No factory reared its horrid front aloft, so the village maidens were meek-eyed and healthy, and the young men did not congregate at street corners with hands in pockets. Two or three score of men stood upon the walls of the final lock, to look at the boats, but they displayed none of the officious curiosity which any able-bodied American citizen would have considered necessary under like circumstances. To the Commodore, the Purser and the Cook the change from the restless activity with which they were familiar was inexpressibly delightful, but the Vice regarded everything with cold suspicion.
"The natural result of monarchical rule," was his incessant comment upon whatever he saw. "There is waterpower enough going to waste," said he, pointing to the rapids, "for a manufacturing city such as the world has never seen. Capital would be attracted, labor would follow, facilities for navigation would increase, farmers would have a home market for their produce, real estate would increase in value, and local politics would become a science. But see it as it is! Why, I doubt if it has a board of aldermen, or even a mayor!"
"Then it is Acadia indeed," murmured the Purser, raising his head from a sketch he had hastily made of a sweet-faced girl who was gazing wonderingly yet modestly from a window.
The Water Front.
From the river below the lock the expedition saw the foot of the rapids, and near them a ruined fort. A double invitation to view the picturesque was not to be declined, so every one paddled up as far as the rapids would allow. The fort bore date of 1711, and tradition said that it had been constructed for defence against the Indians, in the days when Canada was still New France, from which it was safe to infer that the North American savage was not in the habit of rounding rapids by canal when he disported himself in his light canoe. The work had been stripped to its bare walls, not by relic-hunters but by searchers after seasoned fuel, and its water-wall had fallen in, but enough remained to show the plan of the work. The Commodore and the Purser broiled in the sun at the gateless sally-port and endeavored to reconstruct the work in the interest of romance. They filled it with picturesque men-at-arms, gallant officers, and venerable priests, and took care not to omit the occasional Indian maiden, while the Vice calculated the cost of transforming the work into a distillery, and the Cook, who had climbed to a sealed loophole overhead in search of reflections which did not appear, gently led the thoughts of the romancers back to the real by an occasional shower of partly pulverized mortar.
It presently occurred to him, however, that the stock of bread was running low, only one loaf being left from the supply laid in beyond the line. He accordingly made a requisition on the Purser for the necessary funds and paddled off to the village. In a few moments he was seen returning, partly concealed behind something which he had placed on the forward deck. As the bow touched the sand the mysterious object was seen to be merely a loaf of bread beside which, for the sake of contrast, the Cook had laid the remaining loaf of the United States pattern.
