“Let me see him go to the Quebec market!” cried Joan, shaking her knuckled fist under his ear.
“It would trouble thee little to lose sight of him, Joan. But his coming back with such freight—it is that would fire thee hotter than Iroquois torches. Alas, my children,” Jacques said, letting down his load inside the gate, “I bring much, but I leave much behind. If I am to hold this seigniory while my commandant is away, and feed ye both and my new wife, to say naught of Mademoiselle de Granville and our great lady, I need the cattle and swine and fowls which our king gave me for dower and my seignior made me throw over my shoulder.”
“But I thought,” said Louise, in dismay, “that thou had’st such stores of vegetables and other provisions here.”
“Have no fear, my spouse. Thou shalt see how this garrison is provisioned. But what prudent man can drop without a sigh the moiety of his wife’s fortune? Here are Papillon and Joan, who hold the next island under our seignior. And here, timid Joan, is thy soldierly new neighbor Louise Goffinet, who squealed not in the dangers of the river.”
“Wert thou afraid?” Joan asked Louise, kindly.
“I was until I saw Madame des Ormeaux was not. And the Indians have a wonderful skill.”
“Did the commandant also marry her at the wife market?” pressed Joan, walking by Louise’s side behind the men. “She is surely the fairest woman in New France. I could have crawled before her when she gave me a smile.”
“My mother nursed her,” said Louise, with pride.
“Did she so! And is our lady some great dame from the king’s court, who heard of the commandant at Montreal?”