"But you do not expect to get a crop this year—and in this climate?"
"I don't expect anything at all. I am making the experiment. If they come up, good; if they do not, I have seed enough for next year."
The potatoes came up. It was an unusually hot summer, and the situation was favorable. If Lescarbot had known the habits of the vegetable he might not have thought of putting them into the ground on the last day of July, but they grew and flourished, and their odd ivory-and-gold blossoms were charming. Lescarbot worked all day in the bracing sunlit air, and now and then he hoed and transplanted by moonlight. In the evening he read, wrote, or planned out the next day's program.
September came, with cool bright days and a hint of frost at night; the lawyer marshalled his forces and harvested the crops. The storehouses, already stocked with Pontgravé's abundant provision, were filled to overflowing, and they had to dig a makeshift cellar or root-pit under a rough shelter for the last of their produce. The potatoes were carefully bestowed in huge hampers provided by Membertou's people, who were greatly interested in all that the white men did. Old Jacqueline had said that they needed "room to breathe," and Lescarbot was taking no chances on this unknown American product.
October came; the Indians showed the white men how to grind corn, and the carpenters planned a water-mill to be constructed in the spring, to take the place of the tedious hand-mill worked by two men. Wild geese flew overhead, recalling to the Frenchmen the legends of Saint Gabriel's hounds. The forests robed themselves in hues like those of a priceless Kashmir shawl, and the squirrels, martens, beavers, otters, weasels, which the hunters brought in were in their winter coats. But the exploring party had not returned. Lescarbot, who had occupied spare moments in preparing a surprise for them when they did return, and carefully drilled the men in their parts, began to be secretly anxious. But on the morning of November 14, old Membertou, who had appointed himself an informal sentinel to patrol the waters near the fort, appeared with the news that the chiefs were coming back.
All was excitement in a moment, although Lescarbot privately had to admit that he could not even see a sail, to say nothing of recognizing the boat or its occupants. But the long-sighted old sagamore was right. The party of adventurers, their craft considerably the worse for the journey, steering with a pair of oars in place of a rudder, reached the landing-place and battered, weary and dilapidated, came up to the fort. They were surprised and disappointed to see no one about except a few curious Indians peeping from the woods.
As they neared the wooden gateway it was suddenly flung open, and out marched a procession of masquers, headed by Neptune in full costume of shell-fringed robe, diadem, trident, and garlands of kelp and sea-moss, attended by tritons grotesquely attired, and fauns, reinforced by a growing audience of Indians, squaws and papooses. This merry company greeted the wanderers with music, song and some excellent French verse written by Lescarbot for the occasion. Refreshed with laughter and the relief of finding all so well conducted, Champlain, Poutrincourt and their men went in to have something to eat and drink. Then they spent the rest of the day hearing and telling the story of the last three months.
It is written down, adorned with drawings, in the journals of Champlain, and it was all told over as the men sat around their blazing fires and talked, all together, while a light November snow flurried in the air outside.
"So you see we lost our rudder in a storm off Mount Désert—" "And the autumn gales drove us back before we had fairly passed Port Fortuné—" "It came near being Port Malheur for us, and it was for Pierre and Jacques le Malouin, poor fellows. They and three others stayed ashore for the night and hundreds of Indians attacked them,—oh, but hundreds. Well, we heard the uproar—naturally it waked us in a hurry—and up we jumped and snatched any weapon that was handy, and piled into the boat in our shirts. Two of the shore party were killed and we saw the other three running for their boat for dear life, all stuck over with arrows like hedgehogs, my faith! So then we landed and charged the Indians, who must have thought we were ghosts, for they left off whooping and ran for the woods. Our provisions were so far spent that we thought it best to return after that, and in any case—it would be as bad, would it not, to die of Indians as to die of scurvy?"
"But tell me, my dear fellow," said Champlain when the happy hubbub had a little subsided, "how have your gardens prospered? Truly I need not ask, in view of the abundance of the dinner you gave us."