to take eight men prisoners, kill cattle, ravage fields; pausing
at Basin of Mines to capture forty habitants, burn the church, and cut
the dikes, letting the sea in on the crops; pausing at Beaubassin, the
head of Fundy Bay, in August, to set the yellow wheat fields in flames!
Then he sailed back to Boston with French prisoners enough to insure an
exchange for the English held at Quebec.

No sooner had English sails disappeared over the sea than the French
came out of the woods. St. Castin rebuilt his fort in Maine. The
local Governor, who had held on with his gates shut and cannon pointed
while Church ravaged Port Royal village, now strengthened his walls.
Acadia took a breath and went on as before,--a little world in itself,
with the pirate ships slipping in and out, loaded to the water line
with Boston booty; with the buccaneer Basset throwing his gold round
like dust; with the brave soldier Bonaventure losing his head and
losing his heart to the painted lady, Widow Freneuse, who came from
nobody knew where and lived nobody knew how, and plied her mischief of
winning the hearts of other women's husbands. "She must be sent away,"
thundered the priest from the pulpit, straight at the garrison officer
whose heart she dangled as her trophy. "She must be sent away,"
thundered the King's mandate; but the King was in France, and Madame
Freneuse {196} wound her charms the tighter round the hearts of the
garrison officers, and bided her time, to the scandal of the parish and
impotent rage of the priest. Was she vixen or fool, this fair snake
woman with the beautiful face, for whose smile the officers risked
death and disgrace? Was she spy or adventuress? She signed herself as
"Widow Freneuse," and had applied to the King for a pension as having
grown sons fighting in the Indian wars. She will come into this story
again, snakelike and soft-spoken, and appealing for pity, and fair to
look upon, but leaving a trail of blood and treachery and disgrace
where she goes.

The fur trade of Port Royal at this time was controlled by a family
ring of La Tours and Charnisays, descendants of the ancient foes; and
they lived a life of reckless gayety, spiced with all the excitement of
war and privateering and matrimonial intrigue. Such was life _inside_
Port Royal. _Outside_ was the quiet peace of a home-loving,
home-staying peasantry. Few of the farmers could read or write. The
houses were little square Norman cottages,--"woo