The gentle stranger interrupted, still without lifting his eyes from the path. "'Tis better narrowness of land than of virtue." The negro responded eagerly:
"Oh, dey good sawt o' peop', yes. Dey deals fair an' dey deals square. Dey keeps de peace. Dass 'caze dey mos'ly don't let whisky git on deir blin' side, you know. Dey _does_ love to dance, and dey marries mawnstus young; but dey not like some niggehs: dey stays married. An' modess? Dey dess so modess dey shy! Yes, seh, dey de shyes', easy-goin'es', modesses', most p'esumin' peop' in de whole worl'! I don't see fo' why folks talk 'gin dem Cajun'; on'y dey a lil bit slow."
The traveller on the levee's top suddenly stood still, a soft glow on his cheek, a distension in his blue eyes. "My friend, what was it, the first American industry? Was it not the Newfoundland fisheries? Who inaugu'ate them, if not the fishermen of Normandy and Bretagne? And since how long? Nearly fo' hundred years!"
"Dass so, boss," exclaimed the negro with the promptitude of an eye-witness; but the stranger continued:--
"The ancestors of the Acadian'--they are the fathers of the codfish!" He resumed his walk.
"Dass so, seh; dass true. Yes, seh, you' talkin' mighty true; dey a pow'ful ancestrified peop', dem Cajun'; dass w'at make dey so shy, you know. An' dey mighty good han' in de sugah-house. Dey des watchin', now, w'en dat sugah-cane git ready fo' biggin to grind; so soon dey see dat, dey des come a-lopin' in here to Mistoo Wallis' sugah-house here at Belle Alliance, an' likewise to Marse Louis Le Bourgeois yond' at Belmont. You see! de fust t'ing dey gwine ass you when you come at Gran' Point'--'Is Mistoo Wallis biggin to grind?' Well, seh, like I tell you, yeh de sugah-house, an' dah de road. Dat road fetch you at Gran' Point'."
An hour later the stranger, quite alone, had left behind him the broad smooth road, between rustling walls of sugar-cane, that had brought him through Belle Alliance plantation. The way before him was little more than a bridle-path along the earth thrown up beside a draining-ditch in a dense swamp. The eye could run but a little way ere it was confused by the tangle of vegetation. The trees of the all-surrounding forest--sweet-gums, water-oaks, magnolias--cast their shade obliquely along and across his way, and wherever it fell the undried dew still sparkled on the long grass.