in a generation; not a
prolific stock, but a hardy and persistent one. No one knew when the
name had dropped its soft French sound, and taken the harsh Anglo-Saxon
accent. It had been so with all the old French names, the
L'Homme-Dieus and Des Isles and Beaulieus; the air, or the granite, or
one knows not what, caused an ossification of the consonants, a drying
up of the vowels, till these names, once soft and melodious, became
more angular, more rasping in utterance, than ever Smith or Jones could
be.

They were Huguenots, the d'Arthenays. A friend from childhood of St.
Castin, Jacques d'Arthenay had followed his old companion to America at
the time when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes rendered France no
safe dwelling-place for those who had no hinges to their knees. A
stern, silent man, this d'Arthenay, like most of his race: holding in
scorn the things of earthly life, brooding over grievances, given to
dwelling much on heaven and hell, as became his time and class.
Leaving castle and lands and all earthly ties behind them, he and his
wife came out of Sodom, as they expressed it, and turned not their
faces, looking steadfastly forward to the wilderness where they were to
worship God in His own temple, the virgin forest. It had been a
terrible shock to find the Baron de St. Castin fallen away from
religion and civilisation, living in savage pomp with his savage wives,
the daughters of the great chief Modocawando. There could be no such
companionship as this for the Sieur d'Arthenay and his noble wife; the
friendship of half a lifetime was sternly repudiated, and d'Arthenay
cast in his lot with the little band of Huguenot settlers who were
striving to win their livelihood from the rugged soil of eastern Maine.

It was bitter bread that they ate, those French settlers. We read the
story again and again, each time with a fresh pang of pity and regret;
but it is not of them that this tale is told. Jacques d'Arthenay died
in his wilderness, and his wife followed him quickly, leaving a son to
carry on the name. The gravestone of these first d'Arthenays was still
to be seen in the old burying-ground: they had been the first to be
buried there. The old stone was sunk half-way in the earth, and was
gray with moss and lichens; but the inscription was still legible, if
one looked close, and had patience to decipher the crabbed text.

"Jacques St. George, Sieur d'Arthenay et de Vivonne.
Mort en foi et en es