by Adjutor Rivard
Canadian Stories in Verse
and Prose, 1932
We children were afraid of it
and never ventured near. And yet the
garden gate was open – lying on the ground, indeed, with broken hinges; and no
one was there to say you nay. On the way
back from school or church – we were preparing then for our first communion –
it would have been pleasant enough to stop half way and rest awhile on the low
steps of the deserted house; the more so as plums, cherries, apples and
gooseberries ripened in the orchard close by, and self-sown flowers,
over-running the walks, fought with the rankly growing weeds for a share of sun
and dew. It was free to anyone; yet we
hastened along fearfully, without pausing.
The house was to us a sepulchre
by the roadside. Planks roughly nailed
across door and windows barred up the melancholy abode. Never a wisp of smoke curled from the stone
chimney; never a ray of sunlight fell across the threshold; never a gleam shone
through those blinded eyes. Sightless
and deaf, the house seemed indifferent alike to the wide glory of the fields,
to the swish and rustle of the wind over the meadows. Nothing stirred its chill insensibility; no
human voice waked an echo within.
Human? - but had not he night
wind borne long-drawn mournful cries to many passerby from out the dead
habitation?
One of us was tearing the
boards from a window to look in, but none had the hardihood to venture. There
might be something frightful beneath that roof, shadows would be stealing about
behind those fastened windows. Were you
eyes to fall on a room draped in black with a coffin and a corpse and candles
burning!…In the evening we kept to the far side of the road and turned away our
heads; afraid of what we might see.
If the house did not shelter
the ghosts of our childish imagining, walls harboured sad memories, and
departed days still were haunting the empty rooms.
Once the abandoned house was
full of life and happiness, - happiness in the laughter of many children and
the light-hearted mirth of grandparents; - life made beautiful by the toil that
hallows every passing day and builds strong souls. For a century and more, sons succeeded father
s in the possession of these sunny acres which never failed of nourishment for
all. For a century and more, children
were born, lived there lives and died in this same house, now forsaken; and of
them every one as he made ready for his last journey sent a departing glance of
farewell through this window across these same woods and fields.
But a day fell when the
property descended to an heir in whom the ancient spirit dwelt not. This lover of indolent ways grudged the earth
the travail of his hands and sweat of his face, and the earth denied him
increase. Bread was lacking in the house. In his aliened heart he cursed the soil which
yearned only to be fruitful and mourned the barrenness of its untilled
fields. In a vision of easy-won
affluence the faithless habitant took the resolve to desert his country. Selling beasts, furniture, all that pertained
to his farm; barring the door and the windows of this home of his people as one
nails up a coffin, he went his way.
And since the house the
emigrant’s house has stood closed and empty, as though under a malediction; a
place of terror for children, of melancholy to their neighbors, and open wound
in the parish.
Have those who so depart full
consciousness that in doing it they meanly quit the post of honour, are
recreant to high duty? Do they lightly
imagine that they are leaving behind only four walls and a roof? In truth they had abandoned and forswear is
no less than their native land! For one,
the mountains, for another, the plain.
But whether on hillside or in hollow, here lies the parish in which
their ancestor’s quiet lives slipped by, the church where they bent the knee,
the earth that guards their bones; the farm which throve by dint of their harsh
incessant toil; the precious store of household tradition, the wholesome
fireside ways; worship of the past and reverence for its memories; nay, it may
be, the very speech of their fathers and the faith itself that sustained
them. This, all rich inheritance do they
toss away; and their own country thrown with careless hand into the barter!
And yet I beseech thee, O
Mother Earth, set not they curse upon those who have gone, for all are not so
thankless. If some have denied and
forgotten thee in the smoke and din of cities, know that hard fate alone has
driven many forth, and that in remoteness they keep faith with thee, dream of thee
still, love thee before the land of their sojourning. O Mother Earth, be mindful of them under
whatsoever skies they larbour, for they are yet thy children. They keep alive their country’s soul in
strange lands, and practice the lessons thou has taught them in youth.
Await them hopefully, kind
Mother. Tender and merciful, give them
welcome on the day when exile passes their enduring and fate permits them to
return. Border the way with brightest
flowers, shed abroad a warmer light, deck thyself in freshest loveliest green
to greet their homecoming. Yield thy
broad bosom to the plough-shares of thy returning sons, O fruitful Mother; take
to they furrows the seed flung by their scarred hands; joyously send up the
tall heavy-headed wheat; let the grass spring lush in the meadows and the woods
be filled with pleasant sounds; waft through all the opened windows of the
re-awakened house the fragrant breath of new-mown hay!
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Above Photo: House in Monticello, Prince Edward Island
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