling that one who knew the sturdy old farmer and his beautiful daughter would expect. It was strongly built of oaken rafters and it stood on the side of a high hill overlooking the sea. By the door was a large sycamore-tree with woodbine wreathed around its trunk, and the farmhouse had a roughly carven porch with seats enough to welcome many visitors. A footpath led from the house through a wide orchard, disappearing in the meadows that stretched beyond it, and beneath the branches of the sycamore-tree were beehives from which Farmer Benedict's table was supplied with the most de- licious honey. The hives were overhung by penthouses such as the traveler often sees in distant regions built over a poor box or above an image of the blessed virgin, Mary. Farther down on the hillside was the deep, cool [41] THE STORY OF EVANGELINE well with its moss-grown bucket bound with hoops of iron, with an ample trough for the horses standing near-by, and to the north of the house, shielding it from the storms and cutting blasts of winter, were the barns and the farmyard. There stood the broad wheeled wag- ons and the plows and harrows and all the implements that the Acadians used in laboring in the fields, and there, too, were the sheepfolds and the feathered king- dom of the lordly and insolent turkey-gobbler, while the cocks crowed with the selfsame voice that had startled the penitent Peter in ages long gone by. The barns al- most formed a village by themselves they were so many, and all of them were filled to bursting with dry, sweet- scented hay. A roof of thatch projected over each and a staircase led up to the well-filled, odorous corn lofts under the sheltering eaves. The dove-cote stood there also with its meek and innocent inmates murmuring con- stantly of love, and above the barns the noisy and gilded weathercocks spun to every breeze that stirred, and rat- tled and sang loudly when the wind changed. There on his sunny farm Benedict lived at peace with