37

III.

BENT like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf

of the ocean,

Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary public ;

Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung

Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses with horn bows

Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom

supernal.

Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred

Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great watch tick.

Four long years in the times of the war had he languished a captive,

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the English.

Now, though warier grown, without all guile or suspicion,

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the

children;

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the

forest,

And of the goblin that came in the night to water

the horses,

And of the white Létiche, the ghost of a child

who unchristened

Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the

chambers of children;

And how on Christmas eve the oxen talked m

the stable,

And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a nutshell,

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horseshoes,

With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the

village.

Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the blacksmith,

Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his right hand,

"Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, "thou hast

heard the talk in the village,

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships and their errand."

Then with modest demeanour made answer the

"Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never the wiser;

And what their errand may be I know not better

than others.

Yet am I not of those who imagine some evil intention

Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why

"God's name!" shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible blacksmith;

"Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and the wherefore?

Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the strongest !"

But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary public,

-

"Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally

justice

Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often consoled me,

When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port Royal."