"Yes, this very morning. You see I had time to spare after you sent me into exile, and Taps and I were to have our dinner at a private boarding-house, where I thought we ought to stay, since you didn't care to have us at the hotel. Well, to make a long story short, I found a set of Parkman there, and it seemed wise to refresh my memory before going down to Port La Tour."
"Do tell us what you learned." Amy spoke eagerly. "I'll admit that I've quite forgotten the first Fort La Tour."
"I haven't much time now," said Fritz, "but I'll do what I can to make my knowledge yours,—only you mustn't expect me to be perfectly accurate. This, however, is the way I figure it out. After that old rascal, Argall, attacked Port Royal, in 1613, Biencourt, or Poutrincourt, as he was known after his father's death, wandered for years in the woods with a few followers, sleeping in the open air, and living on roots and nuts like an Indian. In some way or other he managed to get men enough, and material enough, to build a small fort in the Cape Sable region, that he called Fort Loméron,—a rocky and foggy neighborhood. But there was fine fishing and hunting, and he felt that the Fort was a warning to any enemies who might try to take away the rest of what his father had left him. Well, among his followers was young Charles de Saint Étienne de La Tour, who also had come out to Acadia as a boy. When Biencourt died La Tour claimed that Acadia had been left to him by his friend. He tried to get Louis XIII. to help him against the English, and against Sir William Alexander in particular, to whom James I. had granted Acadia. Now young Charles La Tour began to have a hard time because his father Claude had married a Maid of Honor to Queen Henrietta Maria, and had promised Charles I. that he would drive out the French and establish the English in Nova Scotia. But when Claude appeared with his two ships before his son's Fort, he could not persuade him to turn color and become a Baronet of Nova Scotia. The father made great promises in the name of King Charles if the son would surrender, but the son withstood the father, and the latter lost English support because he had not been able to keep his promise; and so he was nothing but a refugee the rest of his life."
"Served him right for deserting his country," murmured Priscilla.
"Well, it's hard to understand just who did what in those days, and why. Some say that Charles La Tour was no better than his father, and that he, too, accepted from the English the title 'Baronet of Nova Scotia.' On account of the conquest of Sir David Kirke, Nova Scotia was English for a while, and then again it was under the control of the French after Claude de Razilly brought out an expedition in 1632. Charles de Menou d'Aunay, by the way, La Tour's great enemy, came with Razilly. But La Tour made haste to put himself right with the King of France, and, after a visit to Paris, came back to Nova Scotia 'Lieutenant-General for the King at Fort Loméron and its dependencies, and Commander at Cape Sable for the Colony of New France.' Doesn't that strike you as quite tremendous, when you think of the rocks and the fogs and the seals, together with the forests, that chiefly made up his domain?"
"It's very interesting," said Priscilla. "What became of La Tour?"
"It's a long story," responded Fritz. "I'm afraid I haven't time to tell it now."
"Oh, I know all about his quarrel with D'Aunay," interposed Amy. "It will come in better when we are at Port Royal—or rather Annapolis. But I had forgotten this Fort near Cape Sable."
"You shouldn't have forgotten it." Fritz's tone deepened in reproach. "For many of La Tour's descendants live near the Fort, and the place itself is called Port La Tour. I am astonished that you should have left it out of your plan of travel. You can't go there now, because that is where Taps and I are bound, and it wouldn't do for us to get in your way—I mean for you to get in our way. Beyond the tip end of Nova Scotia there's Sable Island, that used to be haunted by pirates and privateers. Some of them may be there still, and if Taps and I go there, and if anything happens to us, you may be sorry that you drove us away. Good-bye, Amy; even a Nova Scotia train won't wait for me;" and before the astonished girls could say a word, Fritz, with a touch of his cap, was walking rapidly away from them.
"We haven't offended him?" asked Priscilla, timidly.