while the lay
brothers and the workmen found apartments in the garret and the
cellar. The regimen of this crude establishment was severely ascetic.
The day began with early Mass and closed with evening prayers. The
intervening time was spent by the laymen in cultivating the little
clearing, and by the fathers in hearing confessions at the fort a mile
away, or in struggling with the Algonquin idiom, by the vague
assistance of one Pierre, an Indian proselyte, who, in weakness of
flesh, ran away when the season of Lent drew near.

The strength of the Jesuits was increased in the spring of 1633 by the
arrival of four new priests. Of these the most remarkable was Jean de
Brebeuf, the descendant of a noble family in Normandy, and destined to
prove his own nobility by an intrepid zeal and an almost incredible
courage.

Le Jeune's distressful experiment with a band of wandering Algonquins
had convinced the Jesuits that their schemes of mission-conquest could
not bear much fruit if they were confined to the vagrant tribes of
the north. Farther west in the peninsula of the great lakes lived
Indians of fixed habits and domicile, and otherwise further advanced
towards civilisation than the improvident hunting tribes round about
Quebec. Of these the most notable were the Hurons. As long before as
1615 the Recollet Le Caron had gone among them, and several years
later Brebeuf had made the perilous lodges of Ihonatiria his
habitation, but had at length returned to France. On his coming to
Quebec again in the spring of 1633, Brebeuf anxiously turned his
thoughts towards his former mission, awaiting only a favourable
opportunity to forsake the comparative safety of the city of Quebec
for the gloomy shores of Lake Huron and "the greater glory of God."

Midsummer brought the annual swarm of Hurons to the trading fair at
Quebec. For a week the all but naked savages overran the little
settlement, their animal curiosity almost driving the French to
distraction, and their casual peculations causing much annoyance. But
their presence was a necessary evil, if the Fur Company was to declare
its dividends. Hence long-suffering courtesy became essential both to
the peace of the city and to future interests so much at stake.

A powerful consideration with the community was the anxiety of the
Jesuits to go back with the Indians to their villages on Lake Huron.
Champlain, when governor, had espoused this project in the most
seductive of his spe