Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas! in the meantime Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people."

Then made answer the farmer:-" Perhaps some friendlier

purpose

Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the harvests in
England

By the untimely rains or untimelier heat have been blighted,
And from our bursting barns they would feed their cattle and

children."

"Not so thinketh the folk in the village," said, warmly, the blacksmith,

Shaking his head, as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh, he continued:
"Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau Séjour, nor Port Royal.
Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its outskirts,
Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow.
Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all kinds:
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe of the

mower."

Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer :— "Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our corn

fields,

Safer within these peaceful dikes, besieged by the ocean,

Than were 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 merry lads of the village 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 ink-horn. Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our children ?”

Page 15.

As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in 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 labouring 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 in 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 horse-
shoes,

With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village.

Then uprose 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 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 intention

Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why then molest us ?", "God's name!" shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible black

smith;

"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." This was the old man's favourite tale, and he loved to repeat it When his neighbours complained that any injustice 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 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 sunshine 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 nobleman's palace