Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's

cannon.

Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow of sorrow

Fall on this house and hearth; for this is the night of the contract.

Built are the house and the barn.

the village

The merry lads of 200

Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe round about them,

Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a twelvemonth.

René Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and

inkhorn.

Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our

children?"

As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 265

her lover's,

Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father

had spoken,

And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered.

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 270

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 275 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 280

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 in the

stable,

And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a 285

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 290 the talk in the village,

And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships

and their errand."

Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary

public,

"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 inten- 295

tion

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

molest us?"

"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 300

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."

This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to

repeat it

When his neighbors complained that any injustice 305

was done them.

"Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer

remember,

Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left hand,

And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice

presided

Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes 310

of the people.

Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of

the balance,

Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sun

shine above them.

But in the course of time the laws of the land were

corrupted;

Might took the place of right, and the weak were

oppressed, and the mighty

Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a noble- 315

man's palace

That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a

suspicion

Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the house

hold.

She, after form of trial condemned to die on the

scaffold,

Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of

Justice.

As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit 320

ascended,

Lo! o'er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the

thunder

Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its left hand

Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the balance,

And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a

magpie,

Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 325

inwoven."

Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was

ended, the blacksmith