Captured By Canadians HEPHZIBAH

CAPTURED BY CANADIANS HEPHZIBAH A story from 1704-1706 in the northeast territory of the Americas Daryl Zoellner, narrator

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Forword People to thank are as follows: William Edgar, J. Clare Martin, Mary Yost, J.G. Zoellner, Danielle Vroom, Ruth Neele, Joyce Veilleux and Claire Bedard for their comments during editing prior to 1995.

My congratulations to Erin Zoellner for her excellent stylized map of Ville Marie.

I was encouraged to keep going by French Canadian Protestants Guy Brouillet and Marie-Claude Rocher and members of U.S. and Canadian supporting churches when they showed their enthusiasm for this novel.

Thanks to Alfred A. Knopf Publishers and Laval University Press for maps of New England in the 18th century and the Route of the Captives’ “March” from Deerfield to Canada. Thanks to the producers of the course Writing for Children and Teenagers and Mary Hayes my mentor who gently pushed me on to pursue this work. Also, thanks to those from various reenactment and museum groups who figure in illustrations and photos related to this novel. I encourage history and art students to submit their own illustrated works as they research and imagine the scenes.

I am grateful to Billy Two Rivers from Kanawake Reserve who I interviewed at his home. He gave me valuable information about the indigenous people living there today.

Also, I want to thank l’Église réformée du Québec and Institut Farel for a classic, yet modern vision of the Christian gospel. The consensus of Christian doctrine where God lives by his Spirit is carried into each age by the family of nations built on the apostles and prophets of Jesus, who is of God and man the son. A new society is joined together with him, as described in Ephesians 2.19-22.

French pronunciation may be helped by the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet on pp. xiii and xiv of The Modern French-English Dictionary by Marguerite-Marie Dubois, Sorbonne Paris. ©1960 Librairie Larousse Paris. The accent generally falls on the last syllable of an entry.

English pronunciation may likewise be helped by the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet according to the method found at a website powered by Pressbooks (PB) https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/essentialsoflinguistics/ by Catherine Anderson.

See Chapter 3.2 on IPA for Canadian English There are also internet websites to help in the pronunciation of either language. example: http://www.frenchmalaysia.com/basic-french-phrases//how-to-pronounce-french-words.html

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Map of New England at the beginning of the 18th century

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Table of Contents Title page Foreword Map of New England at the beginning of the 18th century Table of Contents Preface Map of the route of the Captives from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to New France Introduction Illustration of a boy in boots and tricorne hat

p. p. p. p. p.

Chapter one: My Delight is in Her Map of Montréal 1705 Chapter two: To the Governor and to the Church Illustration: A family remade: the Côtés Chapter three: One is Forever Remaking One’s Life Illustration: Charles Emmanuel, son of Captain Côté Chapter four: Seasoned by the Season Illustration: First Nations peoples Chapter five: Garego, Sarego, Arego Illustration: Pépo in his bed dying with a high fever Chapter six: Healing Illustration: Chapter seven: Summer 1705 Illustration: Chapter eight: The Spirits of the Manitous Illustration: Chapter nine: Capturing an Old Wind in New Sails Illustration: Chapter ten: Post Tenebras Lux (After Darkness, Light)

p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p. p.

Epilogue Bibliography

p. p.

p. p. p.

p. p. p. p.

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Preface

232 words

When the end of a story brings the characters home again, the reader has a sense of relief. Everything will be all right. I brought the reader to a different sort of conclusion in this narrative. This is a tragedy. Yet the outcome takes on a sort of happy resolution.

Death has been slaughtered in the forum of faith, the home for the eternal soul. Mourning is changed to dancing. This is also a romance, not between humans, but between a lost race and its Creator; between a persevering light and a musty dark prison; It represents an old wind puffing out new sails rather than a new wind puffing out old sails.

So much of what interests us has to do with our future. This is a story about the future, the future of you, the reader, who lives in a world where you also sometimes feel like a hostage. You see yourself as a first generation in a “New World”. Perhaps you are the first generation of your family to live where you do. Much has not changed from past generations. You are new to the world. Where would you have gained old knowledge?

Today is your life and your life is lived today.

The challenge will be in the believing and the unbelieving. What will you come to believe by opening these pages? Only you, dear reader, will know.

Daryl Zoellner, April 2008, revised October 2021

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Map of the Route of the Captives from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to New France

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Introduction

1245 words

Canada, also known to the First Nations as “the Village,” has lived a variety of periods of history beyond those of its First Nations. The first 155 years, or so of European immigration, including that of Samuel de Champlain, may be called the Period of New France, when “the Village” existed, beginning in 1608. It was an extensive collection of fur trading posts and fishing colonies, later to be scattered with missions and wooden forts. Then, in 1665 it became a Royal Colony of France, surrounded by British territories.

The second period began when “Canada” continued its organization as a British Colony after the conquest of 1759 on the Plains of Abraham Martin. In 1867, the French and English blended government jurisdictions of Lower Canada (former areas of New France) and Upper Canada. These were western settlements established by the English and American Loyalists who migrated north. This created a domain, where God would have dominion “from Sea to Sea,” as Psalm 72 verse 8 describes. This lasted over 100 years in length.

Third, came the present-day Confederation of Canada (from Sea to Sea and then to the north). Progressively, this next 150-year period (and more) witnessed Canada unite ten equal provinces and two territories to become a nation, capable of hosting, other nationalities. It was a haven for famine and war refugees, industrial experts and agricultural communities who continue to share in its globally extended hospitality.

Hospitality has become more and more efficient as these three periods have given rise to a present-day multinational Canada.

In 1999, Nunavut, the third Canadian territory was constituted. Many disputes over treaty lands, held by native bands, are in the Canadian courts. Public building owners and institutions have begun to make mention of those disputed lands upon which they are built. Upper and Lower Canada are still considered by some as two solitudes, and Quebeckers, like other Canadians, are now a mix of many nationalities who have immigrated since the Second World War. But this story goes back to that period in time when the “Village” referred to aboriginals, French citizens, and migrants living in New France. These were all subjects of the French King, Louis XIV. Jacques Raudot was Intendant of New France, the Prime Minister appointed by the King. The Royal French Colony extended west to Lake Ontario, north to the Hudson Bay, south as far as the Gulf of Mexico along the Mississippi River and east to the Atlantic Ocean of North America.

The seigneuries lined the banks of “The River of Canada” called by this name until 1616. This body of water was also named by the French explorer from St Malo, Jacques Cartier in 1534. After he discovered it on the 10th of August, he gave it that day’s saint’s name. The river became a reminder of the martyred Saint Lawrence.

Raudot was waiting for the spring pay ship to arrive from Europe. Some of the troops from France of the previous fall were being paid with playing cards - enough to buy their snares to catch doves for dove stew, enough to trade for peas, beans and molasses. But there was no preserved fruit left and no vegetables. The Canadian-born soldiers were able to make tea out of short, moss-like, evergreen plants that kept their teeth from getting rotten and their skin from getting rashes. Most of the soldiers,

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however, were tired of lard and beans without the lard, and south-migrating fowl had not yet returned to nest in their breeding grounds. Winter in Canada in 1704 seemed long.

The Canadian militia troops’ minds were full of tales of the victories of Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville, the most famous of their fellow marine officers, born on Canadian soil. He had destroyed 36 out of 38 English settlements in Newfoundland. Except for their traffic in fur trading with the Iroquois, none of the English in the English colonies dared to move west or north, to confront the French and their aboriginal allies.

The French governors were aware of the growth of the population along the Connecticut River to the south. The other English colonies were supplying the Bay of Massachusetts Colony with food from Virginia. Furs were discovered being traded by the settlers of New England. This meant breach of trust that would have to be “settled.” So, Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville along with his four brothers were chosen to lead French troops and their Eastern Abenakis allies to capture and burn the north Massachusetts “plantation,” or town, of Deerfield.

Ancestors of the Iroquois clans, also having some investment in the attack, wanted to retrieve a church bell that was pirated by the English from a French ship before being delivered to them. Auctioned off in Boston, the François-Xavier Mission’s bell ended up being purchased and sent to the town of Deerfield instead - a dreadful mistake.

Besides these motives, hundreds of Amerindians in the eastern part of the English colonies were relocated north to the Chaudière River and then to Lac St-Pierre near the city of Three Rivers and the Sorel islands. Massacres had been initiated by the English.

An aboriginal chief “King Philippe” was hung for treachery. The Reverend Cotton Mather of Boston kept the skull of the insubordinate chief on his desk for several years.

In 1704, some of the relocated First Nation peoples would be enlisted by the French to return to engage the English settlers in conflict.

When the three hundred men were ready, they headed south on the river, known today as the Richelieu River that flows into Lake Champlain. Then they went southeast on the Connecticut River. The rewards were for New France and for the King who declared himself the Sun King, Louis XIV. The English, living on the Connecticut River, were poorly protected, even though they had several times requested from the Governor in Boston reinforcement of the stockade and extra troops. A previous massacre and the capture of Esther Wheelwright among others in 1703 at the Bay of Massachusetts occurred for the same reason - not enough protection by professional soldiers.

The New Englanders held French captives in Boston, taken from Port Royal in the Atlantic colonies of New France. Some were avenged for during previous conflicts in the early 1600s. There was an apparent threat of treason by a French-Canadian man named Charles Le Tour and his wife Françoise-Marie Jaquelin. Could English hostages be taken in order to negotiate the return of their own French ones held in Boston? Were these not sufficient reasons to burn Deerfield in the winter of 1704 and massacre or deport its inhabitants?

In “Captured by Canadians,” many original families have fictitious people join them. A nine-year-old who drifted from the Caribbean islands is among residents of New France. The Blocks are included as Deerfield neighbours and fellow Christians by the author whose ancestors, the Hoyts from England, were among the captives. These, along with the historical families, would find their faith tortured and tested until Reverend

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Williams, one of the captives, published an account of the hostage taking. He said he was satisfied that God works for the good of his “lambs”. He saw the work of God among other peoples (the French in New France) and having been sent to them by his powerful hand to proclaim his praises, Williams could not stop repeating, during and after the release of the hostages, how much good had been done through this evil. He, his children, Reverend Mather and the New England Puritans were powerfully changed by these serial massacres. So was New France.

Daryl Zoellner, April 2008, revised July 2021

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Illustration: 9 yr. old boy dressed in period costume (circa 1700) with large boots and tricorne, looking through the little squares of an exterior window of a hospice in Montreal. It is spring but fresh snow remains on branches. A reflection of the sky, because of the bright sun, makes it impossible to see inside.

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chapter one: My Delight is in Her A boy stood under a fir tree pulling his collar closer to his neck to stay warm. The riggings of his thin, nine-year-old dark-skinned vessel were threadbare and the boots, in which his feet navigated the spring snow banks, had, as he dreaded, lost their heels.

Maybe a kind lady of the church could help him… maybe the Sisters of St-Joseph?

Madame Marie Louise had told him not to bother them. Besides, the winter was just about over and soon he could go bare-footed again. He peered into a window of l’Hotel-Dieu (the hospice of God), but the reflection of the glass only mirrored the clear blue sky. A soldier from the Compagnie Franche de la Marine, posted to distract curious visitors like Pépo, and to keep the English prisoners who had been taken in the raid on Deerfield in the Massachusetts Bay Colony from escaping, directed auspicious glances at him.

“What will you do? Your lady will be many hours in there with the patients. I have seen her come before. Does she not help here every Thursday?” he called to the boy.

“I have come to help her carry food to our house to be cooked,” he answered honestly, in spite of the urge to ignore the man.

Marie Louise, Goodwife of Captain Côté, to whom she had been ‘given’ in marriage after her first husband Pierre died, was indeed taking a long time.

Slippery, granulated snow gave way under the boy and he abruptly landed on his buttocks; legs half on the soggy tufts of grass and half on the crystals of dirty April snow.

Pépo pulled up his left leg quickly in disgust as he tried to avoid the river of water mixed with bright red blood that at that same moment splashed out of the pipe. It expelled

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the contents of a stone sink inside1.

“Someone has been killed!” the boy called out in surprise.

The soldier roared with laughter. Pépo tried to get up but, once he was down, the boots were of no use to him. He placed his fallen tricorne2 on his head, flicked his long matted queue 3 behind his shoulder, and brushed the crystals of snow off his cold black hands. Suddenly and assuredly, he gripped the water pipe. He held the pipe with one hand and a prickly branch of a pine tree with the other and popped up. Being only made of wood, and carved out in the center, the pipe snapped in his hands. A pocket of lately fallen snow, cradled in the branches overhead, toppled onto him. For the rest of the morning, he smelled partly of pine pitch and partly of dried blood.

The soldier, who was distracted by a hawk soaring above him, had not noticed the large crack in the pipe. He laughed mockingly at the boy’s fall.

Where was Madame Marie Louise? The boy pressed his nose into the corner of one of the little square panes of hand-blown glass to trace where she might be within the 8 meter by 30 meter4 stone building. He did not know that the two-storey edifice was divided into five rooms on the first floor, nor did he know that he was looking into the kitchen.

Eventually, he would give up his search and trudge down the hill in the

uncomfortable boots.

A patient lay on a mat on the kitchen floor. Until now, the large dress and apron tie of the mission nurse had blocked a plain view of the outdoors. Just as the missionary finished emptying the ruddy contents of her pail into the stone sink and moved away to 1

this type of sink may be seen in the kitchen on the lower floor of the Château de Ramezay in Montreal’s Old Port.

2

three-cornered wool or animal skin hat, turned up at the edges

3

ponytail

4

about 26 ft.x 98 ft.

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the hearth, the previous face, topped by a brown three-cornered hat, startled a young girl who lay on the mat inside the hospice. She had not seen this person before. In fact, she had not seen anything of where she was before. She was, until that very moment, unconscious. Where was she? The question only lasted a second in her mind and she was once more engaged in a shuffle of thoughts, shivering uncontrollably in a muddle of clothes she did not remember putting on.

“I have been wandering long, in a room where I cannot find a place to put down my sack. Someone is always chiding me and I am always trying to defend myself, yet the bag must be stored somewhere. Where would it be safe?”

She then checked the floor of the hospice. The sack in which she had stored all her earthly belongings was not anywhere nearby. Surprised that she was no longer being guarded by Savages5 in a tent in the woods with her ankles tied to the frame, she sighed in relief and closed her eyes. She was dry, but shivering.

Her thoughts again changed to another image. Old Widow Kellogg was speaking.

“But dear, you must not call them devils. They are not devils. The Devil does not become human, he is a fallen angel who convinces others that God is not good.” The newly conscious girl recalled that Goodwife Kellogg had safely made it through a hard winter after her ship, The Bowspirit, had arrived in the New World. “Those Indians revived us with meat fat, corn and beans from the point of near starvation,” the old-timer insisted. “How could they be devils?”

Now her thoughts turned to Mama who was speaking about the trials. Trials in 5

the word savage was employed to describe the natural peoples who the French discovered in their voyages. When missionaries were sent to them, and developers wanted to exploit them, the indigenous people were governed as French citizens. According to the European explorers, they were newly rescued or tamed from uncivilized, ethnic nations.

Enculturation took place in both directions, however.

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Salem…they were going to get punished very severely, maybe get burned in the Common, those girls were. But Mama thought like the minister’s wife, and the minister’s wife, Mrs. Williams, thought like her relatives the Mathers. Some thought those girls were witches who would create so much confusion that women of true faith were about to be damned. “The ancient arts and the alchemy were holding court with the healing medicines and honest inquiry,” said Mama. But Mama delivered the babies, she did not refuse life to them and she was the one who went around to visit the young mothers.

They called her Midwife Block. She was used to seeing blood and she...

When the girl stopped to take a breath, it smelled like candles being poured. The smoky scent of tallow from mutton fat reached her nostrils and she stopped hallucinating.

For a short moment, she stopped thinking of days past in the New England town of Deerfield of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

What was whistling over to her right? A steam-operated still or Persian designed, Al-ambiq, for making medicines from herbs... O Mama had one of those also. She often complained of burns gotten by decanting the essences from it.

When was the bread going to be put in the oven? The dark-haired indigenous woman had already taken the ashes out of the stone oven, built into the wall of the immense fireplace. It must be hot enough now. “I must be in the kitchen, but in whose house?’’ the girl mumbled.

In another room, she could hear the hum of several people speaking like in a meeting hall. The outside door opened and she felt an icy cold draft descend towards her.

A man was brought in on a rug. His brightly coloured, arrow-patterned sash hung over the side and brushed her face as he was carried into the next room. The Indian nurse

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moved the girl’s mat out of the way. Ouch! Her knee was touched. “Where did they take him? Oh! That curtain over the door smells like vinegar...I hope no one goes through it again!” She remembered how cold she had been and how much she hurt. Her face was swollen. She could not open her mouth and her left hand was too painful to reach for anything.

“The real devils…” she whispered as she shivered and remembered the ruins of the town of Deerfield. Devils! Mama! They killed you! Tears squeezed from her eyes.

Where are Ebenezer and Sarah and Elizabeth and Papa? What happened to the other captives and the Williams? Again, the thoughts were confused. “No, no, Mama was gone before the pain, Reverend Williams, their minister,” had said. “Our Great Shepherd had taken her already, even though the scalping had been, in our eyes, severe. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.6” That text was found in one of the Psalms he read to all of us as we plodded through the snow for twenty-five days.

Deerfield was a town that admired and needed its spiritual shepherd. Everyone (even children) did not think on their own. They thought like those they admired and needed, and so it was for Rev. John Williams. Yet, he admired and needed Christ Jesus.

Did he not have the mind of our Saviour?

Suddenly she was hysterical. Hysterical, but trained in good manners to hold sweet and simple thoughts. She controlled herself. Her throat went dry. The tears welled up. We are in Babylon7! That is what he said. Yes, Papists8 and Savages have

6

Psalm 116.15, KJV

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when Jewish captives in the time of the prophet Jeremiah were deported to the Babylonian Empire, it meant Jerusalem (the city of peace) and God’s rule of their destroyed nation had to be left behind.

8 This is a 17th century Protestant word describing Christians who admire and adopt the worldview of the head priest (the Pope) of the Catholic Church instead of thinking like Christ himself. To think again like Christ was the aim of those who attempted unsuccessfully to reform 16th century Roman Catholic theology.

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captured us! The girl had once had a dreadful fear of them both; fears cultivated by unresolved disputes with her people. Twelve villages had been destroyed. “But Papa!

Did he not say, “God has set bounds to every man’s wickedness; he suffers men to live and to go on in sin until they have filled up their measure, and then he cuts them off, only to be spoken of as bad examples. There will be no future but to those in the ark who are faithful in their generations.” From this past influence, the girl prejudged all around her.

“What did we do to make you so angry at us, God? Are you punishing us?

Cutting us off?” she petitioned, remembering to confess in pious prayer, her own wickedness. Little Jerusha Williams had already been baptized with Jemima her twin.

Jerusha was in paradise now, enjoying “what eye had not seen and ear had not heard...things so wonderful that they are indescribable 9.” Comfort flowed to them because of God’s grace. Frank, their Negro servant was gone to the Lord as well. Pastor Williams preached comfort at every sermon during the days after their capture. “His anger has been replaced; replaced by grace and mercy. We believe that salvation is for our children. It is saving faith in a saving God,” she remembered him saying.

“God, please keep the agreement you made when Reverend Williams baptized me. I still agree with you. Will you reject me because I have not yet become a member of the Congregation? Is there still a place reserved for me? Is there still a future for me in your home?”

The girl could no longer hold a thought and she was so unbearably thirsty and exhausted. She was uncomfortably asleep in a very short time. Her dream, however, was undisturbed, even comforting.

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I Corinthians 2.9

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The place of her dream was Deerfield.

There were no burning buildings

anywhere. There were no natives and no French infantry. It was not night, but a fresh spring day.

Papa was clearing snow off the watermill at the north section of the river, beside the falls. He knew everything about the workings of windmills because he came from Zeddam Holland, but working this watermill in a rude climate was always a challenge to him. Watermills could not be used if snow or ice clogged the wheel and kept it from turning the grinding stone for the town’s grain. Her left hand hoisted her dress up above the top of her boots and she ran on the grassy patches with her neighbour, Esther Williams, who was also eleven. They held little Sarah, between them by the hands and swooped her high into the air at every step. Samuel and Stephen Williams were working beside the river. They ice to haul to the root cellar to keep the vegetables from spoiling.

The son of Lieutenant David Hoyt10, also named David and a mere 22-year-old, was guarding them against the possibility of attack. The stockade needed reinforcements but none were promised soon from Boston.

“Papa!

Mr. Hibbins and Dr. Soleby11 have arrived from Hartford and East

Windsor!” she called in her dream. She stopped Samuel who was walking toward the house.

He laid down his block of ice. “Samuel, your step-grandfather, Reverend

Solomon Stoddard has also come from Northampton.

Reverend Stoddard says his

daughter in East Windsor is expecting a child in October and my Mama wants to go and help with the delivery. They are hoping, after so many girls, that she might have a son.”

She then implored her father, who was carrying a sack of grain, “may I go too, 10

ancestor of the author (reference : Family History of Willma P. Thomas, nee Martin)

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other Connecticut settlers such as Mr. Hobbs and Dr. Whitby might have been there.

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Papa?”

It was her own voice speaking.

Reverend Stoddard was the stepfather of Samuel William’s mother. The Stoddard minister and his mother’s mother, Esther, formed a typical second spouse union in those days of sudden deaths and illnesses. Samuel’s step grandfather Stoddard was like a true grandfather to Samuel. He was now a seventeen-year-old, but only a stepson to this grandfather by his grandmother Mather’s second marriage. Esther Mather Stoddard was widowed from her first husband, the deceased Eleazer Mather, who had been the first pastor at Northampton, on the Connecticut River. She in turn was a step grandmother to the little Jonathan Edwards who arrived the autumn before the massacre. He was in fact a son, born after many daughters. “Mother was helping Mrs. Williams. She was going to deliver the twins in December and the delivery of little Jonathan in October 1703 12 went ahead without her assistance.”

These were the girl’s sudden remembrances as she

vaguely noticed the movements of the women who worked around her in the kitchen.

“Samuel, they have brought books with them.” Hephzibah continued in a trance.

“The new Primer is among them. Now we can begin a class for the younger children at the school. We will read to them.”

She thought of them but because of the recent attacks many of those children were now gone to graves.

Then, it seemed to the distressed girl, that her father, Maarten Block, appeared at the two-story house where John Williams, their pastor, was meeting with the visiting clergymen from along the Connecticut River.

“My Papa is a deacon and a close

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Jonathan Edwards became one of the preachers of The Great Awakening, a mass revival of devotion to the Christian gospel in the latter half of the 18th century.

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neighbour,” she said out loud.

The curious worker in the hospice kitchen observed her chatting to someone in her sleep, but the girl on the floor must have woken herself up again, when her sore mouth was opening to say the words.

In the room with the fireplace, the weak patient could hear a man’s voice, but she could not see the speaker. It was a deep, lovely sound - one that comforted her. She was feeling warmer now. The shivering stopped. It was Papa or her uncle. No, it was the Reverend Williams. Oh, that could not be! It was someone speaking in another language besides Papa’s Dutch or Mama’s British accent.

The girl could see this neatly dressed figure standing behind a table with a book open upon it. Even though she could not understand, the conversation was now being filled in by the voice of the woman. She was dressed in a long dark robe with a white headpiece under her black scarf.

“She was hit by a Savage,” said the man who had taken a chair by the fireplace.

The seated man was in his twenties, the girl guessed correctly after turning towards him and looking up through the banisters of the chair.

“What did he hit her for?” asked the woman, also speaking in a foreign language the girl could not understand.

“I think she tried to take a painted canvas from his bag and he flew at her with all his force to stop her. I watched him lift her and throw her in the river. She must have hit a fallen tree because I did not see her move. When I felt it was safe, I pulled her away from the water.

“You were not seen by him?” asked the woman at the little table.

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“No, and I had already escaped from the other group of captives.

Events, you see, have been hard for her, but easy for me because I speak French. I merely had to put together a decent uniform from the old clothes we were given by the soldiers. One out of twenty of your Canadian soldiers were wounded at Deerfield, Madame.”

The mission nurse quickly noted this in her report. Should he conceal his identity from her? Of what use would that be now?

He appealed to her mercy. “When I spoke, I could fit in with the company. Until I learned how to make them believe I was one of their own, I had to find a way of convincing them I was from another military division and not one of the captives. Spare me, Madame.”

“God has been with you and with this girl,” said the nurse. She looked to the corner of the kitchen where the eleven-year-old girl lay on a sailcloth mat made with bulrush stuffing. Maybe it was best to protect this kind young man from too much scrutiny. Besides, the French troops of Ville Marie would come to know him soon enough.

They were in a hospice in Ville Marie and the French woman turned to attend to the distiller that was preparing a vermifuge of red-osier dogwood bark for the patients with intestinal parasites and fever. Spring thaw always brought a new set of discomforts.

“What is the girl’s name, Monsieur Gilles... She took a look down at the book in which she had written his name... Gilles... Guérin13?”

“Hephzibah, I believe. Her mother is ... was... a midwife and her father, a miller.”

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pronunciation of French words may be practiced by going to: http://www.frenchmalaysia.com/basic-frenchphrases//how-to-pronounce-french-words.html

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The sound of these names, even though she understood nothing else, made the injured girl open her eyes. She tried to remember where she had heard the name Gilles Guérin before. She remembered hearing of a young man living near Deerfield who was called Gilles. Everyone pronounced it differently because of their odd pronunciation of the French sounds.

But how had the lady said it?

Why had he used her name,

Hephzibah14? She was not ready to think this hard. Dreaming came more easily. Her right knee was badly cut; a pain in her left wrist meant something was broken. Most of all her jaw hurt.

She rolled to the left side, positioning her right leg gently above the

other.

“Connaissez-vous le Sauvage qui l’a jeté dans la rivière?15 ” Again Hephzibah heard the strange language coming from the lady. She was speaking like people she had heard at some fort somewhere.

“He was wearing the otara of the Teianite clan, a symbol of the beaver. Does that make him Abenakis, or Hodinonhsioni - one of the people of the longhouse16, Madame?”

“You said otara. We call it otem or totem sometimes, but that is in the Algonquin language.” Then she added, “I sometimes know not what to speak. The words of all inhabitants are mixing together like I am mixing this powdered yarrow root into the medicine. Marie-Barbe might be able to help you. She was born here,” the nurse said, turning toward the young Indian woman who was kneading bread. I may some day know when the words I speak are French-Hodinonhsioni17 or French-Algonquin18.

14 15

Hephzibah is a biblical name found in Isaiah 62.4. It means I delight in her.

Do you know the Savage who threw her into the river?

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Dwellings of the sedentary native tribes where a woman of a clan and her clan-approved husband would live.

The Hodinonhsioni or Haudenosaunee were known as an Iroquois tribe and they grew crops such as corn and squash. In order to follow the planting seasons, they did not move around much. They are believed to have come from

17

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Hephzibah followed the movements and facial gestures but could not decide what they were talking about. The native woman smiled at the other two. It seemed she could help them and wanted to speak, but the other two ignored her, not wishing to waste time.

“If he is of the Beaver clan, he is from the tribe Iroquois Tsonnontouans,” the nurse continued. “Did you see on his clothing a design of a longhouse with two trees on each end?”

“No, I did not have enough time to see his whole body. He was not a young man.

Most of the Savages who came with the soldiers were my age. The ones who brought back the prisoners from the forts were older. This man was one of them.”

“He has saved your friend and did not scalp her, thank God. Will you be able to translate to English for me so she will understand? God is with her. Did you lose family?”

“My father and I had a dwelling outside the stockade, below Deerfield, near the river. We did not mix with the people of the town because we were not in agreement with the church when it came to punishing a certain woman of another village who was declared a heretic. “Those ‘heretics’ who believe that salvation is through the intuition of God’s indwelling grace were not evil,” my father said. “So, the congregation would not let us become members of the church, nor give us a token to commune with them at the Lord’s table.’’

“The enlightenment from within must come from the justice God accomplished outside and apart from us through his Son,” the Deerfield people said, and Father did not South America and have some hints of Roman grammar construction in their language. The Huron are Iroquois but were not part of the Six Nation Haudenosaunee confederacy that the Mohawk People of the Flint belonged to.

18 The Algonquin people are believed to have descended from migrating Asians who came after an ice age from the Northwest of the continent. Their language is not the same as the Iroquois dialects. They were known to travel great distances when the seasons changed and they followed animal migrations. Nine tribes in Quebec are of Algonquin or Anishinaabeg origin.

22

disagree with them. Yet, he also held to his first opinion. “Oh...” Gilles swallowed hard.

“Now my father is hopefully lying in a proper grave. He died along side a lieutenant, the younger David Hoyt, as they defended Deerfield’s east side. So, opinions do not matter any more, do they?” Tears filled his eyes and he left the room quickly, by way of a private stairway, with a bow and tip of his three-cornered hat.

A female voice cried out suddenly and the abrupt re-entrance of the man into the kitchen brought out a smothered laugh from the nurse.

“You just went into the nurses’ stairway,” she explained to him.

Blushing from the double humiliation, he stayed only to whisper anxiously one more thing, “I will have to do the translation of the girl’s words in secret. Nobody must know that I speak English.” Then he departed through another door to wait for the nurse’s report. His footsteps could be heard going down a hallway.

Hephzibah smelled the elixir as soon as the new mixture was prepared. It was a smell that made her taste buds water but for lack of concentration, she could not name the ingredients. Her mother’s midwife duties made the work of picking herbs from the woods and the garden fall on her eldest daughter, Hephzibah. Yet she was not allowed to distill the liquids.

Four women were in the kitchen now. She looked to see if the tan-skinned one with black hair was there or if she had but seen her in a dream. Was there still a face in the window? No. She watched the European-dressed Indian woman knead the bread and put it on a board to be slid into the small oven inside the stone fireplace, a cavern that took up an entire wall of the building.

There were only dried burned leaves for salt in New England - colts foot leaves

23

that Indians had taught them to crush. Here, it seemed only bleached flour and water and some yeast were being used for making bread. The native woman looked surprised as if she had not seen Hephzibah there before. She knelt down and looked straight at the sick child. “Tu n’as pas frette? Assez chaud?” she asked.

“I say show? What was she asking?” thought the captive. She remembered not to open her jaw. Her lips were glued together.

“Mon nom est Marie-Barbe Antonin. As-tu assez chaud?19” But the English girl did not understand, and she was unable to tell the woman that, yes, she was warm enough and that her name was Hephzibah Block. She did something anyone might have done who was lying for a morning in a hot kitchen and had had nothing to drink for two days. She pointed to her mouth. The woman got up and pulled a piece of bread from a round loaf.

“No, no” said Hephzibah and shook her head. It did not make a difference. They did not understand each other and she ate, or rather nibbled, on the bread because she was hungry. What was wrong with her jaw? It was so sore.

In a few minutes everyone knew she had regained consciousness and there was a sudden interest in her. The older nurse, who had been talking to the man who used her name, came and felt her skin. She lifted the blanket and moved the injured girl into a sitting position. She ordered a cup to be brought to her and they gave her a long, cool drink of water. The immediate physical effect of the liquid was remarkable. Hephzibah cried, half in fright, half in pain, and her sobbing was uncontrollable to the point where she could barely swallow. She felt herself pee and was so ashamed.

19

My name is Marie-Barbe Antonin. Are you warm enough?

24

With a few exchanges of words between the workers, the decision was made to move her into the next room. She had to pass through to the infirmary by way of that horrid vinegar-soaked curtain as three women shuffled her, mattress and all, into the next room. “Maybe it is used to keep pestilence20 from moving into the kitchen,” she thought.

“Maybe I have been in there too long. Do I have a fever?” She felt her skin. “What day is it?” “Will I have fresh clothes soon?”

The next room indicated to Hephzibah that she was in a hospice. There were about a dozen women in the room, some lying on beds built into the wall and three others in beds opposite. Many other people were there talking in small groups. Two nurses assisted an attending priest and one lady was washing a patient’s face and talking to her again in what were incoherent sounds to Hephzibah. The doctor-priest was ‘bleeding’21 an older man in a side room with no door. Several people surrounded his bed. From the sounds coming from above, she thought the men patients must be in another room in the upper part of the building. She had seen the pewter bowl that was used for bleeding.

Some animal had bitten the unfortunate man or maybe he cut himself on something.

She was still being pulled on her mattress to the far end of the room when a most unexpected interruption startled her. Her eyes met another pair of eyes as she passed down the middle of the floor. They were under a bed.

“Hephie!” a child’s voice called to her and a five-year-old boy struggled out like a duck waddling from where he had been hiding beneath the frame. It was Warham Williams, the son of her neighbour and minister! If it had not been such a frightening place for the boy, he might have gone exploring and discovered her sooner as she lay 20

epidemics Drawing blood from someone was found to be helpful in the healing process. Transfusions, given today, are much more reliable.

21

25

beside the fire in the kitchen. He tried to wrap himself around her but a middle-aged French woman caught him and held him by the arm. He squealed and struggled, hoping by his pleading glance at her that Hephzibah might say something to keep the wellintentioned but determined woman away. The woman was very firm but when he calmed down, she let him go to the Deerfield girl. “Alors, tu la connaîs mon ami.” she said, once aware that the young captives recognized each other. Nevertheless, she kept her eyes on them as she walked back towards the kitchen curtain.

Hearing her Christian name once more, this time from a familiar boy’s voice, was like receiving another cup of cold, refreshing water. When she was a baby, Mother’s uncle (a student at the Boston Latin School) had suggested the name for her and now she was eleven years old. It was Hebrew. “When the Hebrew people were punished by God,” Papa had said, “…and they remembered what was required of them ... he promised them that their city, Zion, would be called ‘my delight is in her’ or hephzibah.”

She wanted Warham to hug her, but it would have hurt too much. Instead, she reached out her right hand as she passed by.

The three women dragged her mattress to a suitable place on the floor beside several barrels and Warham managed to go and sit beside her, squeezing her hand and looking carefully at her scarred face. He put his thumb in his mouth to suck it and laid his head on the mattress beside Hephzibah’s arm. She lifted her right hand and put it on his head.

He smelled horrible as she feared she herself did but nothing could make her push him away. He must have been exhausted with emotion, for in a very short time he would be asleep.

Yet before this, both of them, being inquisitive, whispered their most

26

cherished questions to each other. She breathed into his ear and he, in return, breathed into hers.

“Warham, where is this? Do you know? Is anyone else here that we might know? She asked this quietly so as not to draw too much attention to them and because it was uncomfortable to open her mouth too wide. “…not know,” he whimpered and put his thumb back. After the brief conversation, he fell asleep and was snoring gently. So many eyes were on them, it seemed. All were waiting for a sign from the older nurse, the one who seemed to be in charge.

The young man, the one with the deep, lovely sounding voice, previously heard in the kitchen, entered the large room. Was his name Gilles? He was dressed in a beige coat with black collar and cuffs, a musician’s uniform. His black tricorne had gold braid on its upper edges. She thought, for a minute, that the handsome dark-haired man was one of the captives. Had they not been forced to dress in discarded regimental uniforms?

“No,” Hephzibah said to herself. “He is French-speaking and he really is a soldier. Yes, that is it!

They must all be speaking French. I am in New France. We were at that

ruined fort! Yes! We have arrived!” she finally concluded.

The journey was over and she was no longer trudging over mountains and beside rivers and the lake, no longer prisoner at Fort Chambly22 and she felt relieved, relieved to be still alive.

Awhile later, the quiet but efficient middle-aged French woman, named by the others ‘Marie Louise’, the one who had held back Warham when he had nearly squeezed Hephzibah’s wounds with his affection, came around with metal bowls of fresh bread and 22

Also known as Fort Saint Louis

27

a sauce made with eels. The English girl ate haltingly. Still later, she woke the boy sleeping beside her on the floor and helped him with his bowl, as best she could.

A little voice, muffled by mouthfuls of food, said, “I want to go home. I want to see Mama and Papa. Where is Samuel? Where is Stephen? They want me to say all mixed up words, except those ones over there.” He pointed to a group of five or six women in a far corner of the room.

Hephzibah did not recognize them but tried to listen to hear if the four women, sitting on floor mattresses, spoke English. What kept them from coming to speak to her?

She watched every move they made from that point on.

“The others were taken away, Hephie.”

Warham became quiet and then he said, “We will have to walk a long way to get home, won’t we?”

It had taken nearly a month to get to New France, longer for some others.

Hephzibah wanted to comfort Warham Williams but she had no guarantee that there ever would be a trip home and, as far as she knew, everything at home would be burned to ruins. She tried to remember where she had put a silver cup that she had brought out with her during the escape. Maybe she could give it to the little boy to console him.

Later in the afternoon, a mattress for the boy was brought and placed near the barrels. They were given a fresh set of clothes and they smelled a good deal better after they were washed and changed. Hephzibah’s presence, a long nap, and the food had calmed the boy considerably. He amused himself by playing with bone buttons on a dogskin vest that he had been asked to put on. He practiced doing them up and then buttoning them again in a new way.

28

Hephzibah spent the afternoon and evening making signs to the attending nurses, trying to get them to understand her basic needs and to examine the nature of her various wounds. She had still not made any contact with the curious patients Warham had spoken of. They were somehow interested in her, but at first, they dared not get too close.

The doctor, attending to those who occupied the wood-framed beds, passed between her and them.

The rooms were in such disorder because of the urgent need of space. There remained no privacy in times of emergency and the cries of the injured man, now somewhere in a room beside them, sometimes made it hard to hear anything. Melodic prayers were said in the room. Later she learned they were a recitation of ‘l’Angelus’ from a Latin prayer book. From where she lay, she could only see feet and the skirts of the nurses. One Franciscan Recollet had a long, brown robe.

Something was different the next morning when she awoke for the final time after a series of uncomfortable awakenings and fallings asleep. The barking of some distant dogs made her think of where the gate to the settlement might be. The man who had been brought in on the mat the day before must have died. His mourners stayed long after the first chapel service of which she could hear the nearby bells. It was not a quiet hospice at the best of times but attuned to groaning and crying. The company of mourners consisted mostly of women in long, hooded capes and men in coats with lace sleeves at the wrist.

There remained, in that far corner, the group of people that Warham had pointed out. One woman from the small contingency, bravely setting out to visit the new patients while the nurses were at the chapel, made her way across the room and began speaking to

29

Warham in his mother tongue. “I am from Lancaster in Massachusetts Colony. Where are you from?”

Warham, too shy to speak, came and sat closer to Hephzibah. She would be his spokesperson.

Hephzibah started to tell her story but she had too many questions to sound sensible. “We are from the plantation of Deerfield. Were you taken in a surprise attack also? Did you lose many villagers? Do you know of Maarten Block or of his children Ebenezer, Elizabeth or Sarah? This boy’s mother (she turned to Warham) was unable to drag herself far on this journey because she had just given birth to twin infants a few weeks before. My own mother is in Paradise also. We do not know where his father, the Reverend Williams, nor his brothers, Samuel and Stephen or his sisters Eunice and Esther have been taken. Do you know anything of them? Please tell us.”

“Ah, my poor girl, Stephen was led away separately by the Savage, Mummumcott and his young nephew Kewakcum.23 ” She knew the Savages by name from having spent some time in her new captivity. “I also know that Reverend Williams arrived three weeks later than many of us and he was taken to the Governor’s house, the one called Vaudreuil. Your dear minister was here to visit. The Governor’s wife came also. The French will be putting us in homes to do domestic work, I believe. The minister was allowed to visit a sick man, the Mister Biggelow of Marlborough, who is in the men’s residence above. The pastor had news that Mister Biggelow had converted to a Popecentered faith, but the injured man shouted down to the minister that, while he himself has the use of his reason, he would not comply with strange rites. They were forbidden to 23

These are names borrowed from The Boy Captive in Canada and The Boy Captive of Old Deerfield by Mary WellsSmith,

30

meet face to face, but the minister shouted up to him all the news of the captives.”

The woman continued, “Reverend Williams told us that at Fort Chambly24, the inhabitants would not allow him to open a Bible nor to comfort his flock with some words from it. The Jesuit, Monsieur Bigot invited him to thank God at the chapel for preserving his life. The minister would do nothing of the sort. So, having witnessed this seeming irreverence, the Native master turned against him and thought the minister was full of demons, who say God is not good. But of course, God is good. From then on, the Jesuits would not allow us to sing a hymn or pray. This greatly disappointed the pastor because he had previously had so much liberty from his Indian master who brought him up the Connecticut River. It is not easy for him to be among the clergy here because they see him as a threat. The Governor Vaudreuil redeemed him from the Indian master but has told him that he will only be sent home when Captain Jean-Baptiste Guyon the young Acadian privateer, who has been three times imprisoned in Boston, is redeemed. This was the reason for his capture. The minister speaks little French but all who speak Latin will surely hear him out. Those native men and the locally born French soldiers are obliged to the Cardinal to make Catholics of every man and woman. So once again, the Canadians25 summon him to gather the captives for prayers and the singing of a hymn from the books they brought along. He had only time to tell us that he had been well treated. Too well! It made him sick to eat such rich food presented to him by the servants of Mister de Vaudreuil. He was hoping here to have some news about his children.”

The woman was finishing her story when she took Warham’s little hand, 25

Kanad-djians was the name the Huron Wendayats near the separation of waters at Quebec used to call ¨those who

settled in our village¨. It referred to the early French settlers or Canadians.

31

something she had wanted to do since he arrived. “Ah! It is too bad this son of his has come too late to meet his father. He was brought in just a day ago. Ah yes! It appears that whoever had wanted him has come to give him away to someone else. The boy must have caused them a great deal of trouble. We are all waiting to see where they are going to send us. No, my dear, I do not understand this. The smallest children, who had the strength, were the best treated, as if there was a need for them here. They were pulled on sleds for the long march. The boy must be worth more to them, yet the way they treat him, it does not appear so. No one has dared to go near him, until you were revived.”

With that, she stood and limped back to the others who were curious to know where Hephzibah had come from. “God be with thee,” the woman turned and said with a nod.

“And with thee,” Hephzibah whispered after her.

“How will I ever know where Papa is? Are the others with him?”

She tortured herself with these thoughts once more.

Porridge, made of pureed yellow peas or fêves, as the nurse called them, was offered to her. Warham came to ask Hephie to pray with him before they ate their breakfast. A meal was not a meal without a prayer, in his mind. Afterwards, they both were distracted by a movement and turned to see a nightingale perched on a red ash tree outside the window. “It too wants to eat and get warm, Warham. Look! In its mouth it has samaras from that tree over there.”

“Those have poison berries, yuck!’’ he said and spit with his mouth as if he had tasted them before.

For the first time, and then for the rest of the day, he had the courage to go and

32

look out the window of the hospice. This was a new pass-time. When the lady, Marie Louise, returned to serve their noon meal, it was difficult to pull him away from the views outside the hospice.

The soldier, named Gilles returned also. Maybe she had not noticed him, since he was so quiet. Perhaps he had been there all along. She feared him. He must not be much older than twenty-one or twenty-two. Why was he always in the women’s ward?

He had been looking at her too often for a stranger. Then he came near her. Hephzibah recoiled when a nurse made signs for her to stand and to try walking with the strange soldier’s arm extended to brace her. There was a feeling of dread as she gave her swollen knee the weight of her body, so she quickly shifted her balance. Where was she to walk to? They were leading her to the priest’s medicine room. When they arrived after passing through another of the vinegar-drenched curtains, she was invited to sit in a chair.

“They do not seem to care about the spread of my illness or they would have kept me on the other side,” she thought hopefully. “I must not be ill from anything that would spread to the other people.”

The nurse, the soldier, and herself were the only ones in the room.

They

fortunately sat far away from the curtain. “(H)ephie...Yes, you are very (h)eavy,” he said with a smile. The soldier spoke in English, in an accented whisper, close to her ear. He could not say the ‘h’ sound.

Nevertheless, she opened wide her eyes and stared at him.

“I understood nearly every word you said,” she rasped and then coughed.

Why was he making fun of her? She held her face with both hands, in order to support her jaw. She did not want to cough again suddenly. Her elbow leaned on the

33

arm of the chair. She was not thinking of her discomfort, but rather, she was listening to the man shift back into French in order to speak to the nurse. Then he turned again to the young girl.

“Marie Louise Gamonet…she would like to take you to be her servant.”

He had made arrangements for her dismissal from the hospice and was trying to explain this to her in his broken English accent.

“Do you know who is Marie Louise? Madame Côté? She is the one who served your dinner to you at noon yesterday,” he said.

The nurse seemed to want to say something but waited while the soldier spoke.

“Her husband is a captain of a militia unit and they live close to the palisade along the river where I...” But he suddenly stopped his sentence.

The disguised Gilles Guérin was going to say, “Where I brought you in from Chambly the other day.” But the girl from Deerfield must not know this story or she would identify him as one of the captives and ruin his disguise as a recruit newly arrived from France.

He made up his mind that instant to go from Ville Marie and hope they never saw each other again. The plan was not complicated. By the time she told Marie Louise that he spoke English (which could take several weeks) he would be registered at the Marine Commission as an incoming French colonist, hired by a landowner and working on a seigneury26. That was his bold plan, if he could get it to work. Yet he had to prove his innocence with regard to her first. The report at the hospice had to act in his favour.

Gilles spoke to Hephzibah in a low voice. “The nurse would like to know why 26

The French King preferred to grant land to his nobles instead of setting up towns as the English did in their colonies.

A seigneurie had many workers on it who paid tribute to the landowner. Some rented their own land from him.

34

you were thrown into the river. It is important to her. She does not want to offend the Savages and cause a misunderstanding. You were supposed to die or be paid for. For you to live is a bad omen for the original peoples.”

Hephzibah frowned and looked away. Her heart was beating wildly and her breathing was short. Again, she coughed. Then, she cleared her throat.

“I do not remember.”

She looked down and played with her hands.

How

embarrassed and afraid she was! What did this strange man have to do with her?

The soldier translated what she said, but he looked unhappy.

Gilles knew more than she. How could he get her to say the truth and clear his testimony in front of this missionary woman who had come to trust him? What if the nurse called for the soldiers and denounced him? Hopefully this merciful woman from the province of Champagne in France was still willing to conceal his identity out of mercy for a fellow countryman. “Your disguise is sufficient to protect you, if you are innocent. Men like you are badly needed here,” the woman had said. He had not told her that he was a refugee from a detested Camisard family of the Cévennes Plateaus.

She might have found his political allegiance unforgivable if she were not herself in sympathy with la Résistance des Huguenots.27 Gilles only knew of the Parisian widow, Madame Jeanne de Guyon28 who was in favour of the Calvinists, although she showed no partisanship against the Catholics by whom she was raised. She had been imprisoned for her writings on simple prayer…too Protestant for the clergy who had sentenced her and too Catholic to be of interest to the Huguenots.

27

Gilles was a Protestant refugee and the nurse was from a Catholic missionary order. Two hundred thousand of the huguenot merchant class French citizens fled France at this time. Their church government organization threatened the monarchy.

28 http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/guyon.html. information on Madame Guyon

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“Hephie,” he said slowly and with more kindness in his voice. Again, he did not pronounce the “H”. She only lifted her head, to sniff her runny nose. Disappointed that he was pursuing this unwanted interrogation, she nevertheless began to reconstruct the events in her mind.

“Hephie,” he looked her in the eyes, “just let her know that you were not doing something evil.”

Hephzibah thought carefully. “But it was evil. God punished me. He allowed my enemies to overtake me, did he not? My Indian captor, was surely more godly than I, for every day at the fort he asked that our pastor assemble us for prayer.”

Gilles tried to be more convincing. “Do you pray, ‘Do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil?’29 If so, then you must believe that God will deliver you from any harm. He has already done so.”

The girl decided then to comply with him.

There was an exchange with the nurse who eagerly waited to be told of what the girl said. Yet, Hephzibah was struggling with the truth of the last remark by this strange man.

Gilles Guerin continued. “The nurse says that God will forgive us if we confess our faults to him. She is very kind.”

He restrained himself however, for he wanted to add, “but she is most likely a Papist. No doubt her monetary support comes from bourgeois widows in her home country. Maybe her soldier brothers are burning the villages in the Lozère.30” “O God, keep me from letting these things slip out unnecessarily,” he quickly 29

Matthew 6.13 King Louis XIV allowed respected landowners in the Lozère region of France to pursue with weapons, the converts to the teachings of Catholic Reformers like the German, Martin Luther, and the Frenchman, Jean Calvin.

30

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prayed in his mind. He had felt deeply the rejection and exclusion of his beliefs and he and his father were in the New World as exiles.

Hephzibah now responded positively to their persistent invitation. She wanted to tell her sorrow to someone. So, she began. Yet she was afraid also, as Gilles was, to say the wrong thing. Nevertheless, she whispered her story.

“From a distance, my father watched the burning of his village, Corlaer31 - the place called Schenectade32 by the Indians. He was returning from Fort Orange with my grandmother.”

She looked bravely into Gilles’ face. Despite this, she wanted to tell them both that she was not without hatred of the treatment the English and Dutch received from their northern neighbours. “Nevertheless,” she took a breath and Gilles transmitted her sentence to the nurse.

“He was not able to save any articles from their home, a dwelling that did not escape the flames.”

She paused again. “On his visit to Orange, a friend had given him a painted canvas. You see, my father had just received his permission from the West Indies Company to operate a mill and this was a moment to rejoice. It was that picture of our Lord Jesus on the road to Emmaus that he hung in our kitchen by our table in Deerfield where he moved us. He built the watermill and worked there. I saw the painting every day because it was in front of me across the table between the windows.”

“You must let me translate,” Gilles interrupted. This gave Hephzibah time to think of what to say. When it sounded like he had finished, she continued.

31

Present day Albany, New York

32

Schenectady, New York (means next to the pine trees)

37

“He often told my brother, Ebenezer, that one of the students of the painter, Master Van Rijn33 of Holland, had created it from the original. The master was a miller like my father. The school of painting made many images from the words of the Bible.

It was so sad to me to hear of the losses Master Van Rijn had suffered. His wife and three of his children died.” She paused and held her face, for it was throbbing. “But now I feel sorrow for myself for what we have suffered.”

This took some time to change into French and she had to repeat some of it. The woman did not appear to be in any hurry, so Hephzibah continued slowly.

She began to tell of the capture of her family. “Mother was putting some things in a sack for us as my father watched at the window. Maybe my sister threw me under the table. An Indian pushed a torch through the window and we crawled outside. As I came up from the floor, I saw the painting and I did not want it to burn. So, I brought it out of the house. Could I have saved it? No, we were running so hard, that it lay behind me in the snow. I thought as I ran, of the words father had written under it from the Dutch Bible, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us as He was explaining the Scriptures to us on the road?’34 I know the canvas did not stay there and burn with the house. Someone took it.

Then, I saw it while we were on the trail to New France.”

Gilles asked her if she knew where she was now. “Hephzibah, this is New France.

We are in the Sisters of St-Joseph’s hospice in the Royal Colony called

Montréal.”

33

Master painter, Rembrandt, had students who copied his paintings as exercises. Christ on the Road to Emmaus from Luke 24.13-35 might have been drawn from the painting Pilgrims at Emmaus. 1628-29. Oil on panel. Musée Jacquemart-André Paris, France http://www.abcgallery.com/R/rembrandt/rembrandt3.html.

34

Luke 24.32; Jeremiah 23.29; Hebrews 4.12-13

38

“I do not remember how I got here. When we separated at the lake called Champlain, I was with my father and my sisters. Ebenezer was somewhere else. Mary French was with us, as were Abigail Turbet, Esther Jones, Samuel Hawks, and one of the Wells family.

Eunice Williams was there also.

Stephen Williams and Sarah and

Jonathan Hoyt were led away elsewhere by their captors. What has happened to the others?”

The nurse did not want to answer her questions. She asked about the painting.

“Why did the Indian soldier throw her in the river?”

“We got to the fort ruins at Chambly and then I saw in one of the sacks of the Indians that he had taken my father’s painting along with silver buckles, buttons and a silver cup. I waited until we were on the path that leads to the canoes on the lake. I had my shawl ready in which to wrap the painting. It is about the size of those ones.” She pointed to two small paintings of Jeanne Mance de Langre en Champagne, the founder of the hospice, and her benefactor, Jérôme le Royer de la Dauversière, who had lived in La Rochelle during the revival of the teachings of grace. The Sulpician Jean-Jacques Olier, who was highly venerated for miracles, was portrayed in the chapel.

“When it was safe, I followed the old natif through the trees and ... it was wrong was it not? God did not want me to take it back.”

The nurse explained, “He would probably have given it to a priest as a gift, or maybe he would have sold it at the Laviolette Market near the fort and trading post called Three Rivers that Théodore Bochart was permitted to found by the original people in 1634. It did not make sense though that he did not scalp you or kill you. The Savages believe that Turtle Island, this continent, must be free of all evil. It would have been such

39

an honour for him to destroy an enemy of Turtle Island and purify it. What did he do to you, my child?”

Qu’est-ce qu’il t’a fait? Gilles repeated so she could answer.

“I was afraid. I took the painting and held it in my arms weeping as I knelt on the ground. He pulled something out of his bag and shook it at me. It was a strange thing.

“Manitou!”35 He shouted at me, because I wanted to steal his property. But he held the object from his bag in his arms and was kneeling on the ground also. Then he stood up and became suddenly angry and he stood and lifted me off the ground and I was flying towards the hard ice of the lake as he hurled me over his head.” By now, Hephzibah was using gestures to describe her story.

It seemed to take a longer time for Gilles, the man who spoke English, to tell this to the nurse. Hephzibah knew that they were speaking to each other about her statements.

They too used many hand gestures.

“She has told you what I also saw from further up the shore of the lake,’’ Gilles told the nurse.

“When the group, that had separated further south at White River Junction, left in canoes to make their way through the melting ice floes north of the Chambly Basin, I pulled her out, put her on a sled and set out on land to bring her here to the settlement.

The sentinels at the gate said I would have to bring her to the Intendant for he is in charge of finance, justice and law enforcement in the colony. I could not take her to him without much questioning by the Abenakis and I heard of this place, outside the north gate, so I brought her here.”

35

Algonquin language : supernatural or literally, he has surpassed.

40

“And here we would not ask many questions?” The nurse jested.

Gilles could not tell her that he knew the Intendant of New France was from Picardière de La Rochelle, a city that had been founded by Calvinist Huguenot believers.

A Calvinist view of the world36 made them enemies of Cardinal Richelieu, a man who, to please the French King, had forbidden the converts to John Calvin’s faith to establish themselves in the city of La Rochelle. Being of the same belief as the leader of New France, Gilles would be unable to forbid his heart to reveal itself. The Intendant would know and maybe expose him, putting his life in danger.

Gilles wished to be disguised as a Catholic inhabitant of New France and although the nurse knew he was not an inhabitant, she believed him to be Catholic. Non-Catholics were now excluded from New France.

So far, Hephzibah believed him to be both Catholic and an inhabitant.

The nurse had a kind face and she was able to make Hephzibah feel at ease, although neither could comprehend the other’s speech.

Surprised to learn of Hephzibah’s Dutch parentage, the missionary nun told Gilles that the doctor at the hospice had received a microscope made by M. Leeuwenhoek, also a Dutchman.

After this last comment to Hephzibah, the nurse spoke only to Gilles. “We might still be able to cure the Indians of their perfectionist vices and keep many thousands from dying from their misguided zeal. Changing the subject to something foremost in her

36

Citizens of Geneva, Switzerland were followers of its French founder, a reformer of catholicism, Jean Calvin.

Calvinism came out of his articulate comments on the Bible which brought about revival in the Church. Many began to support the promises or covenants of God, appealing to them above those of the King and the Church hierarchy.

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mind that day she added, “The Indian women use so many contraceptives37 and from such an early age. You must be careful here and be wise.” Then she changed the subject again. “What was the Saint-Laurent River like yesterday? Has the ice broken up?” she asked Gilles.

To Hephzibah, the woman’s tongue and lips seemed to move so quickly, and to open and shut so often.

Aware that she would be returning to her mat and could not

speak to the young soldier in English because this seemed to be a secretive conversation, Hephzibah began to think of what she might say to the nurse by way of this kind, handsome man. She looked at the lady and asked, “this plan to sell me to Madame Côté… is she going to take Warham as well?”

“Warham?” the nurse asked, turning to Gilles.

“She means the little boy,” he replied.

“O non!” the answer came. Hephzibah did not need a translation. Her heart sank.

Every joy since she had gained consciousness had come from his company. “What will happen to him?” she wondered to herself. “Why did he get separated from his family?”

She could not help the flood of tears that filled her downcast eyes. This made any other conversation impossible, until she could regain her composure. She let herself be led back through the curtain and to her mat without any further comment.

Warham was nowhere in sight and Hephzibah thought despairingly that he had been removed from the hospice. He wiggled once more from under one of the beds and joined her in the corner.

“You are going to leave me. I will be taken again to someone who will shout at 37

Early missionaries wrote in their journals about strong potions young girls would ingest to keep them from conceiving, but it was not known what the ingredients were. The French often tried to discover the recipe.

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me and pull me and push me. They will say things in such mixed up words,” he sobbed.

“I want my Mama. I want Samuel. Where are they? I want Stephen and Esther and Eunice. Papa said he would come and look for me.” Mercifully, he seemed to have forgotten the twin babies recently born in the family. Maybe he had not seen them slain in the massacre along with their Negro nursemaid.

“Your Papa is near and he is praying for you, Warham, and we may pray too. The Lord Jesus might hear us and change the hearts of someone who can help. I know now what I want to ask God. I want him to keep you with me until we find your Papa. Let us ask him and believe he will do it.” Warham held his chin in his chubby hands and lifted his eyes to the ceiling while Hephzibah spoke her request to God. Afterwards, they were so relieved from their fears and worries that Hephzibah decided she wanted to try some more walking.

“Will you be my crutch so we might go stand by the window?” she asked Warham.

“Show me where the nightingale lives,” she said in an almost normal voice. This triggered a coughing spell but they were soon at the window where she discovered a nest, caught in the upper branches of a bush, near the windowpane. The little clump of twigs and hair braided together was so close they could have brushed their noses on it, if the pane of glass did not separate them from it. “They have come to be near the warmth of the building,” Hephzibah explained to Warham.

While he was looking at the nest, and the bird that had returned to it, Hephzibah looked out beyond the branches and saw a man wearing a colourful sash around his waist.

He was walking down the hill with a woman in a long, felt cape and a young black moor

43

boy wearing a tricorne. The servant boy pulled heavy burlap sacks on a wooden sled.

“Strange,” she thought, the man with the sash looks like that young soldier who asked me so many questions. Yet he is wearing the same breeches and shirt as the man who was brought in but who later died. “Yes,” she whispered wonderingly out loud, “Yet he even has a tear on the breeches in the same place as the breeches on the dying man.”

Gilles Guerin had successfully disguised himself and was off to make plans with Madame Côté. Her servant boy, who was still unable to find a clean change of clothing, still wore yesterday’s scent of blood and pine. Nevertheless, the smell was lost in the damp spring air.

The little bird then distracted her again. She had to explain to Warham that if he knocked on the pane of glass, the bird would be frightened and fly away.

“Look! There goes the man who took you to the nurse’s room,” said Warham.

She strained again to see the man, Gilles Guérin, with a new identity, as he left the hospice and entered at the north gate of Montreal’s palisade out of their view.

After passing the sentinels and gaining entry, Gilles parted company with the lady and her lackey38 and walked on St. Laurent Street to St. Paul’s, then east to Monsieur Charles LeMoyne de Longueuil’s residence where he would present a letter from the hospice mission and ask for employment as a new recruit on the Longueuil Seigneury.39

38

a male footman

39

For the location see the map of Ville Marie at the beginning of Chapter 2

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Synopsis: Chapter one A curious black boy is peering into the window of a Montreal hospice waiting for his owner to come out. The woman, in her fifties, who had been once widowed and remarried a militia Captain, volunteers as an aid to both the native and European missionary nurses. She has her eye on an English captive from Deerfield. This young girl has recently been brought in but is just being revived from a coma and has injuries brought on by having been thrown in the Richelieu River for trying to retrieve a personal belonging that had been taken as loot by her captors. The Montreal lady wishes to make a bid on her. Another captive, a four-year-old boy, recognizes the unfortunate elevenyear-old, Hephzibah Block, his former neighbour, and is disappointed when she is taken to the nurse’s room to be questioned about her relationship to the young soldier who brought her in. The soldier, dressed in French marine military uniform, is actually a captive from Deerfield, an exile from France, who has successfully escaped the notice of their captors. After translating the conversation and testimony of Hephzibah, the man is cleared of his responsibility for her, leaves in borrowed clothing to start a new life in New France, and Warham Williams, the young boy, is happily reunited with the confused, injured girl.

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map by Erin Zoellner : Ville Marie 1705

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Chapter two: To the Governor and to the Church “I do not believe I can do this,” Hephzibah said to no one, as she lifted her right foot into the buggy that had been placed on the snow in front of the hospice. She was going to be transported, she did not know where, in this box with a chair in it and two glassless windows on either side. It was decorated in a paisley design of blue and gold panels all around the outside, and supporting poles were bound to its lower corners. Four men called ‘valets’ with buckled boots put on their gloves and waited to hoist her up.

A uniformed soldier offered her a blanket as she hopped off the leg with the bruised knee and seated herself in the carriage.

The girl wondered how she was going to arrange the blanket with such a bandage around her wrist. She thought about the nurse. While bandaging the wound, the nurse had pointed to the picture of the founder of the hospital. She made it known by signs that Jeanne Mance also had once had an injured wrist from falling on ice. The confusing part was when she tried to tell Hephzibah of the miraculous healing of Jeanne Mance’s wrist.

It had been healed when she touched the heart (kept in a special container in Troyes, France) of Father Olier, a former director and founder of the Montreal seminary.

The

miracle received widespread publicity among the Roman Catholic people of Europe.

Hephzibah’s wrist was feeling a little stronger, so after testing it, she managed to wrap the wool blanket over her skirt with both hands.

She thought about Warham once more. He prayed with her before she began to prepare to leave, her eyes filled again with sadness as she sighed. She looked for him through the little windows of the hospice but the clouds were reflecting on them and there was darkness inside, behind the little square glass panes.

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Up the men sent her into the air and then holding onto the poles they began the walk into town. She could see now what sort of building she was leaving and what sort of place was before her, this Ville Marie, Royal Colony of New France.40 It was a cool, dark overcast April day but little puffs of smoke, looking silvery against the clouds, floated up from stone chimneys. The large quick-flowing waterway at the bottom of the incline was visible with its barques41and canoes. To her right, she could see in the distance, a large stretch of land and a fort that flew the flag of King Louis. A smaller river near the fort flowed into the larger river beyond. The colony itself was to the east of the small river and was surrounded by a palisade of pointed bare upright logs, more than three meters high42. A square lookout platform sat above each gate. Putting her head out one of the little windows, she looked behind and could see the Hotel-Dieu hospice to her right and a wooden chapel further up the road. Some farms were scattered to the west and east. She examined the mountain that she had confused with the name of the colony, Mont Réal43, in whose shadow was placed a sort of fort with round stone towers. There! Now she had completed her panorama of the landscape.

“Why would they need two fenced yards?” she wondered as she passed by and admired the doubly reinforced palisade with sharpened vertical poles. “Our simple stockade was needed in times of attack, but it did not protect us well enough,” she decided.

They neared the cedar enclosure which she could see now was in need of repair, 40

Montreal was the site of a Christian mission to the First Nations who traded furs with the French. It was relatively unprotected until 1688. Louis XIV sent troops from the Royal Marine, appointed a Governor and Jean Talon was sent to Montreal as the first Intendant (a mayor appointed by the King). In 1704 for the previous 16 years, New France had become a colony of France and its citizens were subject to Royal decrees.

41 ships 42

9 ft.

43

A mountain that oversees like a king, or King Mountain.

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and she turned to watch as they entered the north gate with towers over four meters44 above the ground. There were twelve vicious-looking dogs, six at each side of the gate, attached by iron chains and barking in hurried yelps. They passed by and the guards quieted them down.

The gable-roofed houses within were built with wood or stone and most were small and square. The streets were muddy and little melted streams wound their way down towards the river. Very few people could be seen about, but within minutes two curious boys followed the litter to get a look at who was inside. Hephzibah retreated below the carriage windows but they sounded disappointed with her shyness so she showed her face and at once they said something that included the word, “prisoner”. She was as curious as they were and she would have asked, in English however, where she was being taken. But they were soon out of hearing distance, not being able to keep up with four strong men who marched in lively rhythm. The valets carried the litter past the hooting boys.

Women in long, hooded, dark-coloured capes, like the ones worn in New England, carried children and packages out of doorways. All greeted the men carrying Hephzibah. The company changed streets three or four times. Soon after, the carriage was placed in the entryway of a rather large courtyard. From here Hephzibah was signaled to step out and was aided by one of the men to the door of a stone building with tall narrow windows. The front doors had little square panes of glass and their frames were covered in shiny plated brass.

Once inside the building, Hephzibah was guided to a paneled, carpeted room with

44

12 ft.

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upholstered chairs all around the walls. There, a group of people was seated apparently waiting to be called upon for interviews. A man dressed in uniform and powdered braided wig, accompanied by the woman Hephzibah recognized as Marie Louise, rose to show that she was to come to them.

She felt so awkward. The ill-fitting garments she was given at Chambly sat down uncomfortably with her. Next to her, sat the grand Montreal lady, now present in her visiting clothes. The blanket, now around her shoulders, made the Deerfield girl selfconscious. As she took her place next to this superbly attired and coiffed couple in this highly decorated room, she noticed for the first time that Marie Louise, although a handsome dark eyed woman, was very tiny and thin and had a pointed chin.

“The women in New England of her class would have had waxed and powdered faces,” Hephzibah thought. Instead, pox marks from previous illnesses showed on her forehead near the temples. Lips that turned down slightly at both sides of her mouth were signs of age and worry. She wore a gown of pale orange satin. A beige underskirt showed from its front opening. Her arms were decorated with long, soft, beige lace below a full puffed three-quarter length sleeve.

The man with her was her husband, Hephzibah decided. He was rather tall and thin. His blue and grey wool uniform was comfortably tailored, however. She started to count the 26 cloth - covered buttons decorating his coat but did not want to stare. He wore crisp lace cuffs and a starched cravat. When he spoke, he displayed a set of disorderly teeth, the top ones considerably over biting the lower ones and at different angles. Hephzibah thought she had seen him at the ruined fort at Chambly. “So many men in uniforms look alike but not everyone has teeth like those,” she concluded.

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She was not long in her thoughts when a small man dressed in a wig appeared.

He wore a fine embroidered waistcoat and white leggings with highly polished silver buckles on his shoes. He announced something from a list. Then he escorted a couple into the next room, who meanwhile had stood up. An important looking man in unusual robes, that later Hephzibah was to recognize as a Sulpician missionary, passed them, coming the other way into the waiting room. When he came in, the people in the room stood and nodded to him, then returned to their seats. Hephzibah rose. Yet, it was for a different reason. Behind him she saw her young neighbours, Samuel Williams and James Catlin!

They immediately spotted her, and neither of them made any unusual gesture to attract attention. Samuel went to the chair to the right of Hephzibah and sat down, pretending nervously to be casual. James, also of Deerfield and like Samuel, but seeing the nature of the situation, did as was expected of him. The clergyman, not having any preference for his placement, sat to the right of them both. He appeared satisfied with the behaviour of the fifteen-year-old Samuel Williams and his ten-year-old companion who was now referred to as Jacques.

“That was some fine carriage the Governor’s valets brought you in.” Samuel whispered to Hephzibah without turning his head.

“I am injured, Samuel,” Hephzibah dared whisper back. She fixed her eyes toward the wall opposite and covered her mouth with her left hand. Her lips therefore could not be seen moving. Samuel would be able to see her ugly jaw and maybe show some sympathy. Monsieur and Madame Côté, the latter sitting nearer the girl, were involved in a lively conversation at this point, but they often looked at Hephzibah and she

51

could only venture to speak to her former neighbour from Deerfield in short sentences.

“I saw you outside from the window in the next room,” Samuel remarked. “Have you hurt your leg?”

“And my wrist and my chin,” she enunciated through half-closed lips. “But I am much better,” she said, wishing that she could ask if Samuel knew how she had got to Montreal. It was too long to explain why she herself did not know. “Who is the man with you?” she asked instead.

“He is a Sulpician of the Roman Church, one of the lords of this island. When it was safe, he whispered, “I am to go to the seminary here with James.”

“Warham is at the hospice of the sisters of St-Joseph. He is alone,” the girl informed him.

Samuel looked surprised but he gave her information in return. “I know where your father, your sisters and Ebenezer are.”

“Oh Samuel, where?”

“They, and my sister Eunice, are with the… Kanien’ Keha:ka people at a place called the Saint Francis Xavier Mission45 on the south side of the large river. There is a mission of the Society of Jesus near their village of …Kanatakwenke.” He had some difficulty saying the names. Hephzibah tried to remember them.

“Do you know where Esther is?” Hephzibah asked, wondering where Samuel’s other sister went.

“We were separated at the start of the journey. As for your father, Mr. Block…he 45

A Catholic missionary to the Orient, Spaniard Francis Xavier was co-founder with Ignatius of Loyola of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). He lived from 1506-52 and was known to have set up Jesuit missions in many places in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Japan and China. In his honour, his name was given to many missions around the world. La Prairie, Quebec on the south side of Montreal’s main river was one such mission.

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was staying with the Governor General Vaudreuil. I think you say vo-droy for his name. I have been told my father went with the Governor of Montreal, Monsieur de Ramezay to Quebec,” Samuel said. “I have no news whatever of my sister, Esther, nor of my brother Stephen. I have only been told about my father,” he added. “Monsieur de Vaudreuil is in the other room, but he will soon return to Quebec. It is he who approves or disapproves of the placement of each of us. A pension is allotted to our owners after they have made an official claim for us. Maybe he will tell you where your father is.

Samuel could speak Latin. He also knew that Massachusetts was an Algonquin word. He was good at the art of ciphering46 and he measured using mathematical operations. Where they had lived, in the townships of more than one hundred families, the population was obliged to support a grammar school for ‘college preparement.’

“When any scholar is able to understand Tully or such like classical Latin author extempore, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose... and decline perfectly the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, let him then, and not before, be capable to admission into Harvard.”

This is what his father, a 1683 graduate of that school, who had become minister of the gospel in Deerfield at the age of 22, had told him was expected. James Catlin, on the other hand, had difficulty with Latin, and he inwardly bemoaned this fact when the Sulpician tried to quiz him on whether a man should have a conscience and read, study, ponder and apply the Scriptures or whether he should find solace and refuge in the answers that are given to him by the Church.

Hephzibah smiled quickly at Marie Louise and noticed the wig she was wearing

46

to do arithmetic and work with numbers : comes from sifres (Arabic for zero) or chiffres (French for digits).

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today and tried to think nice thoughts of her. English life at the Massachusetts settlement promoted a simple life-style, by comparison47. She could not help judging the whole attire as wasteful and showy, yet she wondered for how much such lace could be purchased. It took days to make a portion the size of her thumb. Captain Côté was curiously staring at her now and she wished she could get more information from Samuel.

“I do not know what will happen to Warham,” she whispered. The name seemed to reach the lady’s ears and she leaned to her husband as if to say she thought the girl knew the boy next to her. The captain then leaned forward in his chair and addressed Samuel loudly in French. “It will not be necessary to talk to each other.”

“Ma’m, this is Warham’s brother,” she said in English, which it was obvious they did not understand. Hephzibah tried to introduce Captain Côté and Marie Louise by hand signs pointing to Warham’s. She only managed to give them the impression that the fiveyear-old Warham, still at the hospice, was either Samuel’s brother or a son. Marie Louise was curious and made easily identified gestures to ask if the two young people seated beside her were related.

“No, we were neighbours.” she said again in English.

“Could you take Warham with Hephie?” Samuel asked in Latin.

Captain Côté was a militia commander and not a student of languages, but he could understand the language of the learned classes. More than others on board ship, a captain had time to read. Marie Louise, upon hearing the name, Warham, repeated it to Samuel inquiringly and nodded her consent enthusiastically, “Yes, I have permission,” she replied in Latin. The captain, having given in to his wife’s wishes, yet disapproving

47

There was a group of Dutch and English settlers who revived simple worship in England and the Netherlands and claimed that discipline in moral behaviour leads to the improvement of the conscience and of community life.

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of having another mouth to feed, let out a loud exclamation, “Trédame Marie!” Qu’estce que t’as?”48 Then he turned to the boy and gave a more tempered answer, “We will take the boy also, but he will earn his keep.”

If it had not been before, the attention now was on the captain, his wife, and two young English captives who were sitting near the clergyman Monsieur Jacques LeMaître of the company of Saint Sulpice. It was fortunate for all, that a distraction followed when the instructor of the seminary (founded 52 years prior by the Sieur de Chomedy de Maisonneuve) and the instructor’s two students, Samuel and Jacques, were summoned to assemble in the other room. Meanwhile, a congenial decision was made by the husband and his compliant wife, so the other three sat respectfully quiet for some time.

Hephzibah watched a group of rough looking men in the corner near the rear windows. One seemed to be outlining a plan or a map on the floor while the others looked on. They had their flingues49 with them. Every Frenchman, she concluded, carried a musket. Bright coloured belts like that of the deceased man at the hospice circled their wastes. This meant they had a wife, but Hephzibah would learn this later.

Their bulky shirts and felt breeches were of undyed wool. Were they waiting to get some approval from the Governor to travel or explore?

Later, Samuel and James passed by the room and out the front door.

She

wondered where they were to attend seminary as she watched them abandon her, helpless to free themselves or to suddenly overpower their captors and rescue them all. Maybe it was near Montreal? Would they go down the St-Lawrence River to Quebec with the Governor of New France? Samuel, her former neighbour, had not had time to tell her.

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What is the matter with you, Marie?

49

Flintlock weapons

55

The remaining moments, before Hephzibah and her patrons went in front of the Governor, were given to her thoughts. Here she was, nearly pushed off her chair by the large skirt of a French militia captain’s wife! She was still wrapped in a blanket that would need to be returned to the hospice once she got a decent coat. Her injuries were not serious and she had not suffered more than a spell of blackness for what must have been less than a week. Almost all her family survived the capture. Except for her deceased mother, all were across the river at the St-Francis mission. Mother was across another river and in the arms of her beloved saviour. The young girl comforted herself with these words by Pastor Williams.

When they entered the room, the Governor General was calculating on a tool, having on its face six grey metal wheels. The numbers were dialed on them and the addition solutions appeared in the little windows along the upper edge.50 He wrote a number in his book after consulting with Monsieur Côté, who then gave the Governor some coins, very rare pieces of trade in the colonies. She was more accustomed to seeing playing cards and commodities used for trade at the fort.

When he called out Hephzibah’s name, he looked rather puzzled. Nevertheless, he asked her to spell it out for him and the secretary prepared his feather pen and ink well. While the secretary was putting her name on the paper, she noticed a letter on the Governor’s desk from the Governor of Boston. Her reading was sufficient to put together the words even upside down.

Joseph Dudley, Governor of Boston to Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, Governor of New France the 10th of April 1704.51 50

A primitive calculator, invented by the 18-yr-old Frenchman, Blaise Pascal for his father who was a tax official.

The war between France and England was called Queen Anne’s War (1702-1713). Anne became Queen of England in 1702 and died in 1714. There were four French and Indian Wars against the New England colonies between 1689

51

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She sat down in front of the desk and the parchment document then appeared in its right position. “It must be near the month of April,” she thought. “There may be some difference in the calendar of the French, I suppose, unless everyone uses the Gregorian... or is it the Julian calendar that we use in Massachusetts?” She could not quite remember which was called which, except that she knew when a newspaper in Scotland or Holland printed a story from England, everyone got confused about the day and year it happened.

This was true especially in January and February before the New Year, which was March 25th in England and January 1st in the Low Countries and in Scotland.

The Governor had much to explain to the Côtés, so she began to peek at Governor Dudley’s letter. This did not go unnoticed by the Governor, however.

The Governor spoke to her rather kindly, she thought. He was able to speak some English, being of the educated class. “In that letter, your leader in Boston claims he is more fair than I. Three men traveled from Boston in search of you and your neighbours.

They delivered this to me and are attempting to purchase you back. Do you read, little woman?”

“Yes Sir, I do,” she replied.

He gave his consent to her reading the parchment while the three others and a secretary made their arrangements together.

This is what she read, for it had not been translated into French: “In this present war between my Majesty the Queen, (Anne) and the King of France, (Louis XIV) I expect all sorts of hostility from your nation; but I have always expected rightfully that there will not be any violation of the laws of the Christian religion which has always sheltered the poor, peasant women and children from affronts or captivity of which I find the people and your government and 1763, a period of seventy-four years. Louis XIV reigned in France between 1643-1715 or seventy-two years. He started reigning at five years old.

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(who have joined themselves with the barbaric Savages) to have continued with the recent cruelty. I must tell you that since the latter has started and since I have governed here for the Queen of England, I have had more than two hundred prisoners of war from your nation that I have fed better (so they themselves have admitted) than they were fed in France. I have clothed them and sent them back to Europe by the first vessel and during that time you have gloried in shooting at and massacring my poor women and children and brought the rest into a miserable captivity and this is a commerce between the Savages and the subjects of your master in your government. I am writing this to tell you that such treatment of Christians will be considered barbaric by all of Europe, and I rightly expect that you will retrieve all of these captives from the hands of the Savages and that you will give them back to me as I did your people not long ago at PortRoyal, to those who were from there and the rest sent back to Europe from where they came, and I will continue so to do just until I have your reply from this.”52 Hephzibah’s first thought, after finishing the letter, was that the food the hostages were given by the French had not been so bad. Two hundred French and one hundred forty Savages, under the command of François Hertel, attacked us. We went up the Connecticut River to where it meets the White River, over the Green Mountains, across the short divide to the head waters of the Winoski, down the stream to Lake Champlain and from there to Canada. On the voyage through the wilds, we ate roasted moose killed while we traveled. We had pemmican53 that had been packed before the Indians left home and goose meat mixed with ground nuts, cranberries and cooked roots. People farther north in New France gave us Bullhead fish and bread. The littlest ones were carried on the backs of the Indians and even Samuel and I were sometimes pulled on a sled. Our pastor, Reverend Williams, prayed with us and there were hymnbooks among us, and Bibles. The three and a half weeks that we spent at the partially rebuilt château fort at Chambly, although we continued to camp in tents, were spent regaining our strength.

Food was a little sparse there, perhaps, but neighbouring people pitied our condition after

52

author’s translation from l’Histoire populaire du Québec – Des origines à 1791 by Jacques Lacoursière pp. 189-190, Editions du Septentrion, 1995 53 animal fat mixed with dried, pounded meat and dried berries or fruit for flavouring

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such a long march. They began to send us out to farms in small groups to beg as we had strength. Also, at the hospice, I received much undeserved favour,” she thought to herself.

Her second thought was that eventually she might return to New England.

Maybe the three men from Boston would buy her back soon. It was a horror to have witnessed so many deaths. So many had to be comforted back home in Massachusetts.

One hundred and eleven were taken. That is what she had heard upon arrival north of Lake Champlain before they were about to descend the river to travel to Ville Marie. She was filled with hope of an exchange of prisoners in a short time but it was the longing to be reunited with her family that gripped her feelings. Some women, like James Caitlin’s mother, had given a glass of cold water to a wounded French soldier and they were spared during the march to the north. Yet her Mama was not going to be there when she returned. The weakest mothers could not keep such a quick pace of travel. Even Lt. David Hoyt had weakened after carrying baggage. He had tried too long to carry his three-year-old daughter, Abby. He gave up and died on the way. So maybe it was best that she had not seen her mother left dead on the trail as the eighteen others who perished.

In spite of her inner turmoil, she breathed a long draft of air to keep from breaking into sobs here in front of the French Governor of New France.

The details had to be registered and the three claimants were finally asked to return to the next room. Marie Louise, who seemed to be very happy about the contract, offered an arm to Hephzibah. One trip was necessary to the public latrine and some stretching of her leg helped from time to time. It was now mid-day. She hoped for some mention of food as she had missed the morning meal. The lonely girl was becoming

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more and more interested in the couple that would be taking her home. How far away was it? Near the cedar palisade by the smaller river, the Château de Callière,54 and the Hospice des Frères Charon,55 she remembered being told, as she left that morning.

Would she be able to walk there?

New people were coming in the door. It was the people from Lancaster and Marlborough in Massachusetts. Yes, of course, they also had to see the Governor.

Where would they go? Many had been made servants of the aboriginals who brought them from the south. Could they continue to stay at the hospice or go to the Intendant’s house? He would have a place for them, no doubt. Maybe they would be treated well, because of Mr. Dudley’s letter. Sir de Vaudreuil had treated Pastor Williams well.

M. Côté was signaled. They could now leave, but the woman who had spoken to Hephzibah at the hospital caught her attention. She was soon pressing some small books into her hands before Hephie could get near the door. “You must have these. If the Governor sees them, he will most likely take them away from me. Keep them and read them,” she insisted. The girl did not take time to look at them but swiftly placed them under her blanket. She smiled at the woman never to meet her again.

“I hope God has a good place for you,” Hephzibah said. Then she whispered, “Governor Dudley has written on our behalf. Look at the letter on the Governor’s desk.”

The woman added quickly and in a low voice. “Colonel Partridge sent a report to him - an account of the destruction at Deerfield.”

Had Samuel seen the letter or the report by Colonel Partridge? she wondered.

Outside, Hephzibah was helped to a carriage by the militia captain who was now 54

The Pointe à Callière Museum of Archeology in Montréal was built on this site.

55

The Montreal General Hospital of Montreal traces its roots back to this hospice.

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her guardian, or should she say ‘master’? He lifted her onto the step and Marie Louise helped her balance by easing her onto the seat. What could she do to help this couple while in this pitiful condition? Did they have children? She tried to imagine the place in which she would live as the three of them rambled along the muddy road for what turned out to be a very short distance. She noticed a church bell ringing. “It must be noon.

Maybe the Town Cryer, if there is one, is about to speak,” she said to herself. In fact, there was a Cryer. He was standing in the square so near the house where the Côtés lived that they could hear him while they disembarked. Everyone paused and comments were short. “Not much of interest,” Hephzibah concluded by the other’s reactions.

Still clutching the package of books she held under her blanket, she allowed herself to be lifted down from the right side of the carriage and straight through the front door of an old square stone house with bright green shutters and a sloping two-sided, shingled roof. She just had time to count the gables and chimneys: three gables in the front and two chimneys on the walls at either end of the cottage.

Inside, she was deposited in a chair that could be sat on from either side, for it had a back and a similar but lower front upon which to rest one’s crossed arms. Her legs had to be on either side to be comfortable. Being dressed in her skirt, she decided it was definitely made for men in breeches and she would have to manage a lateral position. The unusual chair was placed in front of a rectangular table with thick legs.

The sound of the carriage departing was replaced by another noise of a most peculiar nature. It made a rattling noise beside the fireplace. In a small cylinder-shaped iron cage, a small dog was running in earnest. Its efforts were not lost as they served in turning the gears of a spit. The prongs clawed delicious smelling meat as it turned over

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the fire below it.

The Côtés entered. Then she noticed a boy in the room.

Hephzibah at once

recognized him as the boy wearing the tricorn hat who had startled her from the window during one of her trances at the hospice. He stood and scurried over to her. He stared at her for a long time and lifted the sides of her blanket to get a better look at her appearance. Hephzibah laughed nervously and pulled the books on her lap closer to her.

Marie Louise said something to him and he began climbing a chair to get dishes off a shelf to put on the table.

Two places were set at the table. Then two bowls were brought out for the girl and the boy.

He then dragged his chair over the wide floorboards to the fireplace and

positioned another chair facing the first. After this, he brought a platter over to the fire and M. Côté removed the spit and laid the meat on the tray. He called the boy by his name, ‘Pépo’. The boy proudly held the dish in the air to display the results of his work to all far and near. It was carried to the table and Capt. Côté released a very hungry, thirsty dog that, once out of the turning cage, promptly licked the man’s hands.

After removing her outdoor clothing and her wig, and putting a long apron over her gown and a white linen bonnet on her head, Marie Louise stirred a pot, hanging in another part of the fireplace. The stone hearth took up the whole wall. She then ladled the vessel’s contents into a bowl that she afterwards brought to the table. She also went to a part of the room where Capt. Côté uncovered a large opening in the floor. She dipped a pot into a small round well that was amazingly hidden in the recesses of the

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floor.56 The water was carefully drawn up and the pot with a handle was hung over the fire to boil. Captain Côté covered the well with a board.

Hephzibah then noticed the pattern of the floorboards. The smaller lengths of board came to form a meeting point in the center of the floor that was made of four large triangles. Because of the ever-lengthening sizes of boards moving outward toward the walls a lovely design was created. She had only seen floors that had laterally placed boards.

“Pépo veut que tu manges avec lui,” the lady said. Hephzibah understood by the signs and extended arms of the boy that she was to go eat with him by the fire. Pépo was the boy’s name and he was offering a chair by the dog’s cage. The two others seated themselves at the table. The girl was hoping to be able to eat there, but she did as what seemed appropriate and stood to go to the fire.

Unwittingly she had forgotten the books still on her lap and they slid to the floor with a thump. Pépo came quickly to see what they were but she jealously laid her bandaged hand on his when he stooped to pick them up. “They are mine,” she said while looking him in the eyes.

“Well, not now!” he replied instinctively in English as he challenged her in his childish way.

She had startled him. He did not expect her to be English. He did not expect to reply to her with the same. They both stared surprisingly at each other and then turned to Captain Côté and Madame Côté. Did they expect both would speak in English? That was Pépo’s first question, this time in French. They responded that indeed they knew.

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A well under the floorboards of a building made it possible to get water when the enemy was suspected to be outside. It was also convenient in the cold of winter. One such well can still be seen in the house of Marie de l’Incarnation in Quebec City’s Musée des Ursulines.

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Captain Côté was not a man to enjoy this kind of exchange. He ordered them to fill their bowls and sit down to eat. They immediately obeyed him. There was boiled squash, some bread and the slices of meat that his wife had just put on a platter. This was how meals were going to be, Hephzibah sighed. She was used to being quiet at meal times but with people she loved and could smile at. Marie Louise was speaking to the captain but in a low voice. Captain Côté was eating and, with mouthfuls of meat, he merely leaned over his plate and grunted his replies to her. The Deerfield captive was relieved to know that this boy could understand her when she did speak. She gave thanks to God for food and for small comforts.

What could she do with the books? What were they anyways? She looked down at them beside her on the floor as she ate with her bowl on her lap. The New England Primer! There were three different issues, and another book that she didn’t recognize: A Token for the Children of New England, by Reverend Cotton Mather.

That was

Goodwife William’s cousin in Boston. “I wonder if Reverend Mather has heard of what has happened to us or of his cousin’s slaying? Governor Dudley has most likely spoken to him at Sunday worship if the news has not been published everywhere,” she thought.

The Côtés were soon finished and no second portions were offered to her or to Pépo. Capt. Côté put hot water in a basin for the cleaning up. Then, husband and wife went upstairs and Marie Louise returned in a more modest dress with her gown in her hands. She spoke to Pépo. He had to translate what she said to Hephzibah.

“Madame wants you to clean the hem of her dress... then she can wear it to the chapel tomorrow,” Pépo said to the New England hostage. “Here is the water and the basin.” He had not yet cleaned the dishes in it, he explained, so the water was still clean

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enough to do the skirt hem.

Marie Louise watched as her new servant unwrapped the bandage around her wrist and they both examined the state of the injury. It had been about nine days since the bones had been broken. The pain had gone, but a wrong move could bring it back.

She reassured her mistress with a nervous smile that she could do the job and set about slowly dipping the muddy border into the water while rubbing it with her uninjured hand.

The afternoon and evening were spent inside with all four of them doing various household tasks. Capt. Côté was outside some of that time and later brought in some milk. Hephzibah thought there must be a stable for animals behind the house.

Pépo did not speak to Hephzibah. She wondered what to say to him, as it seemed to displease the Côtés to hear Pépo speak at all. He only carried out their wishes. She decided to do the same, but she grew terribly lonely. As night drew near and they paused briefly to eat a bowl of soup made from the leftovers of the mid-day meal, Hephzibah asked Pépo quietly, “Pépo, where am I to sleep?”

“In the stable,” he replied without looking up.

“Is it true?” Hephzibah couldn’t believe him. “Do you sleep there?”

“The sheep keep me warm,” he said, “and they are the only ones that sleep.”

The girl half-believed him until he broke into a smile and said, “Do you see that curtain over there?” He pointed to a place near the north wall beside the cupboard from which he had taken the dishes. “There is a bed there. Take some embers from the fire and put them in here.” He handed her a small iron container covered with a cloth that had been hanging near the hearth. “... they’ll keep you warm all night.”

“How old are you, Pépo?”

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“I do not know,” he shrugged and smiled at her personal interest in him.

Hephzibah, who had sewn the dates of every family member’s birth into a sampler embroidery cloth, couldn’t imagine anyone not knowing his birth date.

Marie-Louise told Pépo to get the wood for the fire and he left before she could ask any more.

When Hephzibah got up from her chair, she first found Marie Louise in the dairy, a room beside the main room in the cool, northwest corner of the house. The window faced the presbytery57 of the Sulpicians. With hand and eye gestures she asked if the bed that was just to the right of the dairy room door and to the left of the cupboard was for her. “C’est pour Pépo mais Pépo te l’offre58,” she replied in French then returned to the task she was doing. Hephie understood that it was Pépo’s but Pépo was letting her have it. She could understand some little words and when someone only said a short sentence, she sometimes could tell by their gestures what they were saying.

She was so excited when she could communicate that this became a game. Her mind grasped for new experiences. What would happen if her efforts failed and the game embarrassed her?

It was not wise to ask too many questions, she decided, and she tried to think of what she might wear to bed, when Marie Louise brought her a nightdress, one that must have been her own.

Hephzibah took some water from the pot on the fire and ladled it into the same basin she had used earlier, then washed her face and hands. Marie Louise came to the fire and took the rest of the water upstairs where her husband had already retired.

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A presbytery is the house (manse or rectory) next to the church where the clergy lives.

58

It belongs to Pepo but he is offering it to you.

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Pépo came in sometime later from the stable. Hephzibah was surprised to hear him come in, still believing that he slept with the sheep, and even though she was already dressed and lying inside the bed, he pulled back the curtain and said, “You are sleeping on my bed!” He tugged at the mattress under her. She nearly fell on the floor while she tried to balance with her uninjured hand and help him get the mattress off without upsetting the coals in the foot warmer. She discovered that there were two mattresses, one on top of the other, and he was leaving her one while he took the other to sleep on in front of the fire. He would have to sleep flat or push the mattress up against the wall and sleep sitting, as every normal person she knew, did. Only the dead lay down flat. It was not considered healthy. He saw that there was no washing water left on the fire. Instead, he washed his hands in what was in the basin that Hephzibah had left on the table.

They were both exhausted. Hephzibah was unable to relax after the darkness settled in for the night. This evening was no exception. The more she became anxious, the more the tears flowed. She had worried about this for four nights now and prayed that her heavenly Father would take her uneasiness away. Warm tears usually bathed her face and provided gentle comfort and her constant sniffling eventually lulled her to sleep.

The house was cold when she woke up. She managed to dress in the humble dress she had been able to keep relatively clean in the past few days. Pépo was putting new wood on a freshly started fire. Captain Côté was taking some tobacco out of his pipe and tapping it on the hearth. It was a pipe she could identify as being made in the Netherlands. She was a little startled when she saw that the last two fingers on his right hand were missing! Dressing quickly, she had hoped to have some privacy because Pépo might suddenly draw back the curtain, which he did. The Captain hit him sharply with a

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piece of wood to teach him a lesson about common courtesy.

“No! No! No, don’t hit him,” Hephzibah cried out. She shook violently and could not stay on the bed. She emerged still shaking and climbed down from the mattress. She went limping on one foot to the nearest bench and sat down trembling. Her breathing had stopped in her anxiety and she dropped her head onto her knees holding her head in her hands. The sudden injury of the little black boy by the captain’s blow thrust Hephzibah back into her world of recent nightmares. Alarmed at the noises, Marie Louise was descending the stairs in a hurry.

In Hephzibah’s mind she was once more a slumbering inhabitant of Deerfield, wild and frantic. Surprised and unarmed resistance would be in vain, she thought. The New England girl sat and stared at the room with the fire now crackling. A boy by the dairy room door was whimpering and holding his head. She thought of Parthena and Frank, the dear African servants at the William’s house. The Block family servant, Tamaris, was badly burned during the sudden raid on their town.

Now, the French Captain was staring back at her.

Hephzibah imagined before her, the group of hundreds of warriors. She put her hand on her mouth. They were coming in one gate of the stockade single file and silently circling the inside of the wall until the knot of the cordlike band tied at the far gate.

Several families hid in John Sheldon’s house. Then with the battle cry, came the horrors, the slaughter, and the burning. She covered her face and sobbed. Neither the chase across the meadow nor the two-hour resistance led by Sergeant Benoni Stebbins had changed the outcome of the invasion. She did not want to see the bloody scalps dangling at the side of the Indians as they danced with simulated joy in the streets covered three feet in

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snow. Nor did she wish to see again the smashing of bones, the bloody bodies of the people she knew, the ripping or burning of flesh, the slayings of mothers, children and the elderly as they traveled out of town leaving a threatening trail behind them as warning to followers; the agony continuing as the captives wished at every moment that the 80 men from Hatfield and other villages hadn’t decided to give up following them because of the deep snow. Now two months after the massacre, she smelled the smoke once more and shivering in the cold, felt or feared that she was witnessing the violence all over again.

She rocked back and forth and sobbed uncontrollably. Around her, she dimly saw the faces of the captain, his wife and the black-skinned boy servant.

A very ordinary need forced her out of her fit, for before long she had an urge to go relieve herself. Marie Louise put a heavy wool cape over her before she left the room.

Then the little French woman began questioning her husband about the servant girl’s sudden panic.

Everything was bustle and movement in the large open room when the new domestic help returned from the back entryway. She returned to her curtained cupboard and once enclosed again, slumped onto the mattress. Her thoughts turned to Warham, hidden, most likely, under a bed at the hospice.

“Here I am too, God,” she prayed.

“Come and find me, your lost sheep.”

No one disturbed her, not even to give her something to eat, until it was time to go to the Bonsecours Chapel for the receiving of the bread that had been transformed into Christ for their nourishment. It was Sunday.

Later, she was offered the wool covering once more and walked the distance with slow steps, to the waiting carriage outside. Maybe she would see someone she knew at

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the mass. Maybe she wouldn’t. Despair and doubt crept into her as she stepped head first into the dark covered coach.

Again, it was a cloudy day and a light rain had begun as the three inside the carriage bobbed quietly along and Pépo rode outside beside them. When the rain started, he jumped up beside the driver, whose hooded face Hephzibah had still not seen.

Through the morning’s anxious moments, she somehow felt comforted by the voice of her patronne59.

There was a quiet discussion going on between her and the captain in the seat across from her, but she rode face down or glanced sullenly out of the carriage to see people gingerly stepping across the tiny streams that flowed across the roads. The horse stopped at a chapel on the crest of a hill overlooking the river. Other carriages in front of them let out their occupants. The wait served to bring Pépo around again to see if there were any other orders from his master.

“No. Go into the church and we’ll be in shortly.” They moved to the door and all three were soon in the building.

Almost all the seated men were in uniform. The Côtés had a place in the middle to the right of the King’s chapel. Hephzibah was signaled to stand with Pépo by the wall near the end of their bench. Everyone’s servants could be watched, for they all stood.

First Nations peoples had another place at the front, some sitting on the floor holding little crucifixes to prove they had repented of their sins and were baptized. The place was crowded and the parish priest began in Latin to read the liturgy. The room was soon filled with the smoke of candles, and the sound of people praying out loud. The ringing of

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her owner-benefactor, Marie Louise

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the bells started the singing of the priest who used a songbook bound in thick leather.

Flags with different crests were displayed around the room. A flute was played by one of the young men at the front. He did not look quite like an aboriginal nor quite like the more fair-skinned worshippers.

“Pépo,” she whispered, “Do you understand Latin?”

“No miss, but every week it is the same. If you like, I will do you a Latin service anytime of the week.” Hephzibah couldn’t believe the same text was read over and over.

Maybe it just sounded the same to the boy who couldn’t put meaning to it. She listened carefully to the priest at the front. He was speaking at the same time as another who passed in between the aboriginals and the flute player. By remembering some of her few Latin verbs, plus the Bible readings her parents and teachers had taught her, she believed what the priest said to the Savages had to do with the parable of the lost coin.60 “That man is talking about the woman who lost a coin,” she whispered.

A woman in the bench to her left touched her arm and frowned over the disturbance. The lady was saying the Lord’s Prayer out loud. The girl who had been used to that sort of look from older members of the meetinghouse in Deerfield only smiled and closed her mouth.

Her jaw was feeling so much better. In fact, she was feeling strong and leaned up against the walls behind her, rubbing her heels against them with the moccasins on her feet.

“Did other women wear moccasins to church?” she wondered as she looked around. It was too crowded to see the feet of the group seated on the benches. Besides,

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Luke 15.8-10

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the wide-skirted dresses covered them. Hephzibah’s feet had been shod with moose leather coverings since after the massacre when all captives were supplied with them for the walk to Canada. She had stuffed rabbit fur in them to keep her feet warmer. It worked very well.

The chapel was not heated, a good reason to have everyone crowd together. She studied the contents of the room. A particularly large statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus, was at the front and large candlesticks sat on the table. A cross with the dying body of Jesus stood to the right of the table. Suddenly the people began to stir. She saw some move to the front and kneel to pray. Others kissed the statues. Afterwards, as they left, each person in the room repeated this ritual. “I will not bow to these foolish graven idols she resolved, nor kiss their images.” The rows of people filed to the front and continued to submit himself or herself to the order, each one handing to the priest a paper or ticket, a medallion or a small crucifix to prove they belonged to this parish. The church emptied slowly. As she herself moved, Hephzibah watched the Côtés go to the front. She was being pressed into the row of benches with the group around her.

Marie Louise

approached the front. Her hand held forth a coin that the priest returned to her. She received a piece of bread but she did not kneel.

“Why does she not kneel, what sort of token does she hold out?” All the other women knelt. No, this was not true. Another woman and her son or husband came up and did not kneel. They also had a coin token. There were only three who would not comply, but this was enough to give Hephzibah further resolve. “I will not kneel, if I am forced to go to the altar” she repeated to herself, “but I must show that I am thankful to God for preserving my life.”

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When the time came to take the Eucharist, for it had been ‘changed into Christ’, the Papists said, she went ahead with the stream of people moving toward the front.

However, she was not invited to receive the bread. “Would the priest serve the cup to her, one so young, and a prisoner?” she wondered. “I will have fellowship with Christ when I am ready and I will not kneel to this priest,” she decided. She caught the look in his eyes and felt sure that her determination could be read in her face. Then she turned to go out of the church. A large hand seized her shoulder and she thought she believed herself to be pushed to her knees from behind. “You have done well to come to the table for it belongs to all Christians,” the priest beckoned with his voice, but his hand seemed to say, “If you will have Christ, you will also have me.” Hephzibah was terrified. She did not want him to read into her heart also. Her injured knee buckled and she fell into the people before her. She grabbed for support and found her two hands clutching the jacket of a sailor in front of her. Her feet stepped quickly to regain her balance. No one seemed to notice the accident, except the sailor who straightened and gave her an awkward glance. It happened so quickly, appearing to be simply a bump in a crowded line. She was glad to be able to move forward with the crowd and step outside the door.

The freshness of the sprinkling rain made Hephzibah tilt back her head and shake her long golden brownish hair out from under her cape. Mama and Papa would have disapproved of her not wearing a bonnet to worship. She felt suddenly ashamed and pulled the hood of the overcoat over her head. She wiped the tears from her cheeks.

She saw that, as in Deerfield, there were stocks to hold people in when they had done some evil deed. To serve as an example to the others they were displayed with a sign telling of what crime they had committed. The stocks were empty today.

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There were a number of children about, all older boys, but she spotted Pépo’s tricorn and joined him in waiting for the carriage. Mister Côté must have gone to where it was stabled. Marie Louise was still inside. Some of the young women stared at her, as if they thought they might know her. Others tried unashamedly to move away from her.

She looked at the ground. Some of them had moccasins on! Some of the dresses had distinct aboriginal decoration on their hems, although they were not of those ethnicities.

This must be the style. Most of the people wore wooden shoes.

Once into the carriage again, Hephzibah looked at Marie Louise with much boldness, unafraid if the woman were to stare back. She was again wondering, “Why did she not kneel? There was something different about her that separated her from the other King’s Chapel women,” she decided.

The Deerfield girl had not seen anyone she recognized in the church. The people from the hospice must be at the Hotel Dieu, which also had a worship center. Two other chapels, funded by other European benefactors, were passed as they returned home. The streets were full of carriages and people walking, many with heads down to cover themselves from the rain.

Captain Côté relit the fire and Pépo helped him. The tasks that Marie Louise gave her were simple and needed little explanation. Hephzibah was used to kitchen work. She began to get the dishes out of the cupboard. Pépo, seeing her performance, was happy to know that he didn’t have to climb up and get them.

Her one meter, thirty-eight

centimeter61 body was long enough to reach them, whereas he could not, with his mere

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4 ft. 6 in.

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one meter sixteen centimeter62 height. The meal was just what Hephzibah needed to remain in good spirits the rest of the day.

She followed Marie Louise upstairs later and learned what was on the upper storey of the house. It was divided into two large rooms and a storage cupboard. The room furthest from the stairs was seemingly occupied. There was a simple bed. Many objects stored in barrels were placed against the wall. The other room, where her patrons slept, was dominated by a brick wall with a fireplace, this being on the east side of the house, opposite the fireplace downstairs. Outside she had seen the two chimneys. The wide bed was high off the floor and still unmade. She saw the dog lying on the covers.

He was not pleased with her strange presence and let out a high-pitched bark. Marie Louise brushed him off and sat down. She bent forward and grasped the handle of a trunk under the bed. Inside the trunk, Hephzibah saw a number of dresses folded up.

Once pulled out and opened, Marie Louise chose a gold and brown-coloured gown. She held it up for her to look at.

“Est-ce que celle-là te plaît?” she asked. “Does this one please you? Oui? Non?” Hephzibah took it in her hands and examined the lace around the hems of the sleeves. The neck opening went straight across from shoulder to shoulder and there was a slight, reparable tear in the bodice, which had no embroidery on it. It had a little white shawl to go with it. “May I not exalt myself with glory that comes from such beauty?”

“Everything is good if it is taken with prayer and thanksgiving,” her friend Eunice, had told her.

“Oui,” she said straightforwardly and completed her answer with a nod of the

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3 ft. 10 in.

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head. “I will wear it when we attend the church meetings, for I am thankful,” she thought. Her grateful conscience about wearing such a lovely dress before a dying crucifix filled her heart. “I may still boast in what the saviour has done for me. He has given me a new home.” Marie Louise made her try it on and looks of dismay were shared as the skirt proved to be very long and the bodice too wide. The malle from under the bed was searched once more, and a grey-blue dress chosen in its place had far more decoration on it than the first. Unable to object to such a gift, Hephzibah paraded around the room as if to be very happy. In fact, she truly was.

When the dress and other garments that Marie Louise had assembled for her were placed in a drawer under the bed in which she slept, Hephzibah thought she would burst with excitement. Where would she first wear her new dress? She changed into her sleeping gown while Marie Louise removed her washbasin from the stable. The lady took the clothes that had covered Hephzibah from the moment she had left Fort Chambly and began to plunge them in the hot water. When Pépo and Captain Côté ate that evening, in order to reach the turine, they had to brush by a collection of drying petticoat, frock, and apron draped across the front of the fire.

The next day was the feast of Sainte Catherine of Sienna. Early in the morning the same clergyman who had directed the service of worship of the previous day came to the Côté’s house. He had Warham Williams with him and was taking him door to door to ask if anyone knew who was to have him. Hephzibah was drawing water from the well under the floorboards when the front door opened. She was fearful again at the sight of the clergyman. She nearly dropped the bucket and was forced to lie on the floor where she had been kneeling in order to catch it before it toppled into the well.

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Captain Côté said, “We have made arrangements with the Governor. We have no true place to keep him, however. He would be better off back on the Seigneury of Boisbriand with Monsieur Le Ber’s people but if we must have him, we will. There is the stable in summer but, in the winter, there is no room unless we put him with Charles Emmanuel. I suppose for now we have room, Marie Louise. We will keep him. We will plan what to do later when my son Charles Emmanuel returns next fall.”

Marie Louise added “My dear, you have been kind to the girl because I think she wanted to be near this boy. She will take care of him for us and Pépo will teach him how to work. He is not too young to collect the eggs.” “My, husband this is a very good thing,” Hephzibah anxiously asked Pépo to translate, which he did gladly and smiled to know that with the addition of Warham, he would now have his own little helper.

Today, with the arrival of Warham, the strong hand that had caused her to fall in the church yesterday turned to bless Hephzibah. She would be forever forgiving towards the Jesuit for bringing Warham to be with her. She thanked God for the servant of Christ and for the decision the Côtés made. “You love to bring your children together,” she sang to God in her heart. She helped the boy take off his outer coat and led him back to the well in order to put him to work.

“Hephie, am I going to stay here? Is this where you live?” the boy asked as he hugged her.

“Yes, that is what they have decided. You have a God who hears your prayer,” the girl reassured him.

“Warham? Is that his name?” Pépo asked. “Like John Warham of England?”

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Hephzibah stood dumfounded. “Pépo, how do you know of that man? He was the grandfather of Warham’s mother.”

Pépo smiled. I know of him from my Misses Killigrew in Bimshire.

“So you come from the island Barbados. How did you come here?”

Hephzibah spoke too much and she was abruptly told to take Warham to the room upstairs beside the Côtés bedroom and to move everything which he might damage by his childishness to the storage room. Pépo made sure she understood, and Marie Louise excused herself from the priest and her husband and went with them to be sure her maid knew what to do.

It was going to take her a long time to arrange things. There were snowshoes and beaver skins in piles. Some of the old blankets were heavy from the bear grease that had been rubbed into them. In the corners of the room were piles of buckskin clothing. Did a Sauvage live here? Who is Charles Emmanuel? Hephzibah was bewildered by this new information. Warham had started to play with some lead musket balls. She had to watch him and take them out of his mouth three times before she pulled them all away from him and put them in a porcelain bowl on the dresser. There were some linen sheets to place on the four-poster bed and she wondered if Warham would sleep up here when it got dark.

“Warham you must be very brave again and stay in your bed tonight,” she instructed him gently.

Left to themselves they worked for most of the day, Warham never taking his eyes off of his “Hephie.”

In the evening, they ate the meal of the feast of Ste-Catherine and went to the

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church for a candlelit service in her honour. Hephzibah, Pépo and Warham stood in their place against the West wall. Later, Hephzibah tried to remember who Sainte Catherine of Sienna was, but couldn’t. Captain Côté had told her that Catherine, the 14th century, Italian mystique of the Dominican Order had wanted to restore the Popes to Rome in the fourteenth century. She helped end their exile in Avignon by talking to Pope Gregory XI about how he might lead them back? She had not understood much of what he said, even though he had attempted to tell her in broken English.

Before going to bed, they ate cornbread pudding flavoured with maple sugar syrup.

In the morning Hephzibah ascended the narrow stairway and found Warham sleeping on the floor under the bed frame. She nearly fell from stepping on a small lead ball that had mysteriously landed on the floor.

“Warham! Wake up. You have to go get the eggs. I have a basket for you, and Pépo will show you how to do it. He is waiting for you downstairs. Come out.”

“I already know how to get eggs, Hephie,” he said as he rolled out of the large feather bed.

The older girl dressed her newly adopted brother in his freshly laundered clothes and, holding his hand, pulled him down the stairs, over the well floorboards and out the back door to where Pépo had already gone. The five-year- old allowed her to do what she wanted. He looked like a stuffed doll being pulled here and there without any will of its own.

“Here, Pépo! I must return and help Madame Marie Louise with the bread.

Hephzibah went into the house and stood by Marie Louise who had started mixing flour

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and grease together in the bread-making trough. It was a rectangular prism-shaped box, set upon four thick legs and hinged with a lid. The lid was designed to create space for kneading the dough.

“What do you know how to do?” Marie Louise’s words seemed to be saying, even though Hephzibah could not be exactly sure what she asked. Sometimes she said “Oui” in return but she knew that it had not answered the question.

They formed seven round loaves and used left over dough to make two little braided petit pains. Marie Louise indicated that the little buns were the wages for the Ville Marie bakers. She had a twinkle in her eye and her helper smiled as she massaged her newly healed wrist. She was glad there was so little discomfort now and that it was possible to use it again. They put on their coats to go out to the community oven where several people were bringing their loaves to bake.

This was the way the people near Rue Saint Pierre could share wood. Also, a fire for baking bread had to be very carefully tended so as to get the right temperature. Each week, one household provided the wood for the fire and each home’s bread maker brought the loaves to be baked that were needed for the week. The one who made the fire and kept it going for several hours usually put the loaves in. If it were a cold day, the people would gather close to the oven. They huddled under the shelter that kept the rain or snow off of them. More and more habitants, for that was what the citizens of New France called each other, were building bread ovens into their fireplaces at home, but the common outdoor ones were used in the warm weather and for those who did not collect a lot of wood for themselves, it was a necessity. Marie Louise returned to the house to get more loaves. She left Hephzibah to watch the small cart upon which four of the lumps of

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dough had been placed. What was she going to say when her turn came? She listened to what two women already before her said. The man attending to the oven asked them some questions and she stood petrified listening intently to their speech.

“Comment trouves-tu ça ?” he asked. “How do you like that?” Then he slid them onto a board to cool when the desired doneness was agreed upon.

Marie Louise arrived after Hephie had given the first set of loaves to be baked.

She attended to the judging of the finished product. Her young maid was becoming an avid student of the French language. The neighbours made some comments about the increased number of loaves the Côtés had brought.

By the end of the week, the new “family” was fully informed of each other’s habits. Marie Louise went three mornings a week to the industrie papetière63 near the Old Fort across the Saint Pierre River. Captain Côté was up early to take his troops to the Common to do drills. When they disbanded and each man went to his place of work, the captain came home to take charge of the labour on his own little plot of land. In the evening, he would invite his fellow officers to take something to drink and they would fill the room with their pipe smoke. They played cards. This did not last long except on feast days, which were celebrated three times a month and for which the Coté’s new maid servant was obliged to stay up late in order to clean up after the guests and because there would otherwise be no place to get some sleep.

Sometimes Captain Côté would be on duty at various posts around the wall or he would travel to one of the forts on the Rivière Richlieu, the River of the Iroquois. There was Saint Ours, Fort Richelieu near Saurel, Fort Ste-Thérèse, Fort Carillon, Fort Saint

63

a paper-making factory

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Jean and Fort Ste-Ann.

At Fort Chambly there was need to restore the buildings

damaged after the last Iroquois attack. Sometimes he would go to the Forts on the north side of the Islands such as Fort Boisbriand. He was also responsible to see that roads were kept in good repair in the city and that every household had properly working firearms. Marie Louise went twice a week to serve at the hospices… once at the Hospice of Jeanne Mance, and once at the General Hospice of the Charon brotherhood.

When the Captain’s comrades came, Hephzibah would sometimes escape to Warham’s room only to be called back down again to bring more wood for the fire. One evening, she noticed that Warham had wet his bed. “He must have been so active during the day that he was too tired to wake up,” Marie Louise said.

Some evenings, after Warham went to sleep, Hephzibah would go to the gable window to check her reflection in the glass in the light of the candle. Her face was healing and she even thought she might not be disfigured, after all. Instead, she sighed and decided to face reality. Her nose would forever slant to the right and her teeth were going to resemble those of the captain. She did not lose any fingers, however. Yet, she had lost a middle toe from frostbite during the long walk in February.

Market Day resumed on Tuesdays at the Common (the long boardwalk in front of the town) and the townspeople’s livestock was grazing on the public lands outside the south gates. Pépo had to move them there, but there was a man to manage the animals for the time they were grazing. Flooding had caused the original fort by the entrance of the smaller river into the larger one to be relocated to its present site.

Marie Louise would bring back one or two items from the market if she had walked, and several more if she had hired the carriage from the neighbour. Grain and

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cheese came from the farmers on the seigneuries, but processed dairy items were so expensive that she would sometimes wait a week.

Whenever she left the house, she

wore her powdered wig, except to go to the baking oven, to the hospice or to the chapel.

There, she wore a plain starched bonnet with no lace but with long tabs at the sides.

Pépo, she found out, worked sixteen hours a day accompanying one of his two patrons around the town, to the papeterie, or to work in the barn. For a boy who did not look much older than ten, she wondered how he could find so much of the energy needed.

Warham was unsure of where he should be, but he had taken a liking to Pépo and found him whenever he was in the barn. Otherwise, he stayed by the fire and played with the dog or was Hephzibah’s little assistant. He was particularly fond of the Town Cryer, who would give all the news near the St-Paul Street corner.

People everywhere were asking Marie Louise how she liked sponsoring her new servants and was the little boy the girl’s brother? Stares became annoying to Hephzibah but she did her share of staring as well. She had to be attentive to lip movements in order to recognize the words being spoken.

The days became warmer and the snow melted.

Beautiful sunny mornings

brightened her mood and she looked forward to the joy that came every day at dawn.

Nevertheless, she ached for her family and cried herself to sleep so often that Pépo gave up trying to talk to her when he came in from the barn at night. This new person in his kitchen was more complicated than he knew how to deal with, but he was usually too tired to complain. Hephzibah thought she should give him back his bed, but she was reluctant to sleep on the floor beside the fire because of the dog.

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Synopsis: Chapter two The Governor of New France sends for Hephzibah and the Côtés negotiate a contract with him in order to take charge of her. At Governor Vaudreuil’s Montreal residence, the girl reads a letter sent to New France from Boston and finds Samuel Williams and James Caitlin. They also are captives who have been redeemed by the Sulpicians, a Catholic order that took lordship of the island when New France became a royal colony. They exchange news of family but are soon separated. A woman from another group of captives leaves several English books in Hephzibah’s hand.

Hephzibah gets acquainted with Pépo at the home of the Côtés. They are surprised to learn that the other speaks English. The ten-year-old is pleased that she will be a help in the house and that she has brought some English books with her. He gives up his bed for her and enjoys her company at mealtimes. Hephzibah is having difficulty keeping her mind from the massacre. She is trying to live normally again but nothing is normal. She becomes familiar with the Chapel of Bonsecour where the Côtés worship.

Hephzibah notices that something is unusual about the way Marie Louise presents herself in front for the Eucharist. Warham is later taken in by the Côtés, much to the captain’s disapproval of his overly generous wife, but much to Hephzibah’s joy and comfort. She learns the routine of the household and practices her French.

Montreal was the site of a Christian mission to the Indians who traded furs with the French. It was relatively unprotected until the King, in 1688, sent troops from the Royal Marine, a Governor and an Intendant (a mayor appointed by His Majesty) to protect the citizens of France who had settled there. It thus became a colony of France and its citizens were subject to Royal decrees.

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image : Pierre and Marie Louise and Capt. Côté A 50-year-old woman sits with a 40-year-old man standing behind her. This was Pierre, the first man to whom she was married. He is in her thoughts. His clothing represents that of the first colonists of New France. Her new husband, the Captain Côté, is seated beside her. He is dressed in the uniform of the Compagnie Franche de la Marine. His former wife and a boy are in his mind. They are in the right side of the picture beside him.

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Chapter three: One is Forever Remaking One’s Life The boy from Barbados rarely talked about himself, but Hephzibah wished to ask him more about Marie Louise. He would sometimes give her answers, but only in his jesting way.

Several weeks after her arrival in the home, Hephzibah asked one night, “Pépo, how did you get here?”

“I was given to Captain Côté… with some guns he bought from a man from Fort Orange,” he replied.

“You were in Fort Orange?64” she exclaimed.

“Yes indeed. I walked all the way from the wall65 that goes across the top of New Amsterdam. I kept following the road at the end of the wall until I got to Fort Orange, and I did not get into trouble with anyone,” he said defiantly in his British accent.

“Do you speak any Dutch?”

“A little, but I speak mostly French now.”

“Where’s your family, Pépo? Were they killed?” she whispered, afraid to cause him more sorrow.

“You are like Madame Marie Louise. You want to know so much.”

“But I want to tell you more about me too, and Warham,” said Hephzibah.

“He is a hard one to understand,” Pépo sighed. Does he still sleep under the bed?”

“No, he is still pretty scared and he wants to see his mother. She died and he doesn’t know what that means. Just let him do what you do. He loves the animals. Just 64

the original name of the city of Albany, N.Y.

65

present day Wall Street in Manhattan

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tell him stories. He slept under the bed because he was afraid to wet it and get everyone angry at him.”

“Why doesn’t Marie Louise kneel when she takes the mass?” Hephzibah asked Pépo. “I don’t kneel because I was told that we should not bow to anyone but our Saviour,” she added.

“Oh, Madame Marie Louise is an Eygonot. She is like my lady, Misses Killigrew who is a Quaker. They pray on their knees in their bedroom and they read the Bible every day. Have you seen Madame’s Bible? It is from Switzerland.”

Hephzibah wondered about this. Were there others in Montreal besides the black robed priests who could read the Bible? She had adapted to the mass at the Bonsecour royal chapel. The officiating priest read the Latin Vulgate. At home, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, everyone who could read devoured the Bible, but here?

“Pépo, do you remember those treasured books I have with me?”

“I have read every one of them,” he said coolly. “Well, everyone but the one with no pictures.”

“You little thief! Who taught you to read? How did you get those from me?”

“While you were crying your eyes to sleep, I took them out of your drawer.”

Hephzibah leaned down and yanked open the drawer to make sure all four volumes were still there. They were there beside the little iron foot warmer.

“I did not much like the story about the martyr who was burned on a pole and I do not think I should be so good as to obey all those Ten Commandments. I do not even know what adultering or coventing is,” Pépo said, sounding a little awkward. Hephzibah corrected his words to adultery and coveting which she simply explained as staying with

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the spouse you married and wanting to have what others have.

“All of Misses’ Killigrew’s servants went to school on Sundays to learn to read the Bible. We were not allowed to write, though. That was not needed, they said. I learned some letters and tried to spell the words. If I could remember them and read them better, I would not have to keep sitting on the hard benches on Sunday. He laughed. She said I took too much time with my writing. I did not get the dishes on the table in time to eat.

Three winters ago, that was, but they do not have winters there like we do here.

I’m going to get myself some real boots for my feet someday.”

Hephzibah had noticed the boy’s boots and decided she should find him another pair somewhere. She was unable to say any more.

She could not wait to tell Marie Louise in the morning that she too read the Bible.

Hephzibah loved the Psalms and the story of beginnings. To begin the story of Jesus, the Bible told of where his ancestors lived and where his people came from. It told their names. Jesus’ ancestors started with Adam, Noah’s son Shem and Abraham. There was a whole nation created by the rescue from Egypt with Moses as leader. But the desire to be like others who live as idol worshippers in the wider world was strong. There should have been a baby born, but prophets said the nation was unable to let it come out and save the world. Her mother had told her that. Mama knew why babies could not be delivered from the womb. Then Jesus came because it was the Holy Spirit who brought him into the world. The whole world could be saved by his offer of a perfect life that none of the ancestors of Jesus could live. But without understanding, those among his people who should have known who he was took him to the emperor’s government who then judged

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and killed him. God brought him back to life, which showed he really was the one to save people all over the world. Knowing her master’s wife was a Bible reader made her heart fill with love for the lady who took her in. Was Captain Côté an Eygonot too? What was an Eygenot anyway?

She knew some Quaker people from “The Society of Friends.” Old widow Kellog was a Quakeress. She said they were so-called because the English pastor from Leicestershire, George Fox, who had visited in the colony’s steeple houses, often used to say, “My people, tremble or quake at the word of the Lord!” So, the Friends Society became known as the Quakers. George Fox was often in the Bedford prison in England.

One of his opposing debaters, the pastor, John Bunyan66 had been jailed in other prisons in England. They were called dissidents for not preaching what the English King, Charles II, wanted them to pronounce as true. Kings of that time wanted everyone to have the same beliefs in their country. She had never lived in a big city in Europe. Slowly, Hephie was coming to understand why kings did not tolerate differences in matters of belief. They wanted to expose liars and keep liars from telling lies about them!

“Pépo, what is the word in French for Bible?”

“La Bible.”

“La beebla,” Hephzibah repeated.

For the second time that week, Hephzibah and Warham went with Marie Louise to the paper factory. The building was built between the St-Pierre Creek67 and the StLawrence River to make it closer for the workers to transport water in buckets. The lady

66

The author of A Pilgrim’s Progress, a jailed pastor’s story of a disciple of Jesus who takes a trip to live in the new heavens and the new earth.

67 The creek is now covered by Montreal Streets. It is located near la Place d’Youville named after Marguerite d’Youville a little girl presumed in this story to have met Warham. She later founded the Grey Nuns’ community.

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worked the paper with her own hands. She also wrote sums in the record books and ordered materials. She saw that the women who worked there put the “pâte” into the screens properly. Pépo kept the fire going so they were warm. They needed him less and less and the animals needed him more in the barn now. It was birthing time. Two sows and a cow were about to deliver.

When they were walking back towards the south gate of the palisade, Hephie started talking to Marie Louise about the things Pépo had told her the night before.

“Moi.” There she was stuck. She did not know the verb for “to read.” She had wanted to tell her that she too read the Bible.

Marie Louise was in a listening mood and turned her head to look at the girl when Hephzibah said, Eygonot...toi...Eygonot. Now Marie Louise understood, thought for a minute, and stopped to show her a necklace she wore. It featured lily flowers surrounding a cross that was looped onto a gold chain. There was a little droplet that fell from it, suspended below. Marie Louise made like she was crying, pointing to an imaginary tear on her cheek.

“Oh, that is a teardrop. Is it sad? triste?” Hephzibah asked in French. That was one word Marie Louise always asked her when she was sad.

“Oui, parfois je suis triste68, Ephie.”

“But you have la Beebl-a.”

Marie Louise smiled a broad smile and squeezed her arm, “Oui, Ephie.”

They reached the house and took off their boots. The smell of roast goose reached their noses as they helped each other remove the bird from the fire. A plate of

68

Yes, I am sometimes sad.

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corn cakes and bread was placed on the table. The one large man, and two small men from the barn were called. Hephzibah quietly sat by the hearth and ate her portion of food with a cup of boiled water and herbs.

When Warham needed help with some bones, she moved to his side to help him.

Soon the meal was over. They saved the leftovers for the visit to the hospice and some for the evening soup. On most days that were not fast or feast days, they ate two small meals.

Hephzibah found herself to be principally appointed as the garment keeper of the house. She shook out the mister and misses’ wigs, powdering them to keep fleas and lice from nesting there. She washed the hems of skirts and sewed the holes in shirts and dresses.

While suspending shirts outside, on a tripod made of barkless branches, she had time to think of many things. Yet her thoughts turned most often to her father, brother and sisters. They were presumed to be in the village of the Agniers69 people, and maybe even with those who were of the same tribe who had killed her neighbours and friends.

How could she believe they were safe? “There will be no safety but to those who are in the ark,70” she remembered her parents to say. They meant those who are protected by God from being wasted.

“What will happen to little Sarah? She will learn the Indian language and lose her Dutch and her English. She barely knows either. She is only three years old. Elizabeth can remember twenty-eight of the fifty-two questions of the Heidelberg Catechism71.

69

The French name commonly used for the Mohawk clan.

70

In the book of Genesis Noah had constructed an ark for his family and animals in order to survive a flood in the wider world.

71 A French copy of the Heidelberg Catechism may be found at Qui sommes nous? www.erq.qc.ca .

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Will she learn Latin masses and forget her catechism? She doesn’t have the Primers that I have. The Lord’s Prayer is in the front. I will teach Warham to write it. Sarah has not yet learned more than the first question of the catechism of the Westminster Assembly.”

“What is the chief goal of man? To glorify God and to enjoy him forever,” Hephzibah repeated to herself often as she sewed. She could not get it out of her mind.

What about Papa? He must be heartbroken like Master Van Rijn, the painter. When Mister Bunyan had lost a wife. She left him four young children to care for. Then he went to prison where he was allowed paper and pen to write.

“Pépo?”

“Yes,” came his sleepy sounding reply one night in May. “Where is St-Louis where the Kan-haka people live?” She had not completely forgotten what Samuel had told her but she had forgotten enough of the name that Pépo didn’t know at all what she was talking about. She had called them by the only tribal clan name she remembered. “I want to find my family but all I know is that they are with a tribe of Savages and they are on the other side of the Rivière St-Laurent.”

“You cannot leave Montréal. I tried it already,” he mumbled. Soldiers always bring you back and with a good day in the stocks to remember it. They say they will hang you but I haven’t seen anyone executed yet and the executioner remains in the Royal Prison because he is a thief from St-Malo,” said a tired but experienced voice from the mattress on the floor.

(continued) The Heidelberg Catechism (1563, Germany) by young theologians Caspar Olevianus and Zacharias Ursinus (revised by the Synod of Dort in 1619) became the most widely used catechism in the Reformed churches.

The standard Presbyterian catechisms have been the Westminster Larger and Shorter Catechisms, completed by the Westminster Assembly in England in 1647.

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“Pépo. I do not want to escape. We have so many good things here. I only want to see if they are treated fairly.”

“Well do not go running away until you know where you are going and you are ready to take the punishment.”

“Thank you, Pépo. I should say, “Merci.”

“You are getting good at speaking French.”

They both had sleepy voices now and it was morning before they remembered they had fallen asleep.

The next day, Hephie was able to get more information from Pépo about his separation from his family. He had followed his father onto a salt ship on the English colony of Barbados or ‘Bimshire’, as the Africans called it. Men used to go during the warm months of the year to rake the salt on Turk’s Island to the south. When the ship returned to a Carolina port to barter the salt for food needed in Bermuda, Pépo was accidentally left behind. He got on another vessel but, too young to tell anything but the name of his mistress, he was taken for many months on ships traveling in the triangle from Antigua to Liverpool, England and to Sierra Leona on the African Coast. Once, he was left at Long Island, New Amsterdam, where Quakers were known to have settled and someone recognized the name Killigrew, by which he called himself. It was there that he was mistaken for a slave, when in fact he was of a free class of Africans. Some were slaves. They had fathers who were plantation owners from England and mothers who were owned domestic unpaid servants. Others like Pépo’s parents were free and had salaries from their employers.

One day, Warham was being particularly difficult and would not come out from

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under his bed. Hephzibah was pulling his leg and the stockings were coming off. As she pulled, she noticed an object beside Warham’s leg. It was a dried-up piece of skin with hair on it and a face painted like as if it were a tiny mask.

She screamed, which brought François Côté from his bedroom. When he saw what she had pulled out, he whistled another of his trilled, Trrrrédames! Warham quickly wiggled out and stood up wide-eyed with fear. The dog had already joined them and was nipping at his knees barking.

“Warham, where did this come from?” Hephzibah asked in English.

“I found it in the drawer,” he said and pointed to the dresser. Monsieur Côté took several quick strides to the dresser and emptied the whole drawer on the floor. Nothing but a pair of leather leggings came out. Warham showed the pocket where the shriveled human scalp, for that’s what they had decided it was, had been stored.

“Il est devenu un manitou, qui apporte du bonheur,72” the officer explained simply to Hephzibah who understood that it was a good luck piece, but she still did not believe him. “My son, Charles Emmanuel, must have gotten it from his friends, those fur trading Savages in the west. Maybe he has been to their dances and is taking their gods away from them, the Sagamochin!73” He did not care if she understood what he said but somehow she did.

The captain took it down to the fire and Hephzibah followed,

trembling. She watched as he threw it into the flames. The smell of burning flesh tortured her again as it reminded her of the massacre. She consoled herself to know that Warham did not understand what it was and she put it out of her mind. Instead, she began to wonder more and more who this son of her master was. “What was his name?”

72

He has kept this as an idol to the Great Spirit which brings good luck.

A Sagamore was the firstborn son of a powerful First Nations family. The captain is racially belittling his adult French born son by reinventing him as the little boy of an aboriginal chief.

73

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Emmanuel was all she could remember. The first name sounded like “Shall.”

“Warham! Stay away from those drawers,” Hephzibah warned him. He was crying by now and she scolded him for that also. She ate breakfast without looking at him and he went to the barn leaving his porringer on the chair behind him.

Captain Côté was talking to Marie Louise about something that seemed to surprise both of them. By listening intently, Hephzibah could tell it was about the Sulpicians and their establishment on the side of the mountain which she remembered was a sort of fort. It was the stockade with circular stone towers she had seen when she left the hospice. From a distance she felt as though she could spread her open arms around them but up close, they were massive. They were used as dormitories for aboriginal children who came to learn French culture and language74. They were going to move these students to Sault75 aux Récollet to the North and West of the city and close to the Rivière des Prairies. There were about two hundred students, mostly Indians.

It

would mean they would need the community to assist them. Hephzibah wondered if Samuel was with them. He must be! That is where the teachers are. Captain Côté was planning to offer his help.

While Hephzibah was hanging clothes to dry outside on the tripod, she heard a loud woman’s voice and an old woman appeared from a carriage. She wore a large hat with a plume and was holding the arm of a man that Hephzibah remembered seeing somewhere. They came down St-Paul’s Street and up St-François Street. Place Royal near the Bonsecours Chapel was where they came from. They turned to greet Hephzibah while she was hanging up the wet clothing. The young man was handsomely dressed in a 74

Two of four towers are still on the grounds of the Sulpician Seminary on rue Sherbrooke and rue St-Marc in Montreal. Others like them are found on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City.

75 A system of canals that bypass rapids and waterfalls.

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new blue uniform with white gaiters on his legs and over his shoes. They merely wanted to know where Marie Louise could be found. The soldier looked at Hephzibah and noticed her improved health. He whispered to her in French, “You look well.” Then she recognized him from the Hôtel Dieu.

It was Monsieur Guérin. Yes, now she

remembered! The man was the young soldier that had translated for her at the hospice.

When Marie Louise came out of the house, the two women embraced.

“Jeanne-Cécile!” Marie Louise exclaimed, and she said something that made them both laugh. Then all three went inside.

Unable to decide what to do, Hephzibah went to the barn. She asked Pépo, who was there with Warham, to tell her who Jeanne-Cécile was.

“Madame Blaise des Bergère? She is here?” he asked.

“Yes, does she come here often?”

“No, she lives on an island in the Rivière des Prairies. I have been there twice.

She lost five children and has been married twice. The people here always say they are forever re-making their lives.”

“She came with a man, a soldier whom I have met before but I do not know. He is a soldier in the marine,” Hephzibah added. But Pépo had already gone to see Mme. Blaise des Bergères.

“You must not tell anyone you know me,” a deep voice that frightened Hephzibah said, after Pépo had left. She looked to see where it had come from. It echoed in a foreign-sounding accent from the doorway of the barn. “Hephzibah Block, I know you from Deerfield. I used to go to Warham’s house and I have several times spoken to his father.”

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Hephzibah looked at him, remembered suddenly, and exclaimed, “You are the son of that heretic Gabriel Guérin. I heard of you from Warham’s father’s sermons. He denounced your father’s false teachings many times in our Sunday meetings. How did you come to be here? On whose side were you?”

“Do not accuse me. Your heart is too young to be hard. Take the example of our Lord who forgave his enemies,” pleaded Gilles, “I have learned, by many trials, that one must always love one’s enemy even more than one loves truth. That is, if one wants to see the glory of God’s mercy and kindness. They are also the truth.

Warham ran to Hephzibah and tucked his head in her skirt apron. He sensed that she was upset and was afraid. She ordered him to go into the house. He refused to go until several minutes later. In the end, she had been glad of his tight, protective grasp on her leg.

He went inside. There, he met Jeanne-Cécile Blaise des Bergères, Marie

Louise’s close friend, widow of Jacques Bizard who assisted Count Frontenac when both men were alive.

She was the daughter of Major Lambert Closse, one of the first

inhabitants of the French colony.

“Listen, Mademoiselle76,” the soldier with the French accent said. “I am staying on Ste-Helene’s Island and I am under the service of the Sieur de Ste-Hélène who has a barony there.”

“You speak of Le Moyne d’Iberville who burned Corlaer and 34 of our English villages on the coast?” asked Hephzibah, dismayed. She was afraid she might someday have to go to the island in the St-Lawrence River across from Montreal. She was terrified of this baron.

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mademoiselle is used to address an unmarried woman

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“Yes, the same man. This kind woman asked me to accompany her for she is staying for a time with her second husband, Raymond Blaise at the home of my Lord de Longueuil.

Madame Blaise des Bergères77 wishes to visit her friend, Demoiselle

Gamonet...Marie Louise...you call her. The gentle lady I accompany, has given her promise that she will not disclose the fact that I am of those same captives who were taken from the massacre at Deerfield, for she agrees that so to announce would be my end. Now, take note that to your mistress, I am a refugee from the civil war in France. I beg of you to hold your tongue Miss ‘Ephzibah’ and not disclose me,” he pleaded.

“Those whom I serve treat me as a habitant and a recruit.” He looked deeply into her hazel-coloured eyes, begging her to trust him. She wondered if he had come on purpose to win her loyalty. Had he not already convinced her with his solemn tone and gentle, melancholic sadness? He wanted her to love her enemies more than she loved truth?

“Then you are here because you were captured with us. Why did I not see you at the mountain when we were assembled?” Hephzibah whispered.

“My father was killed in the meadow where the Savages were attacked by the valiant defenders of Deerfield. I was with him and lived. I should not have. I had lost my Lazarino pistol, newly purchased in Boston. I started to prepare his musket and was able to hide in the south of the town but some of the French soldiers found me. I convinced myself to join their ranks the next day before English reinforcements from the south arrived. We followed the St-Francis River to Saurel.” Gilles responded with eyes turned suddenly away from her.

“You must know something else. My father and I were on a ship and arrived in

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Madame Closse-des Bergères, daughter of Lambert Closse according to page 70 of The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, article by Marcel Bellavance.

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Rotterdam. When we discussed our plight in the Cévennes, we were changed in our opinion by arguments from our fellow citizens, exiled in the Netherlands, who persuaded us differently. They told us that the posture of our Camisard rebellion in France would have protected our people better had it been founded on the actions of Jacob, the son of Isaac, returning humbly toward Esau, his older twin brother, than on Israel’s second judge, Gideon’s army, fighting idolatry with the sword of the Lord. But it was too late to change our course. Now the English, the Dutch and the Irish are sending help along, in the name of the same sword.”

Hephzibah did not follow his reasoning but she softened to his obvious zeal and, not wishing to neglect her duties especially when she was most likely needed, she turned to go back to the laundry in the yard. “I will keep your secret,” she said and he kissed her hand in gratitude.

“Hephzibah, I have some spruce gum for you,” Warham said carelessly as he passed her in the yard. He handed her the sticky piece, which she put into her mouth for he seemed to be proud of his gift.

Several minutes went by, before she went inside. Warham, still too young to stay awake for the whole day, had gone to sleep in his bed when Hephzibah found him upstairs. She went downstairs again and inspected the fire.

In the large main room, the two women were enjoying a cup of white cedar tea in the Côtés’ finest Turkish earthenware mugs. The cups had a white under-glaze and a purple and blue and red over-glaze. Marie Louise motioned for Hephzibah to come to her so that the visitor could see her better.

It would not have made much difference to Hephzibah if she knew that the

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woman’s father, Lambert Closse, had been one of the first inhabitants of the colony, nor that her first husband, Jacques Bizard was the former aide de camp78 of Governor Frontenac and had been twice nominated Assistant Governor of Montreal. She was merely impressed at how much arsenic powder the woman used in her drink.

“That will surely have a very thorough tonic effect,” the young girl thought. The arsenic was believed to improve the skin of a woman whose childhood diseases had left her with scars, but many who used the mixture became crippled from overuse without understanding the consequences of its secondary effects on the bones.

The spruce gum in Hephzibah’s mouth was at that moment having a cleansing tonic effect of its own on her digestive system. Besides that, it was stuck in her teeth.

She curtsied to the lady and turned to finish the work she saw on the table.

A large beaver was in a bowl, skinned and ready to be washed and salted once again. She listened as she worked. The two women and Gilles, who had joined them, spoke so quickly though, she could hardly make out what the subject was. Her mind was also busy with the perplexing secret divulged to her in the barn. Gilles was wearing the uniform to disguise himself. The silk, mohair and wool grogram he wore as a belt was from the dead patient at the hospice, she concluded. The temptation was to stare at him, but she held her eyes on her work and moved the bowl so that she had her back to them.

She was beginning to feel ill from the spruce gum. She sat down on a bench by the table.

“You are from the Cévennes79, you are a Cévenol?” Marie Louise asked Gilles.

The man began to introduce himself. “My family was from Lower Languedoc.

My mother, before she was separated from us, persuaded me to hold to the knowledge of 78

A governor’s body guard who followed the orders of the governors, saw to their comfort and organized their activities and travels.

79 Between Bordeaux and Lyons, France

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truth in the psalms translated by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaple and not to succumb to the humiliation of having to repent of betraying that knowledge. If I proved to others that I was against the Lord Jesus and like Peter, wept to know that I had deserted him, I would never be able to have a clear conscience, she told me, with tears in her eyes. Those who betrayed often came to violent repentance and fell into trances, rolling on the ground and crying to God for mercy. My father and I were spared that sort of destruction of our consciences and remained faithful to the teachings of the more thorough Bible translators.

Nevertheless, we lost our residence and village along with the inhabitants of hundreds of other villages. The king did not want a new Bible circulating.

“Were there not over 400 villages that “the Dragons of the king80” were sent to empty?” asked Marie Louise.

“Yes, there is a ravaged countryside where you once lived.” Gilles spoke softly to the women and leaned forward. “Mesdames, there is nothing more welcome than the peace of a clear conscience and the assurance of having one’s prayers answered. It is always a shame to hear the prayers of the unfaithful and poorly informed before they are slain. They cry out to a multitude of names (he gestured with a sweep of his arm) when they could have known the One Name that saves. Of property we have no gain here on earth, but we have everything that is worth having, stored up for us in the treasury of our heavenly king.”

The Cévenol then explained that he was not infatuated with the Camisard reaction and its violent response, but he had been caught up in the passion to take up arms 80

From wikipedia Dragonnades : The Dragonnades were a French government policy instituted by King Louis XIV in 1681 to intimidate Huguenot (Protestant) families into converting to Catholicism. This involved the billeting of illdisciplined dragoons in Protestant households with implied permission to abuse the inhabitants and destroy or steal their possessions. The soldiers employed in this role were satirized as "missionary dragoons".

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alongside the brothers of the Huguenot soldiers of The Desert81 to refute the atrocities committed by Chabert de Chamborigaud82. Neither did he want to be forced to execute his father, as some children had been forced to do before being shot.

Not shaken by these sad stories, Marie Louise inquired, having heard some news from her husband of the massacres, “Tell me of the little people83 of The Desert. I have had no news of them and I am afraid to speak to the wrong person. Is there one named Mazel84?”

Gilles began his report, “When I was taken from our hideout to the fortress of Roussillon, I heard that the baron of Salgas, François Pelet, had been falsely accused of complicity with Castanet, one of our leaders, and was sent to the galley ships for life. My father had worked for him before the man reconverted to the Church of Rome. They call them, New Converts who approve of the superstition in the old theology. He was one of the wealthiest, most honourable gentlemen of the region, but his wife had fled for Switzerland and there was fear that he was on our side. Abraham Mazel is still alive. He is getting help from the Eygenots in Genholac who are very supportive. I pray for their safety but I am not unhappy to be starting a new life... for the third time. I miss the fervor of the Desert. We sang psalms as heartily as our lungs would permit, holding services of prayer, and prophesying from the Scriptures, Old and New, from dawn until dark.

Sometimes we sang softly through the night, before descending from the hills, where we camped. We went to destroy the neighbour’s idols. The youth of my age are vigorous

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The mountain encampment of the Eygenot or Huguenot Resistance was knicknamed, “the Desert.” They identified with the Exodus of the people of God from Egypt. They mistook the need for revolution and created revolt.

82 there were terrorist attacks on both sides of these conflicts, too gruesome to mention.

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the rural people who had small farms Abraham Mazel and Elie Marion wrote a history of the Cévennes War (Mémoires Inédits d’Abraham Mazel et D’Élie Marion Sur La Guerre des Cévennes 1701-1708) © 1930 Charles Bost, Paris Fischbacher.

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but there are some men in their sixties and seventies carrying pitchforks and pistols.

When the regiment of Marcilly captured and brought some of us to the bishop, in order to make us afraid, he told us that we would be sent here to Canada or the Islands of America. Yet it is still kept secret that nearly 400 men and women, who left the prison, were sent instead to the Citadelle of Montpellier, to the island off the shore of Marseille or to the Tower of Constance. My father and I, destined to be oarsmen on a slave ship, escaped, with help from some Dutch and Portuguese sailors in Lunel. After a month in Rotterdam, we received passage on a vessel bound for Boston, our own choice of exile.”

“Monsieur Bizard was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland,” remarked Marie Louise.

“Madame’s first husband, would have sympathized with you.” Hephzibah’s mistress was graciously not drawing attention to her own personal sufferings for the cause of Christian conscience. She had been taken, by order of the bishop of Nîmes, to the Convent of Sommières, where some of the orphans of those massacred were raised.

“My deceased husband’s father was a Calvinist pastor,” added Jeanne-Cécile. He often visited the synods85 of the French churches.

Hephzibah understood that the Calvinist pastor must have been someone related to Jeanne-Cécile. Gilles was a Huguenot, this strange name always associated with massacres in the Cévennes Mountains of France.86 That is what Eygenot meant. It was The Huguenots, she had heard of in Deerfield. They had immigrated west to the Americas and were settled in the colonies of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Many in her church in Deerfield prayed that God would prosper and protect them.

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church councils including a whole region of pastors and elders a similar movement in Scotland went by the name Covenanters. Instead of having a parish under a hierarchy, they joined and received congregations of believers into a federation or faith alliance.

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She wondered what could have been worse than what she saw at Deerfield?

The large beaver lay in the bowl in front of her. She turned to thoughts of the principal supply of industry in New France.

“Naked beaver, your fur will not provide another hat in the European millineries.

You were trapped near here, in the south. Your fur is not thick like that of the beavers in the colder North. Theirs have passed through a dozen exchanges between trappers or Indians and merchants. Then once they are tanned, they sit on someone’s head.”

Then Hephzibah wondered about her own aimless state. “How many hands will I pass through? How many new lives will I have to begin with again?”

The heat of the room and an overwhelming feeling of homesickness combined to make her face flush. She suddenly became sick as she smelled the raw flesh and handled the exposed blood vessels. It did not help to still be holding spruce gum in her mouth, a taste she had never quite liked. She ran up to Warham’s room and vomitted in a chamber pot. Then she dropped herself on her knees in front of the bed to compose herself. She tried not to wake up Warham who was still napping on it.

In her physical need and despair, the wave of homesickness continued to wash over her. “Let me die,” she silently prayed. “Just let me be held by Mother and Father and look into my Saviour’s face and not weep anymore. I am so tired from weeping.”

Hephzibah stayed for some time in that position until Marie Louise called her to tell her the visitors had left. They would be coming back the next day. The girl wiped her wet eyes with her apron and descended the stairs to be sure she understood all that was said.

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“Il faut commencer à rôtir cette carcasse.87 Help me put this on the fire.” Marie Louise lifted the animal and pushed a skewer through it. While Hephzibah held her breath, she firmly grasped the beaver meat. They carried it to the fire and put it on the spit. There were many times when she had plucked or skinned animals that she later ate, but somehow her appetite was disturbed.

Outside, the bell of the Sulpician chapel was ringing six o’clock.

Marie Louise could see that something was wrong with Hephzibah and she settled herself in a chair by the fire with her. She wanted to console the girl and there was much to tell her about the person into whose household God had placed her. Hephzibah allowed her hand to be held in the lady’s own reddened ones.

“Do not weep anymore. Would you like to know something about this cross?” she asked. She lifted the piece of jewelry and showed the pendant to Hephzibah.

“Yes, Madame,” she sighed weakly.

“This cross, encircled by four fleur de lys88, is a souvenir. It is the cross of the Eygenots. It reminds me of my purpose here. The lilies that bloom out of its center show the radiance of Christ. I have carried it next to my heart and this is what I have decided it means but only to me. One flower is my family that I did not know in France, in Pont Saint-Esprit. If they are still alive, my younger brothers probably now align themselves with Jean Cavalier who has returned from Geneva. This is what my new husband tells me. It is the Dragons of Grandval who are against them. These Papists are called ‘bootwearing missionaries.

I am an orphan from the wars between the servants of the Pope

and the Reformers. I want to allow both groups to do the good that has been prepared for 87

We must start roasting this carcass.

88

The white lily is also a flower (a blue iris) on the Quebec Provincial Flag and a symbol of French society.

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them to do in this world, even as I must press my heart to God’s heart.

The authorities of Pont Saint-Esprit sent me first to a school of the Contemplative Sisters of Sommières, a town halfway between Nîmes and Montpellier. These were the contemplative nuns who do not involve themselves in works of charity. Then I was sent here to marry a recruit in 1668 at age 14.

They called me a ‘daughter of the king’ and each of us, sent to marry the lonely men of the colony, was given an ox, a cow, two pigs, two chickens, two barrels of salt beef, and eleven Crown Coins in cash. To send single women to build the colony was better than to send families, it was agreed.

During my voyage on the ship called, ‘the Vieille-Réale’, I met some people who told me I could become a daughter of the King of kings. They taught me the most beautiful cantique hymns of Claude Goudimel, the composer.89 We clapped to them and felt such great joy in our souls.”

Marie Louise paused and turned to Hephzibah who was now comfortably seated and intently listening to the rhythm of her voice. “You must not be able to understand me.

I am talking too fast,” she said to Hephzibah.

Hephzibah barely understood her, but she begged her to go on speaking for it felt comforting that the French lady enjoyed telling her story.

“Catherine Crolo90 received me at the Maison de la Providence which was once the home of Jacques Le Ber. Jeanne Le Ber, Jacques’ daughter is a cloistered woman

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Metric psalms (rythmn that one could walk to) were set to tunes, played on medieval instruments. There was often a statement and then a response, sung first by the men and then by the women. Claude Goudimel left this life to be with the one he worshiped in 1572.

90 The first intendante of the Congregation of Notre Dame, in whose name an annual wooden sculpture has been given since 1999 by the Maison Gabriel in Montreal, Qc.

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there... you really must see the needlework of Mademoiselle Le Ber91. They had no more room for me, however. It was so crowded. I could only find lodging for three nights, so,

by God’s grace, I was soon introduced to my future husband. Marguerite Bourgeoys came from Ville Marie to the métairie92 to be sure that we and the other couples were a good match. I became acquainted with Pierre, a paper maker and a Calvinist, whose parents had come to Quebec as colonists and had left him some land as an inheritance.

His father received permission to establish a business, before returning to France.

Madame Bourgeoys thought that because we were both understanding of each other’s dialect, we would be able to discuss the finer points of theology together and come to the meaning of the various Scriptures which we both loved so much. It was arranged for my menagerie93 to be transported here from the Le Ber farm. I have lived here ever since then.

I learned that my new husband’s parents came to Canada also wanting to give the good news of Jesus to the natives. Cardinal Richelieu had stated in his plan for the One Hundred Associates (who share the fur trading monopoly) that, ‘no Reformed Catholics94, only true Catholics, not holding to the teachings of the reforms of Calvin and Luther’, could join the groups of settlers. Nevertheless, there were boats to fill, and three hundred contracted settlers must be found to come. They were needed every year. If this number of settlers or recruits did not come every year, the Company of the One Hundred 91

This young woman secluded herself to consecrate her life to complete devotion to God. She also produced elaborate tapestries during her lifelong contemplation. There are two monasteries of Recluse Sisters in the Montreal area.

92 A land contract to grow produce for the owner, a percentage of which is kept by the one who rents.

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A collection of any domesticated object, person or animal.

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In the 16th century, a reformed Catholic always brought Christian practices under the scrutiny of faith, Christ, the testimony of Scripture to Christ, and of grace. No one can bestow upon themselves any of these, but they are all necessary and admired. They also need to be received thankfully wherever and whenever they are revealed. They were, and are now, exclusive (to be believed as reality) therefore universally available. Unfortunately, reform of the external morals of priests in the 16th to 18th centuries was of more interest to kings than the reform of theology, which leads to inner renewal.

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Associates was in danger of losing its royal contract and it would be given to another company. The King would only support one company at a time.

Let me tell you about Pierre. This is my second flower on the cross. Pierre’s parents were inspired by the voyages of Pierre du Guast the Sieur de Monts.95 The writings of Sieur Samuel de Champlain, the geographer96, also inspired them greatly.

Both of Pierre’s parents were born in cities of the Huguenots, maybe Rouen or La Rochelle, I forget. Sixty or seventy years ago, many of the missionaries of the Jesuits were called by God to come and help out here. The writings of some Jesuits in La Flèche, where they have their college, also inspired them by their diaries. Father Paul Le Jeune,97 the son of Calvinists, who wrote many of the early Relations journals, was one of these. Monsieur de Champlain98 married a young girl, who later came for a short time to Quebec - the young Hélène Boullé. Her father was a Calvinist and secretary in the court of King Henry IV. Most of the King’s best help was through the distinguished officers of the Swiss Calvinist community that had ties with the French, Pierre du Guast being one of the most financially influential, of that time.

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A Protestant with monetary support from Henry IV. He sent Champlain and François Gravé Dupont, in 1607, on a new voyage to the St. Lawrence and he sent other vessels in 1608. Quebec was founded by this financial investment.

He explored the Bay of Fundy, Annapolis Harbour and named the St-John River in New Brunswick. The seminary at La Flèche and its founders were cooperatively sending the sons of Calvinists, such as the Jesuit, Paul Le Jeune and the sons of the mainstream Catholic families to Canada.

96 A very lengthy biography of Champlain called Champlain’s Dream: the visionary adventurer who made a new life in Canada was published in 2008. Written by David Hackett Fischer, it is a most thorough treatment of the documents available.

97 Dictionary of Candadian Biography Online http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=34488.

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Champlain known as The Father of New France, made 19 trips to, and died in, Quebec. He founded his Habitat in 1608 in the Lower town of Quebec City. From this trading post, he exercised his duties and his mission. The biblical name Samuel and his association with the Huguenot family of his wife, the support from the treasury of King Henry IV, his collaboration with le Sieur de Mont and sailing from the ports of the Huguenots would indicate that he was the Reformed Catholic baptized Jean Cauvin in the Protestant church of Rouen.

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Fourteen years ago, a history recorded by Monsieur Charlevoix99, included the exploits of officers. One such exploit told of Louvigny, another of Clermont from Mothe, and Colombot, some other adventurers were from Marais, and Villiers. A man named Lousignan, le Sieur of Argenteuil is mentioned. He said these were all Calvinists, “giving a very good example and gentle authority.” Huguenot merchants and associates outnumbered all others in New France until 1628, but they did not work the land and had short contracts.” Marie Louise looked out the front window. “The name of Champlain’s wife was given to the island in the river, “Ste-Helene’s Island.” She made a sign with her hand to indicate the place, where that fearful barony was presently established. “She was known to have brought a great number of dresses with her, Ephie!”

Hephzibah smiled when she understood what Marie Louise said about the dresses.

The women of Ville Marie and some of the clergy waited to have clothing sent to them from the ladies of the court of King Louis. These outfits were cast offs to be recycled.

“Pierre was born when his parents returned to France. They were sent home in 1633 from the Habitat by the English privateer,100 Captain de Kirke, who had captured the trading post of Kebec. The English Captain and his brothers sent all who were living at Champlain’s fort (and living at his Habitat) back to France. The de Kirkes, however, had the grace to protect the lands of the French inhabitants for three years. Then, the plots of land were returned to our French King in the next battle. Later, the war between England and France ended. Yet the de Kirke brothers, still holding the Cap Diamant château fort, were completely unaware of the news!”

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The Seigneurie of La Malle Baye (Malbaie) that Samuel de Champlain and Jean-François de la Roche de Roberval established in 1608 was later called Murray Bay after the English conquered New France in 1763. Two Scottish settlers then began to appropriate the seigneury.

100 The commander of a private ship, hired by a government to attack and loot the property of other nations.

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Hephzibah had not heard her sponsor speak with so much enthusiasm. Maybe receiving her friend had cheered her up after the winter, and now she was more lighthearted. She continued listening to the passionate storyteller. Everyone likes to tell their story, she noticed.

“Pierre, my first husband, was apprenticed in France to a Calvinist paper maker.

The Calvinists were not allowed to occupy posts of authority, so they took up trades and services. Then when he was 17, he made the three-week voyage to New France to work the land still under the title of his parents. He was needed here however, further up river.

After we were married, he sold his parents’ property in Kebec101 but he still had title to the Letters Patent accorded to his parents by the king to begin a paper factory.

We have lived here by the St-Pierre River to be near the paper factory Pierre founded. Pierre gave me no children, but we were married twenty-five years. Before 1654 there were no children who survived in the Colony. There are still many who say my marriage could not have been legal and that it was cursed because I had no children.

So many Reformed Catholics in France are not allowed to have legal marriages, so when they go to buy land or give property to their children, they must abjure and cease confessing the faith of Luther and Calvin.

Some think this should be applied to everywhere. It most often has been, even here, since 1665 when Intendant Talon from Champagne was sent to be the first Governor sixteen years ago.

Pierre was a fine man, and courageous. He helped build the colony.”

Hephzibah asked what had happened to her Pierre.

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where the river divides in Algonquin or Quebec City where this divide can be seen from the bluff called Cap Diamant

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“He was accidentally shot in the throat by a misfiring flintlock while keeping watch on the Iroquois River eleven years ago.”

This came as a surprise to Hephzibah. She understood some parts of what the lady had said to her, although things had to be repeated several times and Marie Louise held fingers up for the numbers. Marie Louise had a small girl she had adopted but had to give up when her husband died. She was unable to explain this to Hephzibah without confusing her. Hephzibah wanted so much to say something back to the lady, but there were no sentences, only single words in her mind. “Marie Louise was married before,” she tried to repeat in her mind in French. “Everyone is always remaking their lives here in this place, like in New England,” she concluded. She thought again of Goodwife Williams whose widowed mother had remarried, giving Rev. Williams a stepfather-inlaw, Solomon Stoddard.

“La fleur ici? - This lily?” Hephzibah pointed to the third flower of Marie Louise’s Maltese-type cross.

“This one is for the people of the faith, of which I became a part, here in New France. Many gave up, renounced their beliefs, and we had to disassociate with them.

Monseigneur de Laval, the bishop of New France, said that we should be deported. Our monies did not always come from the Dauphin102 of Orlean’s bank, but we put money back into the Ville Marie treasury for we were allowed to use our tithe to feed the hungry and to save the babies of the immoral and adulterers. This gave us much favour among some people, especially those of the Barrister’s Bench of the Poor.103 I have not been ill treated by the church, although I still do not belong to the 102

A title given to King Louis XIV.

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le Barreau des Pauvres dealt justice to those who were bankrupt.

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Brotherhood of the Sainte Famille that Bishop François de Laval founded.104 Marie Louise stood, opened a tiny drawer in a table by the window and took out the coin Hephzibah had seen her show at the chapel. This medallion or méreau is what I present to the priest when I receive the Eucharist.105 It is what my Reformed Catholic parents presented to their pastor when they were in Montrevel-en-Bresse106. I don’t know why the Reverend Mother of the school allowed me to keep such an item that was shameful to their church. Maybe she felt sorry for me. Perhaps she believed it had a power of its own, as some at the convent believe concerning relics. They still let me use it here also, so I am grateful.

Hephzibah looked at the coin that her mistress took out of the drawer.

“It has here a picture of sheep being led by their shepherd to the Desert. The fleur de lys shows our respect to the king because we take the lily with us even when we go to the Lord’s table. And the inscription...look what it says...plus à me frapper on s’amuse, tant plus de marteau on use! Théodore de Bèze107 said that “the more they hit me to be entertained, the more hammers they wear out”.

Some of the Fellowship of the Sainte Famille, of course, amuse themselves by saying that I pay mistresses and their illegitimate children a wage with my tithe. No one wants to be known as a sinner. Since I have already ‘lost’ a good reputation, I am free to help all sinners. God works in mysterious ways. What do I desire more than that He

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this confrererie was at first called the Foreign Missions Workshop and patronage was given to the Holy Family who was known to have travelled to the foreign land of Egypt. Families joined this Order much like one would join a charitable organization today.

105 eucharistia means good grace in Greek. The inward memory of the Lord Jesus is the reason for setting apart the elements of bread and wine in this ceremony. He asked to be celebrated in this way.

106 between Lyons and Geneva 107 a successor to John Calvin in Geneva. He also arranged several French psalms of David with Clement Marot, a poet of the court of François I.

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radiate through me?108” The spit needed to be turned and more wood put on a fire that had to stay hot.

Hephzibah still did not feel well, but she continued to listen as her mistress spoke to her in her deep, musical French tongue.

Hephzibah did not understand the part about the money. She had never had to provide for herself nor pay the tithes. Neither did she know of the pensions ascribed to faithful subjects of the Crown of France. She was told that her patrons received some support from her father who was working somewhere nearby for wages. Also, the Royal Treasury was providing for her, as it now was providing for Marie Louise.

Provisions

were not made for those listed as Swiss guards, Calvinists, Lutherans, or Puritans. They were pressured to abjure and be listed as Catholics before qualifying to receive the pension from the King’s treasury. Marie Louise would have been listed as a member of the Supposed Reformed Religion had she not been sent to a Catholic orphanage. In trying to understand what Marie Louise said, she knew the Holy Family meant Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus but she could not understand the role of the brotherhood.

“What is the last flower for?” she asked curiously.

“Before I tell you, let me speak about the cross. The cross resembles the Maltese Cross, a military medal of distinction for excellent warriors. The branches are like arrows that turn inwards. That is why it is known as the Medal of the Order of the Holy Spirit. A dove was in the center or at the bottom. The inflictions of the in-working discipline of the Holy Spirit produce the flowers of a fruitful life.

“This fourth flower is for my new life with Monsieur Côté. I was ordered to 108

Que veux-je sinon qu’il brille? was the motto of Guillaume Farel, the French reformer who spent his life mostly in French Switzerland (Neuchâtel in particular). The Quebec reformed seminary Farel, was founded in 1979 and has this as its motto.

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marry the naval captain in order to insure that I could not be counted as a “Réformée” who are no longer allowed to enter the Colony because of the undoing of King Henry IV’s Edict of Nantes. It was that good edict that gave those of us who were called Réformée freedom to have meetings with excellent students of the Scriptures for pastors.

We could open hospices and teach in the schools.

The final withdrawal of these

privileges took place on October 22, 1685 in France. We, here, were no longer in the Church nor in the kingdom because our pastors in France were sentenced to the galleys or burned as heretics. This forced many to convert here as well as there. Nearly 300,000 have left France because of this. Although this was a sad and unjust decision, my heart has rooted out its bitterness against this injustice.” Even so, Marie Louise was obviously hoping Hephzibah would take her story back to the English colonies.

“All of Protestant Europe has come to our side because it realizes that hundreds of thousands of us perish in France, are forced to convert, or are like Gilles, exiled. What has become of my nation whose most active and industrious citizens - who directed most of the national economy - are put to the sword or flee to Prussia, Holland, Poland, South Africa, England or the American colonies? Now in my heart, I have mostly pity for my lost country and my impoverished sovereign, King Louis XIV, le Dauphin d’Orléans.

“The captain is not a Réformé or Calvinist?

“No, he will not read the Institutes109 of Calvin. He believes the king is not a robber in taking away God’s precious worshipers from him, so the paper making charter, with its land, went to the captain. It would have been taken from me anyways. My

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while still in his late teens this lawyer/theologian began an explanation of the Christian religion to the French King François I in 1547. The Institutes of the Christian Religion : http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.ii.html..

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conscience requires by foi et loi 110to give back to Caesar what is his. I only pray I might so readily give back to God that praise of which he is worthy. For giving up the land, I have not been required to make an abjuration as a Reformed Catholic.

My husband does not really need the seigneurie he hopes for. He is well cared for here, but it would be a great promotion for him, and he would be able to live much more comfortably, were he to be given a parcel of land as a reward for his service in the Royal Navy. He hopes to wear a cross also, the Cross of St-Louis for military service! So, I look to the future from the window of this lily.”

With hand gestures and a few words, Hephzibah asked about the teardrop.

“Yes, I have put on the little tear. My little dove pendant - symbol of the Holy Spirit through whom all the radiance of Christ is mirrored - should be in its place. Some crosses have the dove or the teardrop below or in the center.”

Hephzibah looked puzzled when she said the word for dove, so Marie Louise went upstairs and brought back her Bible. She opened the enormous leather-bound volume and turned to a loose page caught inside. She pointed to the word “colombe” on it. Above it, was a printed image of the baptism of Jesus by his mother’s cousin, John.

“John was the last prophet before the final one from God, Hephzibah,” the woman reminded her.

A tiny dove on Jesus’ shoulder revealed the meaning to Hephzibah, and it set her mind to thinking of the nightingale at the hospice. It had been so close to the window, but so much more secure outside than inside. Marie Louise was more secure outside the common circle of society than in. She still wore the little teardrop, and Hephzibah did

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faith and law, for she does not want to be sans foi ni loi (without belief or the protection of rules)

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not want to suggest the little dove pendant be put in its place at the bottom of the cross.

Look! There is a quote from le docteur, Calvin from a letter to François I, king of France who gave the name French to us. Calvin believed him to be a devout Christian as he also did the king’s sister Marguerite d’Angouleme. Calvin and other Reformers of biblical theology often owed their protection to her. He was hoping to defend the beliefs cherished by French Christians. They were not new and lately forged but were teachings from Scripture for all Christians. Here it is on this card in my Bible. It says, “Your duty, most serene Prince, is, not to shut either your ears or mind against a cause involving such mighty interests as these: how the glory of God is to be maintained on the earth inviolate, how the truth of God is to preserve its dignity, how the kingdom of Christ is to continue amongst us compact and secure. The cause is worthy of your ear, worthy of your investigation, worthy of your throne.

The characteristic of a true sovereign is, to acknowledge that, in the administration of his kingdom, he is a minister of God. He who does not make his reign subservient to the divine glory, acts the part not of a king, but a robber. He, moreover, deceives himself who anticipates long prosperity to any kingdom, which is not ruled by the scepter of God, that is, by his divine word. For the heavenly oracle is infallible which has declared, that “where there is no vision the people perish” 111 Hephzibah could not understand Marie Louise and she was losing interest in the subject of French history. Fortunately, she escaped from the lesson on King and God by a noise in the doorway and a dog barking. The captain had returned to begin planting the garden. He had a small bag of seeds and was anxious to get started right away. The dog was with him and was hastily put to his task inside the spit-turner while the household turned to seeding. Pépo brought out the hop seedlings, hemp seeds, pumpkin and pea seeds. Ginseng roots and the flax grains had also been saved from the last harvest.

Germinated cabbages and cucumbers were brought from the window table to plant.

Hephzibah was glad, once again, to be out in the fresh, spring air. Her stomach

111

From Proverbs 29.18.

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began to finally settle. She counted the rows of earth, turned by the set of harrows, and concluded that for the size of this household there would be enough for two winters of food. Some would be given to the neighbours in return for the use of their carriages and horses during the year. The hop plants would be sent to the brewery beside the papeterie.

Horses were plentiful in the Colony.

There was a new breed called ‘the

Canadian’, bred from the king’s own stable horses. To purchase one, it meant waiting for the foals to be born. Most often, a team of oxen could be seen pulling wagons or working the fields. The spring plowing was over now in Ville Marie.

As she planted beans and squash, melons, Indian parsley, carrots, cucumbers, onions and radishes, Hephzibah thought back to what Marie Louise had told her.

She

remembered that Marie Louise had come to the Colonies of Canada in the same way her own English mother had been brought to the American Colonies. Her mother once explained it to her.

“Circumstances were grim in London after the decades of tragedies and wars.

First, had been the various Acts of Parliament that stripped your grandparents of citizens’ rights, who, as Puritans under King Charles II, were subject to discriminatory laws and fines. Next, came the Plague of 1665 that killed 100,000 of the population of London, which at that time was 460,000. Then there was the fire of London in February 1666 that destroyed ninety percent of the living accommodations of the walled city. Later, there came a great storm, which caused much flooding on land, and disaster on the seas.

Political turmoil and wars added to the strife. The flag of St. Patrick (Ireland), the flag of St. Andrew (Scotland) and the flag of St. George (England) would soon be joined to form the British Iles’ Union Jack. Ruined and in poverty, it was no wonder that from 1651 to

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1700, wave upon wave of women (ninety thousand) were sent to overseas English colonies, in order to help them find better lives. I was among them.112” “Mother was able to make a family and get us safely started, so I must go on and be brave like her. The winter is over, spring is here.” Hephzibah wiped tears away again but without knowing it, streaked mud across her cheek.

Part of the Côté’s land was set apart for barley and wheat, rope hashish and hemp, but it was already planted. They were doing the last of the seeding today.

When she was sent in to get a jug of water from the well, Hephzibah paused to open the Bible that was temporarily placed on the table. She wondered if Marie Louise was going to teach her to read it. “Maybe in the winter, if I am still here. There is too much work to do now,” she told herself. Tiria, the dog, had stopped turning the spit and was slobbering on the hearth, so she decided to let the tired beast out and come back to turn the spit herself. She suddenly remembered she should run upstairs and empty a dirty chamber pot in Warham’s room. She washed her hands and went back outside with the water jug.

The Cryer shouted and a musket shot was fired in the Place Royal Square.

He

carried some news of the arrival of someone at the king’s wharf. All employment was stopped and, as usual, after the information was passed around, nearly the whole town went to the riverbank to greet the important dignitary that might be disembarking.

Warham grabbed Hephzibah’s hand and pulled her toward the wharf so he too could see.

Among the crowd at the riverbank, stood a mother with a little girl, both visiting from Varennes, a village east of Montreal. The two were standing very near the city wall.

112

for information on this period in England the author consulted the introductory history compiled by Joe Wheeler, PhD to The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself by Daniel Defoe (1661-1731) Tyndale House Edition 1997.

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Deciding she could not get a view of the scene because of the tall adults, the little fouryear-old girl, named Marie Marguerite, spotted Warham. He was not far from her, and to pass the dull moments, she began to pitch little stones at him, which he returned playfully. The girl soon grew tired of this, however, and moved to the other side of her mother. Warham tried to chase her as she played hide and seek behind her mother’s skirts. Warham was then reprimanded for his aggressiveness.

He lowered his lip sulkily but, curious as to what was happening on the beach, he convinced Hephzibah to put him up on a barrel. They watched as dozens of canoes headed toward the shore. Decorations of feathers and woven shawls appeared. The people wearing them, with their shiny dark skin, climbed out. Warham was impressed and talked of being allowed to wear similar clothing.

Five sachems113, decorated with feathers, holding out a wampum strand of beads114 and opening sacks of corn and animal furs were at the center of the crowd.

These were chiefs of their tribes who met the governor of the town and brought young tribeswomen to marry some of the French officers as well as to give young boys to be educated by the priests. These were gestures of peace. Officers, who already had wives from France, whether they were obliged to or not, espoused the Indian women to improve relations with the Indian clans.

The Governor and Intendant of New France came to Montreal every summer to discuss all manner of commercial questions regarding the fur industry and northwestern

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Native tribal chiefs

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Wampum were beads that were made from the purple Mercenaria (hard clam) and white Conch shells found near the mouths of eastern rivers. In Connecticut, four white ones or two purple ones were worth a penny. A fathom of white beads (360 beads) was worth 55 shillings in Massachusetts in 1637. Simulated wampum beads were made in Europe for trade with the First Nations of the Americas. The eastern nations used the wampum to confirm business deals or to write tribal stories in long wide belts. They would give these as presents, to chiefs of other nations.

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expansion. For days, dozens of fur traders disembarked to collect piles of pelts that had been traded at Forts Michillimakinac, Pontchartrain, Sault-Ste-Marie and further west and north of Montreal such as the Fort Kaministikwia that Daniel Greysolon du Lhut115 had made safe by signing agreements with the Saulter, Sioux and Cherokee Indians. Other traders came from the southwest as far away as the confluence of the Ohio and the St Louis Rivers. Every day there were up to one hundred Voyageurs who would appear leaving in their long canoes at Fort Rolland in La Chine, on the upper side of the rapids.

Was this the signal for the annual debaucheries to resume? The city went wild when the fur traders returned and the older American ethnic groups came to get alcohol.

Because of personal rivalries and drunkenness, people would treat each other with terrible tortures.

Some had even been seen to bite each other.

Once the traders said,

“adesquidex116”meaning good friendships and alliances in the Algonquin language, then the festivities could begin.

Hephzibah, once she knew the meaning of the day’s event, watched to see if Captain Côté was to receive an aboriginally descendant wife. Of course, there was no place for her in their home. He was not in his dress uniform today because he was planting. Only the regular soldiers of the Compagnie Franche de la Marine were. There were cannons to fire from the ships and shores and parades to lead. Generals, such as Carignan and Salières, would approve.

“Pépo, what is going to happen to the Cotés?” the girl asked.

“Madame Marie Louise thinks this is not good to give their young girls as brides 115

Many of these forts were in or near Minnesota and Ontario. Daniel Duluth was from a village outside of Lyons, France. He died in Montreal in 1710.

116 A word sometimes thought to have coastal American algonquin and european Basque origins because of Jesuit influence. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30027995

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and neither do the ladies at the hospice. The aboriginal women will not live for more than two years. I have seen how they come to the market, all of them weak and thin. It is not good. They do not stay strong. They should get outside fresh air and not go into the holds of ships.”

Hephzibah wondered if this was true. She had heard that the American women taken to England died of diseases because of the damp climate and dirty, infested living quarters on the ships.117 Why were they always sick? She, herself, had never been on a ship. Now, she saw sea vessels every day.

The missionaries at the hospice were trying to save the women of the Americas from smallpox. Why could she not believe Pépo? Sometimes he said so many lies and sometimes he was wrong or mocking. She never knew.

Four native women were to be taken to the Church of Notre Dame the next day where they would be baptized and make vows, and an Italian archbishop of St. Dominic’s Order was to be remembered on tomorrow’s feast day. Then they would be taken separately to their new lodgings, all of them outside the palisade, on different seigneuries.

Work resumed with a break for the evening meal. By sundown, the garden was nearly all seeded and the workers were cleaning the tools in the stable. The cooking fire had been tended to irregularly but the beaver was ready to be taken from the spit. Its meat was being saved for the next day. Everyone went to bed early.

The next day began with an unusual exchange at the door. A priest arrived in a robe and a stiff square cap, having three upright points. He handed Captain Côté a long, varnished box with a crank that turned and made music.

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the story of Pocahontas (also known as Rebecca Rolfe) describes this tragedy. She died and was buried in England at age 22.

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“Will you find someone to play this today, when we come out of the chapel and stand at the east gate of the city?” he asked the captain.

“I do not know who will do it, but I will find someone, even if it does sound like one of those whiney bagpipes,” he grumbled. The Recollet military chaplain laughed.

“You prefer drums, I suppose?”

Later, Hephzibah learned that this instrument was called a hurdy gurdy. When Gilles came again in the late morning with Madame des Bergères, he was told that the captain had chosen him for the task. He accepted gladly and went to the stable to practice with Pépo and Warham following behind. Hephzibah, also curious, followed out the door, in spite of the fact that she thought she might be needed to get Marie Louise’s dress ready. She also had her own dress to get ready. It would be the first time she wore the one Marie Louise had pulled from a chest under her bed upstairs.

The barn was warm inside; filled with the smell of hay. The animals had not gone to pasture since it was not an ordinary workday.

The captain was at the Place d’Armes118 getting his troops ready for the afternoon parade. No one ate the noon meal, since a fast was called until the evening feast began at the old fortress119 near the river.

Hephzibah listened to the playing efforts of Gilles but, because he took some time to oil it, became disinterested and re-entered the house from the back. She found JeanneCécile and Marie Louise kneeling beside the table with their elbows on a bench. They motioned for her to join them, so she took her newly carved, wooden shoes off and went to kneel with them. They prayed and sang from a psalm book that Jeanne-Cécile had 118

The parade square for the troops under his command.

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This fort had been abandoned because of flooding from the St-Laurent and the St-Pierre Rivers.

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brought. They asked God to bless Hephzibah and Warham. Was there a prayer for Pépo too? She thought she heard them pray for the young man. She prayed that he would have boots for next winter.

The box with keyed fiddle and resined, cranked wheel was loudly whining in the barn but it did not disturb the two women who, with skill, interpreted the psalms they sang. They prayed for the people suffering in France, and those on ships at sea. They asked to be pardoned for their own unfaithfulness. They confessed their sins of judging their enemies, who were no worse than they. They prayed for their husbands and relatives still living. This was the religion of the heart that Madame de Guyon had written about, they said afterwards to their young student. It seemed that they quoted words from the Bible half the time and, in the remaining time, they used their own words.

A book in Latin entitled: Confessio Galliana accompanied their reading. “It is my catechism,” explained Marie Louise. They were there for nearly an hour. Upon rising, Jeanne-Cécile grasped Hephzibah’s arm with her gnarled hand and gave her a pat on the cheek, smiling, as if she had heard this English captive’s unspoken prayers also.

Hephzibah took out her apron in order to begin wrapping little parcels of wild strawberries and beaver meat in linen canvas. After this was done, she took out some barley loaves and set them on the table. Then she cleaned her sabot shoes, washed her hands and face with hot water, and combed her hair. The moment could not be delayed anymore. She opened the drawer and took out the garment that was still waiting to be displayed in public. She carried it upstairs and the two older women put it on her, brushing out the wrinkles and tying the shawl over her shoulders. Marie Louise had made her a bleached linen underskirt with lace trim on the hem. She came down, found

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her fresh white bonnet, put it on, along with her stockings and shoes, and went out to wait for a carriage with the other two women. Her left toes felt odd in the shoes, now that the large left toe was missing. The skin around the joint had somehow healed.

Warham, who thankfully had not disheveled his clothing while in the stable, was waiting for them. Pépo and Gilles were well on their way to the Chapel.

They were assembled in the largest church in the royal town. It could seat six hundred. It was the first time Hephzibah was inside this one. The Mass began with Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.120 She had never heard a harp before, but found it very beautiful. A particularly interesting life-size sculpture of Mary and the infant Jesus decorated one corner. The statue was made of ivory. The skin appeared pure and smooth and Mary’s dress was covered in pure gold. The flags, with colourful ensigns on them, decorated the ceiling and fell loosely over the heads of those in the outer aisles under the triforium.

She watched as people filed under the gold and blue flags on the opposite

wall. She remembered, when they had gone to greet the Sachems, visitors had set up tents along the shore near the gates of the village. New people, she had not seen before, who had come into the town from boats on the river, were among those entering the chapel. Then she saw a very familiar face.

“Papa!” she suddenly gasped with her hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound. “It’s him by that other wall! I know it is him.”

With tears spilling onto her cheeks, Hephzibah brushed them aside and thought of how she might get to him after the end of the mass.

This preoccupied her mind

throughout the whole ceremony as she tried to get his attention by constantly facing his

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Sanctus is Latin for holy. It means God is completely committed to his good purposes. He is thus fully pure with no evil.

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way. The time passed like a dream that one wants to finish but cannot seem to resolve.

For a brief moment, she thought of her promise to herself. She would never wear this dress to worship. Was it modest enough or was it like gold and ivory - to be praised like the statue of Mary? Did God approve of her? Her fear was quickly quieted when she thought of the question in her catechism, which made clear the manner to worship God. “One must never try to be pleasing to God if He has not first made us committed in the heart, when we were unrighteous and without help,” she reminded herself. “Having an unclean heart to praise God, I think, is the worst sin. It comes from the worst sort of pride.”

“Worship is not in Samaria and not on the mountain in Jerusalem,” said her catechism question, “but God searches the heart and wills that he be worshipped in spirit and in truth, not in temples built by human hands.”121 Hephie adored God for his love for her. She thanked Him for bringing her father through these trials alive. She thanked Him for Marie Louise and Jeanne-Cécile. She thanked Him for the dress and for covering her lowliness. She felt like she had put on her costly garment and it was Christ himself hiding her from the misery of her imprisonment.

Her own life was being remade in this new country. She must cling to the promise that she was new. God accepted her as she was, so that He could change her to be as He is.

Inside she was aglow with joy. She squeezed Warham’s hand and whispered the news to him but told him not to say anything.

He whispered to her, “You make me think of Mama when you wear that grey dress.” It makes you look like a grown up lady.

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John 4.23-24; I Corinthians 6.19, 20.

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“Warham has learned his colours. He knows what grey is!” Hephzibah thought, pleased with him. He wrapped his arms around her elbow. He could not see over the people but kept trying to stand as tall as he could, to find Mister Block.

The assembly was dismissed and the parade had commenced. Hephzibah must keep her father in view and watch Warham and not let herself get out of Marie Louise’s care. How could she do all three? Before the crowd began to move out, she rushed to Marie Louise and grabbed her hand pleading with her anxiously to let her run after her father who was ahead of them and had not seen her. Grabbing Warham’s hand, she started to go after her father but Marie Louise told her to leave the boy and he could ride in the carriage with her and Jeanne-Cécile. She told Hephie, “We will be at the old château fort and you must come there directly after or I will have to punish you severely.”

“You will see me there soon,” Hephzibah said and ran forward. She passed Gilles and the flute players.

Monsieur Côté was behind in the crowd, leading a brown

uniformed militia of three regiments marching with their muskets on their shoulders.

Some were drumming as they marched along.

The tribal chiefs were in the lead with the Governor of Montréal and several men and women of different Catholic orders. She saw some hospice workers.

“Papa!” she called out breathless, her eye catching his own as he turned to look behind him.

“Hephzibah!” he called, then turned and spoke to a priest walking beside him.

He stopped and people passed on both sides of him. Hephzibah grabbed his hand in both of hers and they left the procession even though they kept walking as they talked.

“Papa, I am with a family here in Montreal. I was brought here unconscious, but I

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think I remember being dragged through the snow to the hospice. Warham Williams is with me and I have seen Samuel and James who are at a seminary. The son of that heretic, Guérin, is here too but he lives on Sainte Helen’s Island at the Jacques Le Moyne barony. I think he is in charge of their weapons since he knows so much about guns. He will be here today playing the hurdy gurdy for the parade.”

“My, my you speak quickly. You have also suffered from your injuries, Hephzibah. Your jaw…” he suddenly embraced her, ran his hand over her face and changed the subject. “You have a very lovely dress. Are you able to pray in it?”

“Yes, Papa, oh yes! God has answered all my prayers and He has brought me to two women who read the Scriptures, although in their own language. They are Huguenot or Eygonot, I think. Have you heard of this people?”

“The Guérins were Huguenot,” Mister Block replied and he began to speak in a low voice and in Dutch. He knew full well that New France was not presently a safe place to exercise the worship of a Reformed Catholic. “The name Huguenot is German from Switzerland and means, federated, that is, Swiss, and not of the Catholic parishes of Savoy. They are from the best seed, Hephie, the best seed. King Louis continues to cleanse his kingdom and forbid the French from adopting the Huguenot beliefs, which are the same as what we believe, because they are reasonably defended from the Bible itself.”

She could not hear him very well so he repeated the last part... “want wat zij geloven is redelijk te verdedigen vanuit de Bijbel zelf.”

Some overheard but did not stop because of the crowd. The noise of the people and music over their voices made their accents indistinguishable. Some women stared and tripped because the two hostages had turned the wrong way. Hephzibah continued in

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English.

“Papa, where are Sarah and Elizabeth?” “Where is Ebenezer?”

Mister Block looked Hephzibah in the face and tried to read her emotions.

Then he put his arm around her, holding her head compassionately on his shoulder. She slipped her arm around his stout masculine waist and they walked as he talked.

“Ebenezer was tortured when he came to the Abenaki camp. He was taken to replace the husband of one of their warriors who had died in the massacre.122 He is doing well, in spite of this sudden change in his life, and he has a very lovely wife who is happy with him because he is teaching her to read and watches over her children. He has already learned to read their wampum, the writing in pictures with white and purple beads that they use to keep their history and make agreements. Sarah and Elizabeth and Esther Williams, I believe, have been taken to live with a censistaire123 and his wife on a farm belonging to the seigneurie of Sorel. They may have been taken to Rivières des Prairies on the north side of this island or to Lorette down the Big River.

I will be sent away also because they have need of a miller to begin the work of sawing beams for the ships that are built at Sorel seigneurie. I will finally be operating a windmill again. If I earn enough, I wish to build a house and bring you all together again, but they wish to convert me before they will let me do this. I wish not to be tempted to abjure. The Savages do not approve that, we English who are from the congregations of New England, should refuse to go to the mass. While the Jesuits124 insist that Savages, because they are citizens of France, must go to their altar worship, we are stubborn and 122

This custom was known as the mourning war whereby women were comforted when their men went to war by being promised that a prisoner could be given to any whose husband had been killed in battle.

123 Farmers who owed produce to the landowner 124 An English translation of the Relations (diaries) of the Jesuits who came to Canada may be read at http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/relations_03.html

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refuse it. We prefer to eat in remembrance of the Lord at a table. I have my doubts today about celebrating this feast, dedicated to the writer of the Legend Aura.125 You must avoid such writings, Hephie. They are mere legends and have nothing to do with the real lives of the faithful. When I say this, it provokes the priests, who sell the adults among us, yet leave our children to be devoured by these wolves. The pastor Williams was able to visit. He instructed his little Eunice to remember her catechism and her English. Their language is hard to keep in that condition in which they find themselves, poor lambs.

You must find a way to go and encourage your brother and the children of our village who are forgetting how to speak their mother tongue. Remind them not to be infatuated by those who are hungry for storytelling. Tell them to fix their minds only on that which is a true foundation. Surely they will be able to build upon what cannot crumble beneath them.”

There were hundreds of people gathered at the Old Fort when Hephzibah and her father finally arrived. There were exchanges of medals from the King to the Indian chiefs, a return of the parade towards the river, then the long walk beside it westward to where the feast was to be held. Besides the people of the town, estimated to be over 900 in number, colonists came from the seigneuries up and down the river. Historian, Pierre Boucher’s family was there with the little Marie-Marguerite whom Warham had played with on the riverbank.126 The Lieutenant Chabert de Joncaire with his French wife,

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An italian dominican archbishop of Genoa, Jacopo da Varagine, wrote 182 chapters of stories of saints and the history of Lombardy. It came to be known as the Golden Legend. One early French translation was done by Master John Batailler in 1476.

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Later, this girl married François d’Youville, and being widowed by him at the young age of 28, was left with three small children. She raised her two sons to be priests and she herself founded the Order of The Sisters of Charity (the Grey Nuns). These nuns visit the aged, the poor, the sick and prisoners. Canadian hospitals are indebted to them.

During the 19th century Irish immigration to Canada, they were indispensable in Montreal. There were 5000 nuns in Canada in1989, although there are still many others around the world.

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Madeleine Dupont de Neuville, hosted the event and Paul Le Moyne de Maricourt with his wife Madeleine Le Gay de Beaulieu accompanied them. His new bride also flanked each of these men. One bride was from the Tsonnon-touans tribe, and the other from the Onnantagués tribe.

“Do not do any harm to your sponsors. Be very careful to make them happy and bless them,” Mister Block warned her. “Remember your catechism and teach it to Warham.” Hephzibah thought about this and was persuaded to take his advice. “I have some Primers at the house, Papa, and another book by Reverend Mather. I will pray to be able to see my brother and sisters.” She squeezed him tightly and they walked along, glad of each other’s company for a few more minutes before she had to return to the house. He gave her two bustard eggs from a bag he carried over his shoulder. “Two of these are worth five hens’ eggs,” he said. “The birds are returning to the north now.”

A soldier then came to escort him back to the priest. As they said goodbye, they were both thinking of each family member, not daring to mention Mrs. Block who was too dear to each heart for words.

Before the gates of Montréal were closed that night, four young Indian women had found new beds among the French, medals from the king were hung around chiefs’ necks and three wampum bead necklaces and one calumet pipe had been exchanged.

Fireworks were sent over the water. Young Indian men were given their first lessons on vigils at the seminary and a hostage from New England named Maarten Block was sold to the seigneurie of Pierre de Sorel. He would spend his time as miller until he renounced his faith and could be reunited with his children and take for himself a new wife. After this, he could be given a parcel of land to work, and be a true censistaire.

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Synopsis: chapter three The lives of those around Hephzibah, she discovers, are constantly changing. She is not the only one to have been touched by tragedy or sorrow. Pépo tells of an accidental misplacement of his father. He discovered that the ship on which his boyish curiosity had led him was leaving its North Carolina port for New York never to reunite him with his family again. Jeanne-Cécile Closse, a Canadian-born elderly lady, twice married to prominent officials, and having lost five children, visits the Côté household. We hear her story which opens us to her comfort to Marie Louise and Hephzibah. Gilles Guérin recounts his self-imposed exile to Boston from Lunel, France when he escaped with his father from the punishment hanging over them for their involvement with the outlawed Camisards, a radicalized group of Protestant militants in south central France. Then Hephzibah hears Marie Louise tell the story of her orphan upbringing, her first marriage as a Fille du Roi and the meaning of the symbols on her Huguenot Cross necklace and her token permitting her to receive the mass. The chapter ends with the visit of river visitors and First Nations chiefs, an annual parade, and the feast of Jacopo de Voragine celebrated in the Old Fort. Hephzibah is briefly reunited with her father who gives her some very precise warnings and instructions. He is given a job and asked to stop believing the lies of the Reformers. He and his daughter find their lives are being remade in this new country.

They must cling to the promise that they are known by God. The comforts they have from the Bible prove God accepts them as they are. To make them feel supported, He can also change them through testing to be as He is.

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illustration: Charles Emmanuel, son of Captain Côté A Fur Trader working in the Hudson Bay region and in the Northwest of the Americas.

He has a beard and great head of hair.

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Chapter four: Seasoned by the Season The French colony of Montreal gladly welcomed the summer of 1704. Every day was started by listening to the blast of the musket, followed by the news of the Cryer, followed by the shout, “Vive le Roy!”127 from the public assembly. Bread was baked and market day came and went. Hephzibah had to excuse herself many times for confusing the words mardi, which meant Tuesday and marché, which meant market. Every morning she had to water the garden and watch the growth of the plants and of Warham.

The wharf was watched for new arrivals and departures. Several times a week, a ship would be welcomed by residents assembled on the riverbank.

Hephzibah had not found any way of visiting, either her brother Ebenezer, or other children of Deerfield. She presumed they were with the missionaries or aboriginal families on the other side of the river. “Poor Ebenezer!128 Will he spend his life, living with his wife’s clan? He wanted to become a ship builder. Papa says that the ships are built at a place called Sorel, and also farther down river, at Tadoussac. Maybe Sorel is near enough to where he lives and my brother can still apprentice as a ship builder?”

She thought back to the day her father had come on a boat with the aboriginal boys who were to be sent to the mission school. She thought of the young aboriginal women who were married and went off to live with French officers. Pépo believed the women would not live very long. Would Ebenezer not live very long either? Hephzibah kept these questions in her mind but they could not make her irritable and sleepless. Her days were too full and she slept well It was the early morning drills of the militia troops at Place d’Armes or on the 127

long live the king!

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the name ‘Ebenezer’ from the Hebrew language, means ‘all the way to here, the Lord has helped me.’

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public land between the gates of the city and the shore that interested Pépo and Warham.

As often as they could, they went to watch. Once Warham found a silver coin and surprised everyone by telling what the Latin inscription meant. It said, “SIT NOMEN DOMINI BENEDICTUM” (May the name of the Lord be blessed.)

It was later

discovered that a member of the Company of St-Sulpice told him what it said. Once, before the summer work kept her busy outdoors, she was so disheartened by her situation she woke Pépo in the night with her sobbing. He gave her the silver coin and told her it would make her happy again. She kept it in her apron pocket and treasured it after that.

Hephzibah sometimes thought of Gilles, imagining him wearing the “camisa”- a black smock-style shirt, worn during the night raids in the mountains of the Cévennes.

That is why he was called a Camisard.

He was an interesting person and so

knowledgeable. He had even read the “Institutes of the Christian Religion” written by Jean Calvin! Queen Elizabeth of England had also read them in 1563, she was told by Jeanne Cécile. They had much influence on the English queen and the Church of England. Monsieur Calvin had dedicated his letter to François I of France when he was the age of Gilles. They were both intellects. Elizabeth of England had been also.

Hephzibah wanted to have as much knowledge. She would learn French and Latin.

One day, a dark shadow covered the little door of the latticed window at the front of the house. A Savage, who seemed to her to be a giant, waited to be let in. This was their custom. They waited, sometimes standing, and sometimes squatting. He was all smooth-skinned, covered with bear grease and dressed with woven cloth, traded from the Dutch. He was decorated all over with feathers. These were truly the most muscular men she had ever seen, and so tall! They could walk for hours and never get tired. They

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greased themselves with animal fat and swam outdoors in winter. They played games with nets on the end of a stick and a ball that sometimes ended in deadly injuries. She knew, however, that once they came inside, it was impolite to refuse them anything they wanted because the laws of property and hospitality among them said so. They too, like her, however unwilling, were now subjects of the King of France. Hephzibah quickly went by way of the stable, to get Marie Louise at the Charon hospice.

When they returned, the man was still there. Without letting him inside, Marie Louise learned of the reason for his visit. He wanted to trade Warham for a weaver from among some English colonists. Sieur LeMoyne d’Iberville had captured them from a village burned by French and the Micmac on the east coast. He thought the weaver would be of much more use to her, possibly as a worker at the paper factory. She politely refused the offer. After letting him come in to take a piece of bread and depart, Marie Louise returned to her work at the hospice.

Feast Days came and went and each saint was duly honoured, even StBartholomew on August 24th. The Feast of Bartholomew was a day Marie Louise celebrated in remembrance of the apostle of Christ. She forced herself to forget its other sad history, which began in Paris at the palace of Admiral de Coligny129 and spread throughout France.

She was always careful to warn of bitterness and hatred of one’s enemy.

Hephzibah was trying to feel the same love of her enemies, but she woke up and went to

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Gaspard de Coligny was a war veteran from France’s wars against Spain. He became an outspoken leader of a political party that used the Christian renewal movement’s weight to bring Charles IX into conformity with the Scriptures. The members of the movement pressured him to reform the state and make it more hospitable to those who preferred Christ to tell them what to do rather than royalty or the church. During a dinner party at his home in Paris on the 24th of August, 1572 the weak king’s mother, Catherine de Medicis eliminated the Admiral by ordering his assassination. She also ordered the Saint Bartholomew Day Massacre of all his associates. He was 53 years old. Later, more than 3000 reformed believers were killed in the city and in other parts of France.

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sleep, confused about how to begin. The balance of love had to involve the enemy’s love for her as well. If not, she could only despise, tolerate or fear them. Now she was just tolerating everyone and felt very indifferent, hardly loving at all. She missed loving and being loved. She did not like it when everyone ran about and ignored her.

Hephzibah wanted to know how Samuel and James were doing. The students seldom came into the enclosed Ville Marie. It was said that the sailors and habitants had a bad influence on them. All missions remained outside and away from the city, known as ‘Babylon’ among some of the more pious clergy. Once, she had seen James Caitlin, with a group of young men who were walking to the residence of the Jesuits near StVincent Street, at the intersection of Notre Dame St. When he spotted her, he told her that Reverend Williams had been moved to Château Richer, far to the east, across from Orleans Island. James said he had heard that their pastor was always debating the teachings of Scripture in perfect Latin, and convincing the European clergy residing there, of their errors by employing their own Latin theological books.

James said

Reverend Williams had written to Samuel. This news made the girl-captive now wish to write to the pastor and tell him how his son Warham was doing. He might return her letter and give some comfort to the young son. She also thought of him as her own brother. Who would deliver such a letter and with what pen could she write it?

All of the cooking was done outside in summer, so as not to make the house hot.

Hephzibah knew all the neighbours by their number of children. She knew their morning and evening meal times.

The neighbour children were one of her best sources of

information about how to use the basic structures of the French language. The Town Cryer was another source. Warham was learning faster than she was. He also taught her,

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as she needed it.

While she had lain in her bed that past winter behind the curtain, she also listened to the captain’s friends as he entertained them with gin and cards. They played a game called “Maw” and used cards with names. There was Tiddy, Gleek, Tup Tup and Towser. Each was stamped “good” with an expiry date under the Intendant Bégon’s seal and signature. Four pieces of each card had varying values. They were cut and used to pay the soldiers’ salaries until the ships came in and they could trade them for real money.

She learned there was much bartering among those who lived on the 80

seigneuries between Ville Marie and Kebec.

She learned of treaties being signed on the borders with the Turks. Austria was ceded to Hungary and Transylvania. Venice got Dalmatia, Peloponnesius and important Aegean islands. Poland got Podolya and the southern Ukraine. Peter, the Czar, was seeking to take back Azov and the lands north of the Black Sea. Captain Côté’s guests sometimes sang songs about the Commander of the English and the Dutch land forces, the Duke of Marlborough. He was friend to the English Queen Anne and to King William and Mary, her predecessors. He went across Germany to attack the Bavarian-French alliance and he led unexpected English victories against France in battles at Schellenberg and Blenheim. Besides the songs, there were all sorts of vulgarities said against the Koprülü Grand Vizier of the Turks, which she was careful not to repeat, such as the common, “Morbleu!”

To humour him, the captain was sometimes called ‘Capitano’, who, she learned, was a character from an outlawed Italian commedia dell’arte scene, performed in the

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open air, across towns in Europe.130 The freezing cold nights, when so little was said and one waited for the morning light, because the room seemed warmer, were long forgotten.

Now, the hot summer was also nearly done. The sun set a little earlier each day. Six full moons had waned since the captivity began. Monsieur Côté seldom had soldiers over in the nice weather. Some of them had already returned to France, not having intended to colonize la Nouvelle France.

Pépo slept in the barn now and was busy in the garden in the morning with the ripened produce of the harvest. He also went to pick herbs for the hospice and to collect gum from the cedar, spruce, and pine trees to sell in the market as adhesives and sealants.

She remembered the time Warham had convinced her to suck on spruce gum. Only twice was Pépo allowed to accompany Captain Côté to the Forts on the Richelieu River. Once, he was allowed to go to a fort on the Algonquin River near the Lac de Soisson. He came back from Fort Saint Ours so tired one evening that he had to be spoken to several times before he heard anyone. When he was not tired, he would do imitations of the blackrobed priests or of the captain’s militia recruits. Sometimes he would tell stories of his year of wanderings from Barabdos Island. He had met some unusual boucaniers on the ships of which he was a stowaway. These buccaneers, as they were called in English, laid out strips of meat, to be dried and smoked on shore. It was later eaten during their many voyages. This they did on the beaches of the countries where they sold their stolen goods, pirated from other vessels. Pépo had once been on a slave ship because the triangle of trade brought him around to Senegal on the coast of Africa, then West to Antigua and back to Liverpool after the slaves were sold. The decks were thoroughly

130

This theater form was eventually outlawed for its lewdness and obscenities.

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cleaned and supplies were taken on board for England. One out of five slaves, brought from Africa, died before they reached the Caribbean Islands.

These tales interested Warham so much, that he would beg to be with Pépo.

“Hephie,” Warham asked one warm day when Pépo was helping Monsieur Côté, “does the Captain take ‘recrews,’ who are only half the size of a man?”

“Warham, the word is recruits,” the older girl corrected him, and she then added solemnly, “You would not know on which side to fight if the captain took you into his regiment. You would be sent to destroy your own people and their villages or to defend the people here, by attacking the English on the coast.” She added in a softer tone, “the captain of the heavenly army is always taking recruits for his army among the ones who are half grown. They have a whole life to give against the invisible enemies of evil. The grown people only have half a life to give, but he takes them too,” she smiled as she replied. “Do you have your sword ready? En guard!”

The two picked up sticks and began to spar. They went all over the yard and into the next field. Then the swords turned to muskets and they were loading rocks for pellets. The romp ended with the chasing of some chickens back into the barn. They threw themselves down on the hay, newly stacked in a corner, and Warham laughed as Hephzibah tickled him. A goat came and licked his ear making him roll over and over again and again. It was Warham who was keeping her spirit alive, Hephzibah realized, even as it was also suffering.

Marie Louise was busy now; her hands were never idle. She could be found tending the garden, carding wool, or using her hatchel to draw flax through its tow, the coarse, broken fibers.

Her visits to the hospice continued. In the summer months, she

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also taught cyphering lessons at the girl’s domestic school on St-Paul Street called, La Grande Maison, and at the St-Gabriel farm west of the papeterie.

She taught

multiplication and fractions to the girls of the city, as they had time to give to studying.

Attendance was irregular when duties at home kept them occupied. Sometimes girls from nearby forts and villages stopped in for lessons at the former stable, which the founder, Marguerite Bourgeoys of Troyes said was ‘as good as the stable in which the Saviour was born.’ The teachers, all from convents in France, were more than eager to pull out their books and charts and maps or teach them how to cook or sew or make soap and candles. Hephzibah was not admitted to the lessons, but she was kept informed by Marie Louise as to what was being taught. Sometimes a teacher from the school came to the Côté house to speak to Marie Louise about the teaching materials. Madame Côté was reading Sieur Pierre Boucher’s “True and Natural History of New France”131 and she reviewed the “sol-fa” when she wished to read the music to the hymns in her Psalter.

Hephzibah was free to read these if she had time or understood the words, but she must replace them on the shelf in the dairy.

Pépo’s favourite story was written by

Dollier de Casson, describing the great earthquake in Montreal on Mardi Gras,132 the 5th of February 1663. There were nine tremors in nine hours. This was in the same year that Sieur de Maisonneuve bought the land for the school, west of the papetrie that Pierre had already founded. Five years later, Marie Louise arrived to be married at the age of 14.

Marie Louise’s books had the name of Marguerite de Sommillard, a deceased friend, written in them; a niece of Margeurite Bourgeoys. Soeur Bourgeoys was a unique 131

Early, renowned settler, Pierre Boucher, after whom Boucherville (suburb of Montréal) was named. A school board in Montreal and many other things are named after Marguerite Bourgeoys or Jeanne Mance.

132 Feasting continued from Jan. 6th (celebrating the coming of the kings who worshipped Jesus as a baby) until Fat Tuesday which is the day before fasting starts on Ash Wednesday (preparation for remembering the Crucifixion of Jesus).

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type of missionary from Champagne133 who inspired young girls to take up the role of ‘the traveling nun.’

Of course, there were recluses also, who spent their lives in

contemplation, like Jeanne Le Ber.134 They lived her lives in the sacred presence of Jesus, behind the box that held the bread of the communion meal (the mass). There were cloistered sisters who would serve each other and the church within the bounds of the convent, and secular nuns who served in the community outside the convent.

But the

traveling single woman, dedicated to the service of Christ, was a new understanding of the woman who was considered ‘of God’. No other order of nuns had been founded for this type of ministry. Soeur Bourgeoys used the example of Mary, the mother of Jesus traveling to Egypt, as an example of this expression of female piety and dedication to ministry in His name through travel.

Soeur Bourgeoys was founder of the Ville Marie school and companion of Jeanne Mance who had come before her, to nurse the sick. Both founding missionaries were highly spoken of among the people of the town. There were stories about how they had arranged the meeting of couples such as Pierre and Marie Louise in order to help them in their courtships. The old men spoke of when they were young and single, how they depended on the nuns to repair their clothes for them. Also respected among the people, was the way the missionary women considered their own needs as secondary to the needs of those they served. They often ate only leftovers from the table, if there were some.

Until the fire at the school in 1683, Marguerite Sommillard, who was a dear friend and the same age as Marie Louise, had passed 13 years in the service of the Daughters of the Congregation of Notre Dame. If she had not been killed in the fire, she would have 133

Champagne is a rich farming region between Lyons and the Swiss border Jeanne Le Ber’s house was later given to Marguerite Bourgeoy’s Mission. The Maison St-Gabriel in Pointe StCharles (neighbourhood of Montreal) remains in its place.

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become its new headmistress. Another took her place. Marie Barbier took the position when Soeur Bourgeoys died in 1700. She had a councillor named Marie-Catherine SaintAnge who was born in Ville-Marie in 1666. Hephzibah learned that the Amerindian woman, at the hospice, had been given the name Marie Barbe in honour of the new schoolmistress. The elder Marguerite Sommilard’s brother-in-law, the husband of her sister Sirette, was an imprimeur-libraire135 in Troyes, France. This common interest in the paper business was the first connection that bonded the two friends, Marguerite Sommillard and Marie Louise Gamonet. This was the reason the books fell into the hands of the latter after the former died. No colonist was allowed to print newspapers or documents, by order of the king. Therefore, all printed documents were considered priceless.

Marie Louise, who fondly remembered the now departed women said, “I was once told by Madame Sommillard that Marguerite Bourgeoys and Jeanne Mance had kept themselves locked in a small room of a ship commanded by Huguenots. On the trip from Quebec to La Rochelle, it was all they could do to avoid the horrible singing of the people on board who knew nothing but the psalms arranged in light French rhyme by Clémont Marot and Théodore de Bèze.” They preferred, instead, the beautiful deep buzzing sound of the chantres grégoriens.

When the Captain was not at the table with the men, Marie Louise would lay her Bible on it in the evening and read to her “little family.” Her favourite chapters were marked with bookmarks. Many of them were Hephzibah’s favourites as well.

The Genevan Bible was worn from many years of use. Inside the cover, the name

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a printer-bookseller

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“Claudine Gamonet was written.” One day, Hephzibah asked to whom the name belonged. It was a cousin living in Bouschet-de-Pranles, west of the Rhône River, who had sent it to her. Lately, the same cousin had written to say her son, Pierre Durand, was soon to be four years old. His father, Etienne Durand, wanted him to become a municipal registrar, like himself, and was preparing him for school attendance in the nearby town of Privas.136 Warham asked what a “registrar” was, and Marie Louise explained that it was the person who wrote in a book, registering that someone had paid their taxes. Then the word “taxes” had to be explained and after that the difference between “taxes” and “tithes.” Finally, she said, “A registrar is the secretary for the tax collector.” To which he replied, “What is a secretary?” and then, impatient from the constant questioning.

Pépo who sat next to him, slapped his ear. The ensuing fight lasted but a minute but it was enough to end the reading for the evening.

Hephzibah went to her bed and wrote her own name in the cover of the four precious books in her drawer. She was accustomed to writing after her inscription, “Mark well this name, for I shall shame whoever steals and takes the blame.” Instead, today she wrote, “God give me grace to read and remember the truths herein.”

A Recollet priest, chaplain of the Carignan-Salière Regiment,137 came to the door

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Fifteen years later, Claudine held an illicit assembly of reformed believers at a house in Pranles, France on the 29th of January 1719. For this she was imprisoned in Pont Saint-Esprit and had to leave her two children, Pierre (nineteen) and Marie, (four) with her husband, Etienne. Only caring for Marie at the time, Etienne was not imprisoned but when she was engaged and had turned fourteen, Marie was taken from him. A year later, when she was fifteen, Marie began her 38 year imprisonment in the women’s prison of the Tour de Constance in the South of France from where she wrote letters to high placed officials about the lack of freedom of conscience to believe and practice as Christians, holding to the teachings of the Scriptures. Her letters are found at the Sorbonne in France. She is known to have scratched into the stone floor of the prison the word “resist”. Her brother, Pierre Durand, became a preacher and teacher of the Christian faith. For this he was imprisoned in Beauregard and at Fort Brescou. Antoine Court, from Switzerland said of Pierre, ‘His death ignited zeal’. The Durand’s house can still be visited in the Boutières region of the Rhône Valley.

137 The French Generals for whom this regiment was named.

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in the morning of the next Saturday. He said he was instructed to give lessons to the children of the house, once a week, and that he would help Hephzibah send a letter to her father. Marie Louise had some doubts about this plan, suspecting that the girl was being perceived as more and more dangerous, but she could say nothing to the priest to turn him away. He also had arranged for Warham to be sent to visit his father at Chateau Richer.

The opportunity to learn, pleased Hephzibah, and she felt comfortable about taking the lessons with Pépo, even though she vowed nobly that she would remember her former catechism and see if what the priest taught was from the Bible. She was also happy to be given permission to write to her father. Because he was well informed, she also took the liberty of asking the priest what progress was being made in the battles between the English and the French. He told her not to worry. “The French are now allied with the Iroquois nations and your Englishers will find their place on the coast.

The vast territories of the French make it possible for North America to belong, almost in its entirety, to the King of France, my dear.” He was right and King Louis was making an important gain of power in Europe because his grandson Philip had, four years earlier, become the successor of the throne of Spain. England was throwing herself against him along with his allies.

Several weeks of lessons were assimilated and then in mid-September 1704, the dreaded day came for Hephzibah to separate from Warham.

The captain, having been persuaded by the Sulpicians to do so, had Warham put on a boat at the “Quaie des Barques” and sent him off with his brother Samuel to Chateau Richer. They were accompanied by two indigenous men and a priest. At the wharf, Hephzibah had only a moment to tearfully embrace the young captive and to greet the

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older boy. She told Samuel of her lessons with the Recollet. “I will leave you these letters then, Hephzibah, because they will keep you from being deceived in your vulnerable innocence.

You have been cut off from warnings and encouragements;

teachings of a pastor, and you will see that your mind must not play tricks on you, like my own sometimes wants to do.” He was about to hand her the letters when an oarsman turned from getting into the canoe and took the papers from Samuel to see what they were.

When he saw they were old letters, whose wax seals had already been broken, he handed them over to her. Hephzibah put them between her bodice and her apron to read later.

“Thank you, Samuel. I would like to speak to you more often but it would be enough to read these. Are they from your father or from Stephen?”

“They are from my father, and I part from them with great difficulty. But their benefit to me is secure and I hope they will be of equal encouragement to you.” He kissed her hand and Warham gave her another squeeze around the legs. She lifted him up.

“Take care of Samuel, Warham, and greet your father for me. I will see if I can get news to you, but if you do not hear from us, remember always to pray.” She put him down again.

“I have prayers for you, Hephie, and for Pépo,” he said solemnly. “And for you, Ti Ti,” he said as he bent down to the dog, so it could lick his face. He had difficulty pronouncing ‘Tiria’, the dog’s name.

He gazed at them while walking backwards

towards the canoe, wiping his nose, as he had started to cry. Then he remembered the

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excitement of being with his big brother once again. Samuel lifted him into the boat and sat him near the bow. They were heavily loaded, but the canoe balanced well in the water as the foursome headed out into the river.

Hephzibah waved and took a few moments to explore the landscape with her reddened eyes. The foliage on both banks was full and green and the water glistened with diamond pathways as the sun reflected upon it between Ste. Helen’s Island and the north shore of the St Lawrence.

Some children cut cord grass to be used for insulating the

roofs, the floors and the walls of their houses. Several eel fishermen were loading their nets into their boats.

Children were also catching the various birds that nested near the fishing grounds.

They dragged them home in nets to their mother’s soup pot. Many types of fowl frequented the beaches. Hephzibah had learned some of their names. There were the small alouettes and chardonnerets, the perdrix, faisans and tourtes. Young men were using poles to pull them out of the trees. The carrier pigeons were so beautiful with shiny blue and green necks like the mallards.

Forgetting her lonely mood, she watched to see if she might catch an unsuspecting bird. Then with a sudden calculated lunge, she managed to grab a pheasant, in a large gathering where they were feeding on spilled grain. Holding it by the back of the neck, she clutched her apron with her other hand and wrapped the cloth tightly around his head before it could claw or snap at her. The struggle was worth the reward of praise the household would give her later. When she herself later plucked it, she could save the feathers and decorate the inside of her bed curtain. Once she had subdued the bird, she sat on the riverbank to face the water again.

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She looked to see if John Williams boys had seen her adventure, but they were far away near the islands by now. The dog trailed behind her, sniffing the bird, and barking as she walked back to the Côté’s house.

She went across the marketplace, now empty because it was a Monday. The presence of a large machine, used to execute condemned criminals, stood in her way.

She stared at its mechanism, ready to pull apart the limbs of its victim, in its entanglement. She had not seen an execution. “Only a massacre,” she sighed, and hurried to pass by.

When she had passed through the gates and neared the house, she stopped in the garden to show the now-suffocated pheasant to Pépo and to tell him, since he had not been given permission to accompany her and the dog to the riverbank, how Warham had been received and treated by those who were taking him to his father.

“Pépo, I think he will miss you,” she said sorrowfully. He will miss the dog also, he told me, and he shed many tears as he floated away.

But he had his brother to

comfort him.”

Once she was in the kitchen, she set out a bowl of gargane beans that were bought and shipped to the colony from southern French plantations. She would shell them so as not to be idle as she read Samuel’s letters that she placed before her on the table. Some of the paper had come from the papeterie, she remarked by the watermark embossed in it. There was an order of calendar dates, several weeks apart, written on the tops of the three letters.

The first letter explained that Samuel’s father had discovered that he would not be able to return to New England until the prisoner, a French pirate, Captain Battifs was

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returned to the Canadians. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was holding him in Boston, after having taken him prisoner at Port Royal during the east coast attack. Reverend Williams spoke of how dearly he wanted to bring his children to him and that it grieved him to see his family separated while others who were taken captive had been able to stay together.

The second letter appealed to Samuel to not let the present distress cause his confidence in God to waver and that he should remember to read a portion of Scripture every day as a comfort. This would keep him from temptation. It was often said to the pastor, that he would be kept in rags until he abjured his faith and converted to the Catholics. Then, he would be given decent clothing. He told Samuel that he would rather have ragged apparel than a ragged conscience, but that a wealthy man from Boston had nonetheless sent him some fresh garments. Hephzibah pitied the pastor’s poverty while she went to parades in a pretty gown. He encouraged Samuel to write. Reverend Williams said that it was reported to him that a whip had been used on Samuel, that he spent up to one hour on his knees per day and that 4 of the older boys had forced him to go to the mass. The threat to send him back to the Abenaki if he did not cross himself was reported by another of the captives who had been at the school. Many Scriptures were quoted in the letter to comfort him and to strengthen his inner self. This news about Samuel’s tortures was disturbing to Hephzibah who worried about the safety of both boys now that they were heading down river to Quebec. Would Warham be tortured?

It was a trip of 254 kilometers138 by land, which would take 8 to10 days on foot.

By boat, it would take about half that time, depending on the strength of the crew or the

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158 miles

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number of saults and portages over banks and beaches that could impede the journey.

In the third letter, there was a discussion of the works of the Reverend John Bunyan, born a tinker’s son in Bedford, England.

The characters portrayed in the

allegory published under the title: The Pilgrim’s Progress: From This World to That Which is to Come, Delivered Under the Similitude of a Dream, were mentioned to impress upon Samuel the dangerous journey upon which he had embarked if he truly desired to go to the Celestial City. “Who knows if we are not set apart to lead the way for many others in this foreign realm?” the pastor told his son.

Hephzibah had already seen the story by the ‘Nonconformist’ pastor named John Bunyan in her parents’ library. She let her mind imagine the relationship of her present circumstances to that of the people of the allegory. Who could be the man called, ‘Christian’? Why, Papa, of course! Mother must be ‘Faithful’ because she died bravely and Warham, Pépo, and I must be the children of ‘Christiana’ who is, of course...Marie Louise? Reverend Williams is ‘Mister Valiant -for-Truth’. She paused to think. There must be a soldier from Sir Cromwell’s army.

She tried to think of a “Greatheart - who labours night and day to be a pilgrim,” when a knock came at the door. Fearing whom it might be, she timidly opened the door.

Madame Blaise des Bergère and her husband entered the room.

“Entrez Madame! Entrez Monsieur!” she said in French. There came upon her a sinking feeling that she would not be as good a hostess as Marie Louise.

“In quiet and confidence is your strength,” the prophet Isaiah told the children of Israel. “I will be quiet and confident,” Hephzibah told herself as she entertained the two guests, hoping not to be embarrassed or scolded, while she waited for Marie Louise to

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return from the hospital. She started to draw water from the pot on the stove. The Cryer unknowingly rescued her at this point. Jeanne-Cécile’s husband, a former commander of a regiment, went to find out what was being said, as he was hard of hearing. He took a large horn out of a sack to put in his ear. Jeanne-Cécile and Hephzibah followed him to the Place Royal and when they returned, they were reading a pamphlet and Marie Louise and Captain Côté were with them.

The pamphlet was printed on familiar paper and Hephzibah was proud that the king’s agents appreciated the work of Captain Côté’s paper factory. The faces of the adults were clouded with suspicion and worry, however, at the announcement, which they had just heard. King Louis, the Fourteenth, was sending notice that the number of beaver furs sent to him from the colony was already sufficient for the needs in Europe.

Hephzibah was unsure of what would come about, if the traders could not sell their furs.

She understood from the news that a final decision was made by the king. The Royal Treasury would pay only half the price for further deliveries of furs. What troubled the adults in the room was that there were far more canoes yet to arrive from the trading posts. There were many more pelts and goods that had already been exchanged for them, on trust that the goods would be reimbursed, and at full price. Everyone in Montréal had a bill to pay to somebody, when the traders set off. Now the economy of the colony was severely compromised because hundreds of thousands of pelts would be sold at half the cost.

Hephzibah remembered hearing of the taxing disputes in Boston. Some feared that there would be disrespect for Parliament’s decisions. The colonists, who had grown up on the continent, were opposed to following the prices set by the English government

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even though their parents were more respectful of them. Many of the younger folks like John Hawks and Thomas Brown were still loyal to England, she admitted, but they were sympathetic to those of American birth who saw the taxes as profiting the English navy or English soldiers on the battlefields of Europe. Why could the colonists’ hard-earned money not be used to make a better life in Plymouth or Boston instead of returning to the pockets of European Englishmen?

Hephzibah could not stop to decide which was more efficient - having a King to whom one forever said “Vive le Roi” or having a Congress that had the power to vote against Queen Anne’s wishes. The thoughts disappeared as she busied herself preparing supper for the visiting couple who would be returning soon to their land on Bonaventure Island north of Montréal on La Prairie River.

“Jacques was always much too busy with people and a little too chained to his drink to be much of a seigneur. His land still produces little for me,” complained JeanneCécile, “but I love the memories we have on our Island and I will be forever grateful to him for comforting the household on the Lord’s Day with the words of his psalm book.”

Captain Côté began to tell them all stories of Jacques Bizard, the lady’s former husband, Governor Frontenac’s, aide-de-camp.139 He had heard the stories from his fellow officers. Now, he wanted confirmation from the widow that they were true. None of them were. Monsieur des Bergères always held that the man was more popish than the Pope, but Marie Louise reminded him that it was to gain the appointment of Frontenac that Jacques Bizard had converted from being Reformed and Protestant. The group remained in the house, listening to the tales until after supper.

139

assistant and secretary of a senior officer, responsible for his transportation and public appearances.

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Today was Friday. Today and Saturday, every week, they were not permitted to eat meat in the colony, so Hephie and Pépo sat together eating their vegetable stew and bread. The evening bells of the chapels in the city rang.

“Pépo, when Charles Emmanuel returns from the trading post will he want to be served in the same way as Sieur and Dame Côté?” Hephzibah whispered.

“You will find more differences than you will like about him,” Pépo whispered back.

“What is he like?”

“He is not loud, but he pushes everyone out of his way.”

“Does he hate the English and the Dutch?”

“He does not like the soldiers of any army. He is a merchant and a woodsman.

He holds a gun to eat with.”

“Like a spoon?” Hephzibah giggled and waved her own pewter spoon around.

Hephzibah waited until her patrons’ eyes turned away from them and mumbled, “What happened to his mother, Pépo?”

“She died of The Pest in Troye.”

“Was he very old when she died?”

“He was young and M. Côté was away at war so the housekeeper took care of him.”

They finished the meal and cleaned up. The soldiers were coming again this evening to begin their cold weather custom of playing cards. The elderly couple left in their carriage just after the soldiers started arriving.

Hephzibah was increasingly nervous about the return of Charles Emmanuel. She

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was more nervous about meeting him than sitting at lessons with the Recollet chaplain.

“You must learn to master the French tongue,” the priest had told them on his second visit. She was delighted. “You will improve your knowledge of Latin, Pépo, and converse with Hephzibah.”

This would be fun! She could make up questions and slip in a word that Pépo would laugh at. Her first picture book back home in Deerfield was in Latin. It was authored by a man named John Amos and titled, The Visible World in Pictures. (Orbus Sensualium Pictus). How she remembered copying the letters out while her father taught the sounds to her! The world was so very big, she thought, as she looked at the pictures.

She and Pépo could use unsold paper left at the papeterie to write on. She had her own feather quill from the pheasant and she was able to get some ink made with linseed oil vegetable charcoal and tree resins. She also had the books from ‘La Maison de la Providence’ to help her with her grammar.

On a Monday, late in the afternoon, a man came through the barn door and deposited a large bag on the floor. He looked at Hephzibah, who was milking a cow, and asked in French, “And who might you be, milking my father’s cow? Has he sold the Côté house and returned to France? Has the King given him a seigneurie or did one of the LeMoyne family knight him and put him on one of the frigates?”

The startled girl stopped milking because her bucket was nearly full and she was staring at the very man she dreaded meeting.

“He is at the governor’s house, sir, and will be home after the evening drills at the Place d’Armes,” she replied. She set a full bucket of warm milk by the doorsill and searched for an empty one. Hephie preferred directing attention away from the first

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question of who she might be. She was never really sure how to introduce herself. It was so easy to make the mistake of calling herself a putain which means prostitute, instead of a Puritain, or another similar language mistake.

“Your tongue gives you away. Are you an English captive?”

Hephzibah did not answer, but having finished wiping the cow’s udders, lifted the two wooden pails, curtsied to the new stranger, and quickly went through the back door and inside to the dairy.

“Pépo, I think Charles Emmanuel has arrived,” she said when she came out of the dairy. Pépo was washing the fire screen and he didn’t seem to be too interested.

“Is he still alive then?” he shrugged.

“Should I go get the captain or should I get Madame?” Hephzibah asked.

“Neither, they will see him soon enough.”

Hephzibah went back to the barn and saw the floor covered with objects that had been pulled from the Voyageur’s bag beside which lay an ornately hand-decorated paddle. There were two iron pots. He unpacked some shirts that had been neatly wrapped in vermillion cloth and partially folded into a great coat. Beside the pots lay a gun, a short dagger, an axe and an assortment of smaller objects such as thread, needles, soap, lead musket balls, tobacco and string for making fishing nets.

“That is what is left,” he told Hephzibah. “The rest… several bundles… have all been traded,” The young man of about 22 years old sat nearby, leaning against a post, counting his pay in precious silver coins, received at Fort Rolland. He drank something from a bottle.

The life of a Voyageur was not interesting to Pépo, he had explained to Hephie

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one evening. That was because he was accustomed to the life of the high seas, she concluded, not life on the interior lakes and rivers. Hephie, however, was becoming quite curious about this assortment of instruments and gadgets that lay before her. Also, she was still concerned about her new acquaintance with Charles Emmanuel their owner. For this reason, she sat on the hay to watch him. He was delighted to have an audience, and one so interested.

“In order not to take too much place in the canoe, a man must not be taller than 1,70 meters140 nor weigh more than 63 kilograms,141” Captain Côté’s son said. “I have to have large shoulders and be strong in the arms and legs. I must tolerate the black flies, be jovial and love the simple life. Do you want to know my work conditions? I must paddle 16 to 18 hours a day. I get to regularly carry 2 or 3 bundles of trading goods, weighing as much as 40 kg142 each,” he boasted. “I have to go through icy water during overland hiking when we arrive at places called ‘sauts’ or ‘portages’ where canoes cannot pass safely. Sleep is allowed only five or six hours a night on the bare ground. Oh yes, I must also be a singer to keep the rhythm of paddling. When we stop, we eat two daily rations of pea, bean and corn mush.”

“What furs did you bring back, Sir?” Hephzibah asked, pretending to understand everything he had said. She had to watch people’s lips and study their accents before catching the words completely. She nevertheless had a good idea of what he described.

Charles Emmanuel looked up and waved his hand to say he was counting and would she wait. He finished and answered.

140

5ft.6 inches.

141

139 pounds

142

88 pounds

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“Mostly beaver... but we took moose, raccoon, otter, fox and even wild cat furs.

No walrus or deer or black bear this time. They were already taken.”

Charles Emmanuel’s head was covered with a dark thick beard and long unruly hair, which showed from under a felt cap. He was dressed in a loose collarless shirt that was tied with a belt at the waist and hung over his breeches. He reached over to his bag and pulled out a pipe. Instead of lighting it, he just sucked it while he worked with his hands. Hephzibah did not know what else to say and he looked so tired she did not think he wanted to talk. But he was not tired. Pépo came out and Charles Emmanuel grabbed him by the arm and made the boy pull him up. Then he stuffed the pipe into the boy’s mouth and turned him around in a circle. Pépo tried to get away and spit the pipe out but the man held on, grabbed the pipe before it fell and danced around the barn with him.

“Well, how are you Pépo? I have some new stories for you. What do you have to tell me? Is this your new wife?” He looked at Hephzibah, who showed a sudden dismay at being teased. “Do you have a collection of them hanging in the closet upstairs like Barbe Bleu?”

Hephie did not think the transient adventurer was going to be pleasant company and decided to avoid the same treatment. She scurried back into the house. She knew the story of Barbe Bleu. He was a French baron who had killed all his wives for disobeying him. Each one had been curious and had opened an upstairs, locked closet door, where he had previously chained former dead spouses to the wall. She tried to think of what was in the Coté’s upstairs closet to bring her back to more pleasant thoughts. She reassured herself …seeds and a barrel of vinegar, some medicines, the spindle for lace-making (when it was not in use) and smoked ham, hanging from the ceiling.

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If Charles Emmanuel had many stories to tell, he was not telling them yet. Marie Louise and Captain Côté were glad to have him safely back but they were reluctant to wait on him or to get Pépo or Hephzibah to do so. He seemed to manage without them all. He was often in his room the next few days and went out only in the evening. He would return after the soldiers had left the house and after Pépo had fallen asleep in front of the fire. The upstairs bedroom where Warham had slept was now off limits to everyone.

The work of salting fish and smoking meat went on for another week and while Hephie was in the yard. She tended the large fire pit above which some flax had been laid to dry. Soon, she opened her eyes wide in amazement. She saw Warham and Samuel enter Place Royal with the priest who had taken them to their father at Chateau Richer, northeast of the town of Quebec. She stopped work and went to see why they had returned so soon. It had been only three weeks since their departure! She was very glad to see them. They both kissed her hand and she curtsied to them. She curtsied a second time to the priest and began to speak to them in French even though all three of the New Englanders, not conversing in their mother tongue, spoke with stilted accents. “Have you been well?” she asked.

Samuel began to explain their unexpected return.

“We have been turned back by traders who feared for our lives. Apparently, there is a Frenchman who, last year in revenge for having been taken hostage to them, strangled two Iroquois women and took the scalps of eight Iroquois men while they were having a drinking party with him during a hunting trip. Do you remember? He paraded them on a pole here in Montréal. Joseph Dubocq is his name.” Hephzibah said she was

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not in Ville Marie at the time, but at the River of the Iroquois. She had been afraid when this happened.

A white man scalping the Amerindians was only rarely heard of.

Suddenly she was beginning to remember things that happened before she was thrown in the river.

“Their Iroquois clan is avenging them and it is feared that they are searching the canoes that pass. They are taking all goods that they find,” Samuel explained slowly and with many hand gestures. Hephzibah understood that the traders were sending back anyone who might be in danger. He added that he had news that his father was with a parish priest named Gaultier since no one could keep him from visiting the captives, when he was among them.

“Mon père est avec le curé, Guillaume Gaultier.”

An Indian of about Samuel’s age, but much taller, was with the newly arriving group. “This is Kahonhes Chagnan, an Abinakis who was given to us to take to the seminary.” Samuel said, as he introduced the young man. He was very serious and yet looked somewhat bewildered, as he searched the landscape of the settlement. The two boys seemed to have befriended each other, Hephzibah remarked. There were 1500 allied First Nations peoples living between Montreal and Quebec. That represented more than the 1300 inhabitants of Ville Marie.

Hephzibah again curtsied to the aboriginal, and then she turned to face the missionary. The young priest it seemed, had been sent to the colony a few years before.

He also seemed to show sympathy for those who had been captured. She remembered his face from the departure several weeks before. It was he who had been with the oarsman, the one who nearly took Samuel’s letters from him.

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“There is no reason to be alarmed, children,” said the priest. “We will make the trip in the spring. I was carrying some important items, but they can wait, and your father will still be there if you are not all ransomed by people from Boston.” Then he gave them an impromptu history lesson.

“Three years ago, here in front of our fortified Ville Marie, this river bank was covered with tents of delegates from the tribes and clans of our royal Indian subjects. I had just arrived for Louis-Hector de Callières had written for me to come. Louis-Hector de Callières, governor of Montreal began to govern in 1684. He lived near here, with his family, as you know.143 He was a good diplomat,” the priest told them. “He gathered the Iroquois Five-Nations to Montreal for a conference in September of 1700. All being in agreement, the following year, they decided to call the native tribes together, in order to sign a global peace treaty. On July 25th, the Governor Callières presided over the meeting with many translators from among the officers. The officers who have lived with aboriginal wives were to meet here, and missionaries who have lived among the tribes peoples - Paul le Moyne, Jean Nicolet, Nicola Marsolet, the Jesuit, and Father Bryas.

Thirty-eight tribes participated with over 1,300 delegates from the territory of New France. The governor agreed to settle their disputes between each other. I was but a scribe to record the events. I know you have nothing to fear. Once the tribes have made peace with each other, there will be less danger.”

“Come! Kahonhes Chagnan, we will go to the Governor right away and I will meet you at the Captain Côté’s house, Samuel Williams,” the priest said. The two turned and walked through the square to the east side and disappeared between the houses on St-

143

The Pointe à Callière Museum of Archeology in Montréal was built on this site. (See the 1705 map of Ville Marie)

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Paul’s Street.

Samuel, Hephzibah and Warham began again to speak to each other in English.

Something seemed wrong with Samuel, however. They walked to the Côté house where Warham was assigned once again to the service of Marie Louise, even though she was unsure where she was going to put him. “My step-son has returned,” she told Samuel, “He will have to sleep beside the fire with Pépo. Hephzibah must give him her bed in the early evening until visitors leave and she needs the bed for herself.” She called to Hephzibah to return to tending to the fire for it was getting low. Then she went back into the house, not stopping to inquire of Samuel what might be the cause of their return.

Warham was miserably thirsty and he went to get a drink of milk from a bucket outside the Côté’s stable.

When Warham let his hand go, as he ran to get the drink, Samuel followed Hephzibah back to the drying flax. He asked her in a sullen voice if she had read the letters. She said yes and spoke of her prayers for his father. She told him that she had seen her own father.

“You thought they might be of instruction to me and they have been, Samuel. I am considering the dangers of which your father warns and I am distressed that you have had to bear much cruelty and whippings.” Then Samuel became inexplicably unpleasant.

“You must warn your father, Hephie. I heard a missionary say, “Maarten Block might be severely punished if he continues to refuse to go to the mass.”

“What do you think I should do, Samuel?” she asked, desperately “I have already gone to the mass myself, many times, but I have not kneeled before the priests nor kissed any statues or crosses.”

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“I hope you will gain more peace, Azubah!” he said sharply.

Hephzibah was humiliated by this name and she held her head down. Then she grew angry. ‘Azu-bah’ was the word that meant the opposite of Hephzi-bah. It meant, “to be forsaken.” In Deerfield, Samuel once called her this, when he was exasperated with her.

“Must you too be harsh with me? I am doing as my father told me. Do I care to think what will surely happen to him if he does something to displease his enemies so that we may never be together again? What more can we do?”

“I can only tell you to pray, Hephie,” he sighed, “and to give the matter to God, for I cannot be a confessor for you. That you now have a disturbed conscience is a disappointment to me. I am exhausted, frustrated, and I fear this place, Hephie,” he admitted, trying to get her to understand. Instead, she walked away into the house, angry at him.

The aboriginal companion had been registered with the Governor and when the priest came to take them to the seminary Samuel made some departing comments to Hephzibah. “I realize your situation is precarious also, but I am unable to help. I have protective and domineering reactions to your compromises, Hephie.”

“I am not forsaken! Samuel Williams.” she told him frankly in English. Then she stiffened, curtsied to the priest and the Indian and stomped back towards the outdoor fire.

Her mind quickly turned to other thoughts as she watched them leave. Her manners were being tested. Happily, she remembered that she had Warham back with her and her mood quickly changed.

Warham had gained much fluency in French since the captivity, and he spoke

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with no accent, as is common with children, younger than twelve years of age. Their facial muscles are not yet formed into the set positions that accommodate their mother tongue.

In previous days, Warham had been very distressed when the neighbour’s boy came over to tell him a younger sister had died while ill. The neighbour cried when Warham did not understand him. After that, Warham decided to listen carefully so he would not make people cry. This is what motivated him to try hard to listen.

He helped Hephzibah put more flax on the poles above the fire, although he was too short for laying them on the frame. Hephzibah worked quickly and talked to herself about the conflict that had just taken place with Samuel. She still had to do the retting, threshing, roping and combing on these sheaves of flax. It meant days of hard pounding.

Angry tears warmed her eyes and she brushed them away. She had a hard enough time keeping peace with her enemies but it would not be wise to be at war with her friends.

She thought hard about her frustration. She practiced a hundred responses to this flaming arrow from Satan, which she still blamed on Samuel. She looked at Warham beside her and out of remorse for ignoring him, she started to sword fight with him again.

He laughed and picked up a stick. As if increasing his ferociousness, he suddenly burst out a saying he had heard his father say at one time, “But our Defender is much too strong for the Devil and the Devil finds Christ hard for him!” he shouted, at the same time making his most horrible grimace.

Peace flooded her stiff body suddenly. “Yes, Warham,” she whispered weakly as if wounded and about to die. Then in a surprise rebuttal, she dove at him with a shout,

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“and my Redeemer lives and He will have the last word on this earth!144 Take that!”

The boy squealed with pretended fright.

“Warham, tell me about your trip on the river,” Hephzibah said out of breath.

They sat down on an old tree stump. She put her arm around him.

“Do you know what I missed most from you?” she asked. “It was having pieces of straw sent down through the ceiling hole from your room upstairs. I kept looking for them and they never came.”

“Hephie, I wanted to go to Papa,” he said, sucking his thumb.

She comforted him, saying, “The wait will soon be over, Warham, you will see.”

They went inside. With carded wool, soap and water, they helped Marie Louise make felt. In an hour she had a piece of firm thick opaque felt with which to make socks for her husband. Warham had a chance to explain to her the impending dangers that had brought them back to Ville Marie. She said it did not surprise her.

The captain arrived later with some brimbale traps, which operated with a lever.

He wanted to give them to Pépo for capturing some small animals with. The traps were set later that week and the boy visited them with Warham several times before the first snow.

Remarkably, Warham was able to find some companionship in Charles Emmanuel. The boy captive was still in need to find his place among the new family that had replaced his own. It could be said that the seasonal fur trader was adjusting to the home setting with more unease than the little boy, however.

The winter arrived with its storms and fevers and frostbite and sore throats. The

144

from Job 19.25

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fall provided bark and roots, leaves and wild plants. In winter, sumac berries, dogwood, yarrow, thyme, and basil were gathered for medicines. Charles Emmanuel knew all the uses of these and became the family physician, ordering this and that remedy. Maple syrup was for bronchitis, and bear grease, mixed with wild angelica plants, was used as an ointment.

Pépo and Hephzibah collected some of the bark until Captain Côté

intervened and said, “They are under my orders not yours, Charles Emmanuel Côté!”

Charles spent most of his time, however, making an elm bark canoe in the barn with one of his fur-trading companions. Michel Accault, an older voyageur, had gone out on his own as a coureur de bois145 before it became illegal not to sign up under a legitimate fur contractor.

Disputes between father and son began to interrupt the former household’s calm.

Sometimes, they would get so violent; Hephzibah would escape upstairs to her patron’s bedroom. If someone came to the door, she would pretend to be making lace with the bobbins and needles on Marie Louise’s lace making cushion.

“You are unable to leave behind your aristocratic flattery, aren’t you?” In this manner, the younger man would verbally abuse the older.

“You flatter only yourself,” said the seasoned sailor.

The captain had a number of replies, which focused mostly on the loose life his son was living. The Governor was about to place a fine on the captain for having an unmarried son who had, by one year, already passed the limits of the law that said he should be married and be colonizing Ville Marie. Marriage was for the wellbeing of the Royal Colony. Strong arms were needed to plant and harvest, to build residences and

145

an early name for the free-lance fur traders

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storehouses. The hope was that young husbands and fathers would pull their weight and build a future for their families. The law was not unfair. It was just new. Men from France were forbidden to return and were forced to stay and build the colony. Likewise, the desire to leave and go west must also be regulated for the good of the population. The young Charles Emmanuel would lose his right to join a brigade next spring, if he was not married. It weighed on him as much as on his father. The tension was real. Charles Emmanuel might have left behind an aboriginal wife on the trail. She might have children that only she would care for. The captain only needed to ask him, but Charles Emmanuel was withholding information to make his father’s position weaker.

Hephzibah found the new arrangements for keeping Warham tiring. She must first remove the mattresses for him and then Pépo put the four-year-old to bed in her sleeping bunk. It was a temporary arrangement she reminded herself. When the evening was through, and the soldiers were gone, or sometimes when Michel and his wife came to visit Charles Emmanuel and they were gone, she would finally be able to lead sleepy Warham to the mattress in front of the fire and then go to bed herself.

Sometimes when it was not too cold, she stayed on a chair in the dairy and read a book, or Marie Louise would let her sit with her by the fire in her bedroom. This was where she learned to make lace from silky flax fibers. The men usually needed her service and instead of running up and down the stairs, she preferred to remain below near the fireplace. Besides, Marie Louise presently had only one set of bobbins. Most often, she was only able to observe the laborious process. Someday, she would also like to try spinning the flax.

One evening, the two talked together about Warham, and Marie Louise asked

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Hephzibah to teach her the prayer she said to him at night, from the Primer. “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord My soul to take.146” Although diligent, the eager woman was hopelessly unable to say the rhyme, but Hephzibah was not unkind to her.

Marie Louise did not go to the hospices these days because, in protest against the economic upheaval due to the surplus of furs, some medical workers were on strike against the Company of One Hundred Associates. She also felt the strain at the papeterie because of the unsold paper no one could now afford to buy.

With the money Charles Emmanuel made, there were more interesting cards to play in the evening, some with the new Intendant’s signature on them. He was careful, however, to use his hard-earned silver money to pay the neighbour children for the elm bark they collected. The resin he could purchase at the market. He brought back wild cat pelts one day and a bright coloured Assumption belt to trade, the kind Hephzibah saw most of the married men in Montreal wearing. For these, he had traded some liquor. The captain took eight of the pelts to the Jeanne Mance hospice to pay for the fuzzy blanket that Hephzibah still used. He could have traded them for 32 wood handled knives, or, with more pelts, a white wool blanket. Hephzibah was grateful for the purchase, as she had a warm covering for the freezing nights as well as warmth from the fire in an ember iron at her feet.

To help out his father, Charles Emmanuel cleaned the tools in the barn and to keep Marie Louise from damaging the skin on her hands, he dyed her felt and linen fabrics. Hephzibah watched him one day in December.

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The author was Benjamin Harris.

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“This is not calamanco, the Flemish wool my father is used to, but it will have to do,” he said as he plunged the felt into the boiling kettle of water and onionskins. “This is made of calamanco and silk,” he said. He pointed to the arrow-patterned sash hanging on a hook. Maybe he would like a green wig! The idea had just come to him and he was delighted with it.

“No, you must not be serious,” Hephzibah said, horrified.

“Have you ever woven a pair of snowshoes out of moose sinew, Éphie?” he asked, changing the subject from the fineries of Europe to the more practical items of New France.

“No,” said Hephzibah, “but I saw our captors make them on my voyage here last year, and my father once made a pair. They cut the underskin, after stripping off the fur from the moose - or sometimes they use a cariboo or an elk. Then they soak the hide in a mixture of water and lime powder.”

Charles Emmanuel interrupted her. “The fur comes off when they scrape it, but they have to take the fur with the skin when they strip it, do they not?”

“Oh, yes, I had forgotten.”

“If there is no lime, you can use ashes.”

“Oh,” she said, thinking about what came next in the process. “Afterwards, they set about making the frame made of wood-ash, I believe.”

“You can also use cherry wood.”

“Oh,” Hephzibah said once more. “They soak the hide in water and...”

“Hot water.”

“Yes, hot water - to make it more pliable. That is why they beat the skin on a hard

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bowl to shape it?

“Now Charles Emmanuel was saying, “Oh” and “Yes.” “The last step is to cut the hide into long strips and to braid it into the frame to form a pattern,” Hephzibah finished the procedure thinking this was the last word.

“A hexagonal pattern.”

“It is here in New France that I see this pattern used but we use another in New England,” she replied in rebuttal.

Sensing some rivalry in her tone, Charles Emmanuel said, “Ah! But you have forgotten one thing - they must be hung to dry.”

With this last comment, he took out the green felt socks he was dying, squeezed them and hung them over a board to dry near the fire. Hephzibah ceded the last word and went into the dairy.

That evening, after the celebration of St. Martin, Charles Emmanuel entertained Michel and his wife. The native woman had a Christian name, although she was the daughter of a Kaskaskia chief and had been brought from the West. They called her Marie and her second name was Rouensa, probably inspired by the French city of Rouen.

Michel had sold furs to English traders before he had been attached to a commissioned brigade, so he spoke some English to Hephzibah. She hardly understood him but smiled and helped him pronounce some expressions.

Some officers came later and Charles Emmanuel began to tell them a story, as they seated themselves to play cards. He had had enough of the incessant “Knight of the Sea” stories, told by one of the officers.147 So Charles Emmanuel decided tonight to

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Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville, having traveled to the Caribbean Sea and the Hudson Bay, was called the Knight of the Sea.

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counter them with his own boastful “I have suffered more than the next man” stories. He told the story of the Imaginative Hunt, based on woodsmen’s fears of hunger and exhaustion, of strange noises in the night and of unpredictable actions of the devil.

“The devil came to a grumbling band of voyageurs,” he began, as he lit his pipe.

“It was late November and these poor rapscallions had not eaten anything they could taste in thirty days. Candles and moccasins were their diet, and they walked twenty-two hours a day which left them no time to hunt,” Charles Emmanuel exaggerated.

Some

complaints and groans came from the soldiers who were not going to be outdone.

He continued in spite of them. “Their canoe had capsized in some cascade and they sat in a pine grove late one night. The devil came and sat there beside them and bargained with them. These being ruffian traders, they put a hard task before him until finally they settled with him. He would fly them in a canot de maître, 11 meters (36 feet) in length over Great Lakes, and the deadly rapids of the Outaouais River, until they were over their homes on the St Lawrence River. There was one condition, however. These fur traders laughed when they heard it,” Charles explained. “Here they were, between hawk and bustard, and the devil himself was coming to them like an angel. This was his deal: Their souls would be his, if they spoke when they flew over their village on the rescue flight he proposed to them.”

Charles Emmanuel had everyone’s attention now and he leaned back in his chair.

“Well, thinking this was as easy as sitting in a pine forest, they got into his barque and the canoe sailed home in the sky, over the fresh winter snow. The valleys and the hills passed below them and they could see the trails of the portages. They thought of their children and their wives waiting for them, probably thinking they were dead. Of course,

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not one single voyageur could keep from calling out, ‘There it is!’ when he saw his village. The devil, satisfied with their impulsive outcries, swooped in for his due.” 148 The company around the table roared with laughter and then there was a new pirating story to tell.

The captain also had a story. A friend’s father had penned it. This friend was forced to become a soldier after having killed his neighbour during a quarrel. Pierre Darmoncour, who someone had told the captain had died with honour four years earlier on the French battlefields. Pierre had once told the captain this story. Darmoncour’s father, Charles Perrault, the same author who had penned Barbe Bleu, wrote it.149 Pierre’s father was a lawyer, who preferred the life of a writer. He had translated this story from that of an Italian, Giamattista Basile.

With such an introduction everyone listened intently. “A girl, who was going to visit her sick grandmother in a neighbouring village, had to pass through a forest where a wolf lived. After meeting the wolf and telling him where she was going, this girl, dressed in scarlet pellerin cape,150 arrived at the grandmother’s home to find the dear old lady already eaten by the wolf. The wolf she saw was dressed up as the grandmother. The wolf ate the girl.” The captain ended the story by saying, “Both Grandmother and Granddaughter were rescued out of the wolf by a passing woodsman.”

Hephzibah recognized the Mother Goose collection of stories from which this came.151 It had already made its way into England and the American Colonies. Was the captain a poor story teller, this version was so short, or was he simply trying not to be 148

This Quebec folktale is called La Chasse Galerie

149

Bluebeard

150

Pilgrim capes made of wool felt, were ankle length, with large hoods

151

The same author wrote such stories as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty

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outdone by his son in front of others?

Others around the table had more live experiences to tell. These stories, received more attention the more they were exaggerated. One was of a pirate, who, it was discovered, was a young woman. The Maritime Commissioner deported her, once the fraud was discovered at Quebec.

Of all the stories, the one about the flying Voyageurs, stayed in Hephzibah’s mind the longest. It followed her wherever she went for the next few days. She was in a canoe flying over Deerfield, and then she was telling the devil that he could take her home. She promised to remain mute above it. The more she thought of it, however, the more she despaired. There was no longer a home there to call out to. She fell to pitying her situation and gave herself up as a forsaken ‘Azubah’.

Before the economic distress, there was much light-heartedness among the people, but since the news of the surplus, faces showed the effects of worry. Some were making plans to return to France in the spring. Ships that had left the French ports in February of the previous year would be coming up the coasts from the Caribbean by the middle of June. Some of those planning to board, were clergy who were unable to convince their parishioners to pay the tithes, so needed for their missionary support.

They would return to convince the parishioners of the French churches to give donations to help the colonists.

On December 3rd there was a celebration of Saint François Xavier. Christmas started December 6th with the feast of Saint Nicolas of Myra152, the patron saint of children. Then came December 25th the birth decided upon by an early church patriarch.

152

Dutch settlers in New York state celebrated the day of Sinterklaas (Sint Nikolaas) on December 6th.

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Christmas ended on ‘the twelfth night’ after the birth or Epiphany.153 Whatever could be brought forth by way of food and drink for the festival was shared from house to house, and in the cabarets.154 In the end, the merriment distracted everyone.

153

The coming of the wisemen to visit the new Saviour, took place later than his birth, by as much as two years, but is commonly celebrated as Epiphany on January 6th a twelfth night from Dec.25th. In 320 AD, Pope Julius I specified the 25th of December as the official date of the birth of Jesus Christ. That Jesus was born as a spring lamb (in March) is more historically accurate and consistent with the plan of God, as described in the Revelation of John, chapter 5.

154 Bars or entertainment establishments in Ville Marie.

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Synopsis: Chapter four Hephzibah takes her duties with the Côtés seriously. She has time to observe and learn.

Her language abilities improve. Her understanding of the people around her makes her more useful, but also more dangerously free. She begins Latin lessons, offered by a Recollet chaplain who also wishes to monitor the correspondence between her and her father. He is sent to keep some control over the influence on her by Marie Louise who is from the ‘so-called reformed religion.’

Samuel Williams shares with Hephie some

disturbing, but helpful, letters from his father. There is a grievance strike in Montreal because of the economic loss suffered by an oversupply of furs. Hephzibah asks Pépo about Charles Emmanuel, who later returns from a fur trading expedition in the northwest. The life of a Voyageur is described. Stories fill the winter evenings along with the card playing. Soldiers are now mixed with fur trading friends of Charles.

Warham and Samuel, after unsuccessfully reaching Quebec City, return. Both boys are disappointed for not seeing their father. Samuel is annoyed by Hephzibah’s compromises of conscience. He calls her ‘Azubah’ - forsaken. The joy of having confidence in God and the returned Warham keep her from despair. The days pass preparing for winter and getting used to Charles Emmanuel’s arguments with his father (the European aristocracy against the Canadian woodsman-explorer). Hephzibah also learns lace making, dying of felt and how to make snowshoes. Christmas comes to Montreal. This distraction compensates for the uneasiness about the economic downturn.

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illustration: First Nations peoples - groups of women, men and children

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CHAPTER FIVE: Garego, Sarego, Arego

“Kateri Tekakwitha was her name, and Hephzibah, you probably resemble her,” Charles Emmanuel shouted over the noise as he paddled his new canoe towards the SaintFrancis-Xavier Mission. “Rouensa tells me she was called the Lily of the Mohawks,” Michel shouted back to Charles, from the middle of the canoe.

The Jesuit mission was not far from the Village of the Magdalene’s Prayer155, both opposite Ville Marie to the south. The troublesome winter was over. Now the intrepid fur transporter could test his vessel and take passengers onto the St-Lawrence River.

Warham, it was decided by the clergy, was not going to be permitted to make the promised journey with his brother, Samuel, who was traveling that day, in the opposite direction, eastward downstream towards the Atlantic Ocean.

Instead, Warham was

seated on the floor of Charles Emmanuel’s new canoe, between the two women, Hephzibah and Madame Côté. They were moving upstream. The men had placed him well away from the muskets that everyone who left the city must carry with them.

It was spring 1705. Hephzibah and Marie Louise were in the bow. Monsieur Côté planned to transport his wife and the children to the French Mission establishment himself but he was delayed for a week by road repairs for which he was needed as chief engineer. This was one of his responsibilities. When he knew Michel and Emmanuel wanted to take them, he had insisted the Ville Marie matron should wear her best wig and Hephzibah should wear her best dress. They heeded his advice.

155

La Prierie de la Magdalène (Kentaka) or La Prairie, Qc. in Montérégie.

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Michel and Charles Emmanuel, in the center and stern, were paddling, unaffected, until the mid-stream current suddenly assaulted them. With their shoulders high, they attacked the water and their decorated paddles plunged in and out. The rapids were now to the right of them and near the north shore. They would avoid them, although they were accustomed to currents much stronger.

Miss Kateri, as Michel called her was born of a father belonging to the Agniers156 and an Algonquin mother. All knew of her persistent attendance at the church. She died 20 years before, a convert to Jesus.

“The people of the flint157still talk about ‘the girl with the chapel inside of her’ who begged to be baptized into the Christian Church and who would have nothing to do with marriage.” He lifted his paddle with both elbows.

“She practiced all Christian virtues to an heroic degree,” Charles Emmanuel shouted, as he plunged his arms back into the water to emphasize the word, heroic. It does not suit bachelors, like me.

“Katari might have made a good wife for you, Charles, if she had not vowed to consecrate herself in devotion to God. She favoured instead the young woman who bore the Last Prophet,” Michel called back to him. His tone was half mocking, half sincere.

He was trying to make sense of the Agnier girl’s love for Mary, the mother of Jesus, comparing it to that of the Reformed Catholics like Madame des Bergères, Marie Louise and the New Englander, Hephzibah. They seemed to have deep within them a total

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the name Kanien’ Keha:ka is the proper name for a Mohawk (name used by the English) or Agniers (name used by the French). It means People of the Flint.

157 worship services are held to this day at the Francois Xavier Mission church in the Village of Kahnawake across from Lachine, Quebec. The building is next to a shrine, dedicated to Kateri Tekakwitha, known as, The Lily of the Mohawks, she was beatified (formally blessed) by John Paul II in 1980. Some hope she will be declared a saint.

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commitment to the Spirit of the God-man, Jesus, whom they said they cherished more than Our Lady Mary, Notre Dame.

“But I have our dear Hephie! Will you marry me, Hephie?” Charles Emmanuel asked mockingly.

The girl turned her head to face the wind and pretended to ignore him. She had revealed her own devotion to Christ. It was no secret. The lessons with the Recollet had only drawn out her simple trust, expressed in Reformed Catholic terms. There was the doctrine of the Sole Scriptura (Scripture alone - no other authority), Sole Fide (faith alone - not our efforts), Sole Gratia (grace alone - our sin requires mercy, not penance), Solus Christus (Christ plus nothing), Soli Deo Gloria (glory to God alone).

Charles Emmanuel could only mock what he feared he would be rejected for by believing. This did not bother her, as Samuel’s ‘Azubah’ had. In fact, she agreed with Pépo. The Barbados boy loved to call the stubborn French-Canadian bachelor Tout par moi-même (all by myself). Hephzibah had many thoughts about her vulnerable situation and she was sure no man wanted to look at her disfigured face for the rest of his life.

The young New Englander wondered, after hearing about the converted native girl, “was it wrong to want to be married or to bear children?”

In a few days, Michel, Marie Rouensa and Charles Emmanuel would be returning to the fur trading posts of the west and the north territories. Each treaty holder chose the number of canoes and men for his voyage.

Nearly one out of every four male

Montrealers was a part of the enterprise. Aboriginal women rarely traveled with them.

Nevertheless, sometimes these wives were valuable in securing the trust of the tribe to which she belonged - a guarantee that the furs would not be traded to the Dutch or

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English before the French arrived. Marie’s tribe was waiting for her. Yet, there was no guarantee that Charles Emmanuel would be allowed to go, given his illegal status as a bachelor.

“Do you hope Marie Rouensa will give you children?” Marie Louise asked Michel, who was in front of and facing her.

“There is no saying, Madame, what her dreams will tell her. If she has a message, we will obey it. There are few children in her tribe. They have a secret they will not give to any white man of how they reduce their women’s pregnancies,” Michel said.

“I do not believe it can be done in a healthy way,” Marie Louise stated with conviction.

“She will be mother for two nations, holding forward the hope of peace between both,” Michel added convincingly.

Hephzibah believed him. Then, wondering about some of the inhabitants’ and aboriginals’ fears of having children, she asked no one in particular, “Are not children a gift from God? Where do they belong, if they are not received by those who live?”

The two Voyageurs were anxious to try the new canoe and to purchase supplies at the Indian village near the mission.

This visit provided the opportunity and was

convenient for the captain. Besides, the peace between the river tribes and the French was guaranteed. The King had even allowed the Iroquois to settle the south side of the river, with the intention of converting them.

The recent Joseph Dubocq scalpings,

however, had not helped relationships between the French and the Iroquois.

The south shore Mohawk Confederacy villages had received other visitors who came looking for captives of Deerfield. Three English negotiators had traveled to New

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France from Fort Orange (Albany) to secure the release of as many captives of Deerfield as possible. It was they who had brought the letter Hephzibah had read to Governor Vaudreuil. They managed to free only five of the hostages, however. John Sheldon was among the negotiators and while he was in Montreal, his daughter-in-law, Hannah, was released. So also, was Esther Williams. Stephen Williams had not been found but the captain told his little brother Warham that Stephen was with a family named Hertel.

Hephzibah did not know that the ransomed women Hannah and Esther were staying with French families nearby. The young Deerfield women had been so near, and they likewise had no knowledge of Hephzibah’s presence. This had disheartened Hephzibah greatly. She would have been glad of the young neighbours’ company.

It was John Sheldon who had found the place where Hephzibah Block and Warham Williams had been taken and he had persuaded Captain Côté to allow them to look for their relatives and visit them. Mr. Sheldon had himself made two trips to the Agniers Mission at La Prierie. He had later spent three weeks with Reverend Williams, delivering a letter of encouragement to the minister from his wife’s cousin, Rev. Cotton Mather.

Warham was restless from sitting still in the canoe. He was also very curious.

The gulls landing on the water and the fish jumping out of it no longer interested him.

“Are we nearly there? May I try paddling? Will we see the Savages who killed Mama?” he asked innocently. He had to be stilled several times. Hephzibah understood now why the boy had not been allowed to travel down to Quebec with his brother. He still needed a governess and the priests were unwilling to make a second trip with him in his company.

Marie Louise gave him a basket of chicken feathers to play with. She was taking them to

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give to the children in the village. It was a mistake. Warham thought it would be fun to watch them make a trail on the water behind them. Marie Louise had told him not to lift the lid too high since the wind would catch them. He instead was trailing them behind and had nearly used half before anyone noticed.

Marie Louise had already discussed the intended length of their visit with the two men. She had made some inquiries of Hephzibah such as the name of her brother and that of Warham’s sister. She found it difficult to remember the unfamiliar English syllables. “Eu-nice, Ebe-ne-zer,” she repeated. “Wil-li-ams, Block.”

“Those are the family names,” Hephzibah reminded her, concerning the last two.

“How old is the girl?” Michel had asked, referring to Warham’s sister.

“She is only seven years old,” Hephzibah replied.

“She is too young for marriage, Charles,” Michel told his friend.

The men slowed their stroke, now that they were near the other shore and the current was not as swift. They had succeeded in not getting drawn into the rapids further to the northwest, hitting a rock in the shallow parts, and were also able to avoid some fishing nets. “It pulls well does it not?” Charles Emmanuel asked Michel, referring to the canoe.

“I think I would put less pitch on the bow and more on the stern, to give it a bit more weight,” he replied, giving expert advice.

This time they spoke so quickly. The noise of their paddles also made it hard for Hephzibah to comprehend the subject of their conversation. This frustrated her that she was still poorly equipped to be completely comfortable in the company of French people.

Were they speaking about and pointing at her skirt? No, they seemed too serious for that.

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She felt like a little child again. She had much to learn.

Hephzibah was able to get a quick glance at the appearance of her hair in the clear water, reflecting the light of the sun. She was pleased at the way Marie Louise had arranged her hair, and the wind had not undone the little bundle in the back.

They approached a steep sandy bank where gnarled tree roots projected out towards them. It was as if they offered a hand by which they could pull themselves to shore. They had permission from several Kenien’Kehaka sentinels to pass but they had to discharge their muskets and leave their ammunition with them.

Although the passengers were first to disembark, it was the two men who took the lead up the bank and to the gate of the Indian encampment where curious dark eyes of all sizes greeted them. Hephzibah was concerned her skirt would drag through the loose loamy sand and it did. It also got very wet.

Smoke rose in curls over the outdoor fires where it smelled like last year’s corn being boiled in order to remove the dry hard skins. Hephzibah was relieved that it was not the putrid smell of high brush cranberries being boiled.

She remembered the

Pocumtuck Indian encampment she had once visited. In contrast, the view from the Pocumtuck Ridge they had walked along to get there was a beautiful memory for her.

There were a few women and some old men around the pot that boiled the cornhusks. Maybe they would wrap food in the softened leaves.

Marie Louise could speak some of the dialect of the Agniers tribe. She had been here several times and felt comfortable speaking to a Kenian’ Kehaka woman.

“Could you take me to speak with Kasenine of the Grand Council? I hope she is alive and well.”

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The Agniers lady said she would take them. She went off to look. The others were made to wait so long that Warham grew restless again and was playing in the nearby fire with a stick. Michel and Charles Emmanuel also tired of sitting with no one to converse with. They left and said they would return to the fire after they had finished their quest for the dry goods they intended to purchase with wampum beads.

Two boys of about seven years old approached the fire and heated up the end of a branch. They placed it between their bare arms, pressed it into their flesh and watched to see if Warham was not amazed at their bravery.

“Gardez, Dame Marie Louise, je veux faire, moy. I want to do it too,” Warham said, obviously hooked on the boys’ bait.

Hephzibah pulled him away, disgusted, and lectured him on bravery.

“Bravery is when you have to do something dangerous to save someone, and you are the only person who chooses to take the risk. Courage is fear that has prayed, Warham. But this act is just foolishness.” She was pleased when Marie Louise cast an approving glance at her motherliness.

“Hephie,” he asked, “when is someone going to take me to see Eunice?”

“As long as it takes to get the message to the person in charge of her, Warham. It might be long. You should sit down and wait. There are people watching us. We will let them do the good they wish to do. That is what respect means.” She could see the local older men staring at them, watching their moves to see what they would do next or to see who came to greet the new arrivals.

Hephzibah was nervous about meeting her brother’s new family. She did not know if they would consider her as related. Or would they make her stay with them like

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Ebenezer?

The Agniers had built forty longhouses with room in each to accommodate about ten mothers with their children. Their husbands could stay also, if they were of the same tribe, otherwise they would be in their own villages or scouting for food or in battle.

The buildings were quite old and could have used some repairs. Would the King supply more money for the labour? When it was not convenient for the women to be in the company of other men, during parts of the month or during parts of pregnancy, for instance, the women would stay in the house especially reserved for all of them. This is where the woman, Kasenine, of the Grand Council was found. She belonged to a group of older women who had influence in the important decisions of her clan. Decisions had to be made about when a hunt should begin; who would lead it; who would be the next chief and whether the men should go into battle. Once she was found, Kasenine began to locate the woman responsible for Eunice. Then the girl, along with food to be shared among the visitors, was brought to them. They thanked Kasenine and she offered to help Marie Louise make her inquiry about Ebenezer to the other women of the Grand Council.

“I will be back as soon as possible,” Marie Louise said to Hephzibah. She gave a warm smile to Eunice and memorized her appearance in order to recognize her later.

Then, she left the fire pit with the woman named Kasenine.

The little five-year-old girl was shy at first and didn’t say much, not even to her brother, Warham, who linked his arm with her left elbow. He watched the reactions of the adults. It was as if to say, “She’s mine and she always will be. No one can take her away.” He tried to find the feathers to give her but Marie Louise had taken them with her.

Hephzibah began to wonder worriedly what it would be like when Warham had to

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leave to go home. She wished Samuel were with them. He would surely want to see his sister Eunice also. Hephzibah was determined to bring back as much information about her as she could, so she could write to Samuel and Mr. Williams.

“Papa came to visit me once,” the little Williams girl said after they sat by the fire to eat some corn bread and cold dried fish. “He was so sad. I think he was crying a little.

He kept calling me a little lamb. Three men from the town were here too.” She meant Mr. Wells, Mr. Sheldon and Mr. Livingston.

Although she was asked, Eunice could not help in locating Hephzibah’s brother.

She didn’t even know if he was still living in the village.

Hephzibah was not

discouraged. The kind determination in Marie Louise’s voice, before they came to the village, reassured her that this visit was just as important to the woman as it was to her.

Marie Louise would do her best to find him.

“I catch baby ducks to make them my pets. I caught one before last night. It was not even out of the bulrushes before my snare trapped it. I got all wet, though,” Eunice chattered. “I cannot catch the herons though; they are too big.” She used the Agnier word for heron and it took some time before Warham could understand what it was she could not catch.

She had rarely seen herons in Deerfield, so the Iroquois name was all she

knew. “I have raccoons that I find in a special hole in that tree over there.” She pointed.

“The babies do not yet have masks on their faces or rings on their tails. Karakwinon teaches me some games to play with them. She is my mother now. I do not like sleeping in the longhouse. Do you sleep in a longhouse, Warham?”

After she began using the unfamiliar aboriginal words, it was not easy to get Warham to talk to his sister. He was newly distracted, by other sounds and movements

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around him. He seemed very pleased to be in her company, however, and he often stared at her. Because he didn’t know what a longhouse was, Eunice started to pull him to one where she lived. Hephzibah could do nothing but follow them. She hoped Marie Louise would not return before they did. Eunice held his hand and pulled Warham over by the stream that flowed out of the palisade.

“When I chase the ducks at the edge of the water - so they will not come up to the cornfield - I sometimes find pretty rocks to press into clay. I make them into plates. I will show them to you.”

She led them through a thick wooded area and beside a patch of tiny corn plants.

The seeds had been planted around old tree stumps, a quick source of fertilized soil.

Eunice entered a long building with an arched ceiling, made of lashed tree branches and animal skins. Bunks were neatly built into the sidewalls. Various articles hung above them: snowshoes, furs, muskets, baskets and little bowls made of straw and pitch. Several children greeted Eunice by a name that Hephzibah recognized as Iroquois.

Women worked over fires. Holes let smoke out through the ceiling. Still, the air was very dry and stuffy.

Eunice brought some little plates out from under her bed. They were very smooth for the work of a child and she had neatly written Kannenstenhawi, her new aboriginal name, on them. She told Warham that it meant, ‘she brings in the corn’. Warham wanted to touch the little green plates, but she pulled them away, as he thought they were for him and appeared to want to keep them. This made him sulk.

“You shall not steal, Warham!” Eunice said, in as frightful a tone as possible for a seven-year-old.

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“I was not stealing,” he protested. “I was just looking. I thought you wanted to give them away.”

A little dog passed them. Eunice pointed at it. “Hephie you must tell the villagers not to hang the dog.”

“What do you mean, Eunice?” Hephie asked, startled.

“They are going to hang the dog from a tree and he will bark terribly until he dies.

Then they put him in boiling water and pray to the sky. Tell them not to do it, Hephie.”

“I cannot speak their language, Eunice,” she answered.

“But it is not hard. Karakwinon teaches me. You could learn it, you know. They do not have any Primers though, I don’t think. The curé has to teach us Latin. Papa told me not to forget my catechism.” Then Eunice burst into tears. “I cannot remember what comes after “what will become of those who believe in Christ?”

Hephzibah picked her up in her arms and held the anxious child while she herself tried to recall the answer and to recall the questions that followed in her lesson book.

“I think there are five questions after that. You have done well if you can remember that many. Before I go, I will help you with the rest. “ Warham, jealous of the attention given to Eunice, repeated quickly by memory, “It is a place of glory and happiness where the just will live forever in the peace of their Lord.”

Hephzibah smiled. “That is the answer to the one after it.” She sat down and with some concentration managed to sort out for the children the last five questions and answers of the catechism for young children. Of the smaller one, a longer version had been written by a special assembly of the English Parliament, and by approval of the late,

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first King Charles.

“Yes. I am certain that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus,” all three repeated together.

The droning recitation made some heads turn among the longhouse dwellers.

This reminded Hephzibah that Marie Louise did not know where they were. She took the hands of the two children and started for the door. Before they arrived at the entry, four strong, tall older women of the longhouse stopped them and blocked the door. Hephzibah realized that they wanted to talk, but she was not going to have the time necessary. She felt the distress that her absence might have caused her mistress. One spokesperson for the women asked a number of questions and Hephzibah explained, the best she could, in French. Then she repeated in English and finally in Dutch. The others repeated some of the Dutch words, as if they had heard them before from Dutch traders. Still, she only got puzzled looks and because she was trembling, she pushed her way out the door, still holding the two hands of the children. The spokeswoman shouted a word after her and she heard the others laugh. Hephzibah looked at Eunice.

“She said, ‘tewatrenonwaron’.

It means ‘you are so skinny you could pass

through the eye of a needle’,” Eunice translated and giggled.

“I will be tall and heavy like them someday,” Hephzibah conceded, “but now I can run. I’ll beat you back to the fire!” She hoisted her skirt and started a race back to the fire. They had not decided which rock marked the end of the race, so it appeared that they all had arrived at the fire pit at the same time. Marie

Louise

was

not

there.

Hopefully the tribe members would not oblige Hephie to go searching for her. She was sure she would get lost in this unfamiliar place. They waited for the shadows to move

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beyond the nearest longhouse. Hephzibah, who was used to measuring the time by the light in the windows of the Côté house, was frustrated by these new surroundings, which made her lose all sense of horometry.158 When the light fell on a piece of furniture or the wall, she knew what time of year and what time of day it was. Every house did not have a pendulum clock.

“Why do you not like the knonsa, Eunice?” Hephzibah asked. The little girl had called the longhouse by this Iroquois name. She said she liked most things here at Sault St-Louis.159 “Samuel was with Father Meriel at the seminary in Ville Marie near the Mount Réel. The students are being moved from the mission beside the mountain to the Sault aux Recollets. It is in the north part of the island where the river is called, Des Prairies,” Hephzibah told her. “Your big brother is traveling now to see your father at Chateau Richer. It is a mission further away to the rising of the sun.”

Eunice was sad and wanted to be with them.

“Warham must come back with me to live with this nice lady. I am glad you wish to stay. Is there much hardship here for you?” she asked.

“It is always dark and smelly and the big boys come in all dressed up at night.

They look to find the girl’s beds. I’m scared they will come to me, even though I do not hold out a lit candle. The grand ladies of the knonsa do nothing to get them to stay out, unless a big boy gets angry when all the girls refuse to lie down with him. Then they chase him out.

“What do the big boys look like?” asked Hephzibah, who had never heard of this

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telling time by various observations of light, without the use of a clock

159

on the south side of Lac St-Louis

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candle lighting custom before.160 “They put bear grease all over their skin and in their hair. They put paint on their faces and chests, and they have feathers on their heads. They only come after the sun goes down. The older men never do this. They are already married.”

“If the girls hold out a small flaming stick, then the boy stays with her through the night?” Hephzibah asked.

“I do not know. I go to sleep and they are gone in the morning. I have seen them when I wake up at night, though.

Oh! Hephzibah, you have to go to the chapel and see the bell!” Eunice suddenly said, changing to another subject that interested her. It is the one we had in our church at Deerfield! Karakwinon says they buried it in the snow after the attack and went back to get it later. It was really supposed to have been sent here to this place from France. It was captured by an English ship, instead, and taken to Boston to be sold. That is how they got it back.”161 I will go see it, Eunice, I promise.

It was not possible to keep Eunice any longer, since she feared being reproved by Karakwinon. She gave her brother a kiss and Warham waved at her, seemingly puzzled by the fact that they were not going to take her back with them to Montréal.

Hephzibah tried to explain the reason to Warham. “She must stay with the people who paid a price for her just as you must. We would need 100 pieces of eight to buy her

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This is called, ‘la scène de l’allumette’ (the performance of the match light) by 17th century missionary, Paul LeJeune. These ‘boy meets girl’ dating techniques did not produce solid unions, he said. Men stayed in family units when they reached an older more mature age.

161 The author is indebted to Billy Two Rivers from the Kahnawake Reserve for much of this information; also, to the Knights of Columbus for their brochures at the Kateri Center (# 108 Vol. 27, 3 #186 Winter 1995 ISSN 0315-802 in particular.)

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back.”

“But no one bought me, Hephie. They did not want me, remember?”

“I will redeem you, then. Here is a loon’s egg I found, when Eunice took us to the water to show us the herons. I will give it to Marie Louise and then you can be mine.”

Warham smiled, but then his countenance saddened, as he watched his sister run barefoot back to her knonsa. He shouted again after her, “God be with you, Eunice.” She turned and waved.

Marie Louise was not coming and Hephzibah decided they should try to find her.

They ventured haltingly into the encampment. Assaulted by puzzled looks, they only managed to become uneasy. They returned to the fire pit and found Michel looking for them.

“Come with me,” he said. “Something has happened.” Michel had his shirt off and his long hair tied back. His torso was sweaty and his feet were bare.

“Qu’est-ce que c’est? What is it?” Hephzibah asked, sensing it was not good news. Then Michel said something she did not understand. It was odd how she could understand Marie Louise, Charles Emmanuel and Pépo because she heard them speak often, but Michel’s voice and accent was still somewhat foreign to her.

They stopped on the other side of the encampment162 and went out through a gate onto a meadow where a crowd of young men was gathered to play a game of Teiontsesiksaheks.163 The three attack players, three midfield players and three defense players of each

162

The Iroquois had subdued all tribes from the Mississippi River (west) to the Tennessee river (south), to the Atlantic Ocean (east) and to Albany (north) by 1720. The French established missions that brought the Kanian’ Kehaka and other tribes further north to the river banks of the St-Lawrence.

163 Lacrosse, which became Canada’s official national game (it even comes before hockey).

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team were fiercely catching, carrying, and throwing a ball in their netted sticks. The leather ball was driven through the goalposts of the team facing west. The sun itself, a golden ball, was still high but descending to that same horizon.

A player on the side of the field was groaning. He was badly injured, it seemed.

Then she saw. It was Charles Emmanuel! Marie Louise was wrapping a piece of a deerskin bag over his shoulder and around an arm. There were others gathered around another figure that stood screaming and waving wildly.

“What is a clavicule?” Hephzibah wondered.

They said he had a broken

clavicule. It might be his shoulder. No, the word for that is épaule. His neck? No, that would be called a cou.

Warham also wanted to wrap the bandage. Marie Louise realized that the two children had arrived. The other player with whom Charles Emmanuel had collided appeared to have broken his elbow. This collarbone injury was just as serious, and just as painful. Marie Louise said this and pointed out to Hephzibah the place of his pain.

“They are going to kill each other if the game does not slow down,” Marie Louise said, alarmed by the recklessness of the war simulation that this game offered to the young natives. She was also starting to wonder how she was going to care for her chauffeur on the river. The affection of the older woman for the young man could no longer be disguised. He had also acquired cuts and bruises. She got Hephzibah to help her put leaves on the places where skin had been scraped. They tried to convince the humiliated young man to let them treat him. Meanwhile, the other injured Agniers player danced a special bravery dance and sang with passionate enjoyment while other Indians

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smiled at him.164

This was their custom of bravery - to enjoy the pain. What a

contradiction this seemed to be to the non-natives. For one who wished so much to be like them, Charles Emmanuel hung his head in helpless self-pity. Then he rose and walked away toward the mission chapel. He was, he concluded, unable to find joy in his pain. At the same time, he was unable to stay and be nursed by Marie Louise in front of his opponents. Michel followed, and so did his fellow travelers.

It was Michel who, using his self-imposed initiative, asked the mission director if they might stay in the chapel for the night, and if they could be given some bedding.

Hephzibah was unable to sort out her emotions of fear mixed with compassion, She stayed near Marie Louise to see if she might be of some use to her. How was she to know if her brother had at last been found? He seemed so close, yet there was still so much distance between them. She resolved to inquire about him from the Jesuit in charge of the mission, when he was properly available to listen.

Hephzibah learned later that Marie Louise had approached the women of the Grand Council, but they were discussing whether the present plans for war against the English outposts was just or not. This topic came up regularly at the most recent tribal meetings. In the end, Marie Louise did not have sufficient opportunity to ask for the young man, only that the Jesuits would know. This news made Hephzibah decide to take the matter into her own hands. Why had Marie Louise not thought to ask the priest?

When the black-robed clergyman arrived with blankets, the burst of courage inside her warmed Hephzibah’s face, and she quickly made her request as best she could formulate it. The priest asked her to repeat it, as her intonation was unknown to him.

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this was called a Jeux de Railleries (teasing) by the missionaries

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She again pulled together all her courage. “Bravery is doing something that must be done but no one else will do,” she told herself this time, in place of saying it to instruct Warham.

“I am looking for my brother, Ebenezer Block, who is a captive from Deerfield Plantation and who was brought here and was given to marry an Algonquin,” she repeated.

“Ebenezer Block…I know him,” the priest said. “His father, your father, caused some dissension among our native converts. They did not want to come to the mass if the Englanders would not come.” Hephzibah felt the conversation turning against her. She needed to make a point. She would have to do this without knowing what might be the outcome.

The Deerfield girl defended her father’s decision not to attend the mass. “He holds to the faith of our forefathers who spoke by the Holy Spirit and whose witness of the Son of God says we must not bow to idols nor substitute true worship for what is false.”

This was an almost impossible sentence to say without abbreviations and

uncommon verbs. She despaired that it might be so incomprehensible that it would have no effect on him. Later, Marie Louise said that because it was so persuasively laid before him, and so ill-practiced, that it was all the more powerful. She was so proud of her.

“Courage is fear that has prayed,” Hephzibah reminded them both. The priest said he would give her an answer about her brother’s whereabouts the next day when he had more information.

Hephzibah could not sleep that night. She thought of Eunice and her uneasiness in the longhouse, of the ‘scène de l’allumette’ as the amusement of the young males who

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visited the girls in their beds at night was called. It made her think of the bundling that mother had told her about. Girls and boys in New England, preparing for marriage, tried sleeping together in their wedding bed with their clothes on and a board between them to see if it was going to suit them to live together. She was also perplexed by the cry of ecstasy that the Lacrosse player performed after his injury. He had put on such a passionate display of joy in his suffering.

Charles Emmanuel, who was restless from his unwanted discomfort, groaned every time he moved over and every time Michel snored. She wondered if the priest had given the injured visitor an opiate for the pain. They might have to go to a hospice in Montréal. Who would paddle the canoe? Could she try? Charles Emmanuel stared at the ceiling, obviously unable to sleep.

“Madame? Are you awake?” Hephzibah whispered to Marie Louise.

“Yes, Hephzibah. I am praying. Would you like to pray with me?”

They both got up and went to the nearest window. They peered out at the bats circling around the trees, looking for newly hatched insects. Crickets and frogs used the silence of the night as an invitation to identify their neighbours’ coordinates. Inside, on the bench by the window, was a place where they could sit and listen more closely to each other. They cast their cares on Him who cared for them. When they had said their requests, they quietly returned to their blankets near the back wall.

A voice from the side of the room asked, “Did you pray for me also?”

“Yes, Charles, we put you first on our list,” Marie Louise reassured him. “How do you feel?”

“The throbbing has stopped, but I can sit up to sleep. Could you help me put the

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blanket behind me?”

The woman, who found so much unexpected strength in her inner self, rose to meet the next challenge.

“You are sent from God, Madame,” the cripple reassured her.

She replied, “He wants to send us to many places, to many people, and with all of his treasures, does he not?”

Charles Emmanuel, unable to respond without inviting an invasion of his soul, changed the subject, from spiritual intimacy, to more practical things. “Could you keep a candle lit on the altar? We will replace it with the ones I brought. I will also leave four of them to pay back Father Chaumonot for his hospitality.”

Hephzibah thought of the young man and his stepmother. She wondered if his mother, who died in Troye, resembled Marie Louise. After this thought, she remembered nothing else; not until she woke in the morning. Warham was leaning over her with an egg in his hand. Insistently, he begged, “Do you want to give Marie Louise the egg now?

I want to belong to her.” He was speaking about his redemption.

“In a little while, Warham. Is she awake?” the young woman asked.

It was raining outside. She saw the wet figure of Marie Louise with her shawl over her wig, opening the door of the chapel.

“I have some medicine for our “athlètés,” she said as she entered, using the Greek word for ‘contestant’.

The smell of the medicine was immediately noticeable. Hephzibah found it new and agreeable. They got a spoon from their baggage and Charles Emmanuel scooped a clump of thick, brown paste into his mouth. It was from the poppy resin. Then a lotion

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was applied to the most painful areas of the neck and back.

Marie Louise pulled out some dried meat from their bags and the five travelers prepared to eat their breakfast.

“Madame, Hephie has a surprise for you,” Warham said excitedly.

“Warham has a surprise, rather,” Hephzibah added quickly.

She got up and removed the loon egg from the woven reed bowl she had kept it in. “This is the ransom that I will pay in order for you to redeem the young captive, Warham Williams, who remains to this moment, unclaimed.” She said it with an obvious note of importance, but Michel felt he had to improve upon it, so he stood and played the magistrate, inviting Marie Louise to accept, after he pronounced all the details and technicalities.

They were all laughing, except Warham who, for some reason, had

interpreted the adult drama as a mockery of him. He was whimpering with tears in his eyes and Hephzibah hugged him close to her, to comfort him. Marie Louise reassured him that she would be his ‘patronne.’165 Then she put the bowl and egg safely away in her bag.

Father Chaumonot, a Jesuit missionary, returned to greet them and to see that all was still in order at the small house of worship. He also warded off the early Agniers prayer group that was told to go to the priest’s own cabin instead.

“You will find extra candles when we leave,” Charles Emmanuel reassured him.

He was uninterested in their payment and changed their attention to his availability for the next few days.

“I have news of Ebenezer Block.

165

He is at the spring encampment of the

His adoptive caretaker.

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Algonquin clan to which his wife belongs. She does not have attachments with the Agniers any longer because of the death of her former husband and she is returning to her clan with the children and Mister Block,” the curé informed them.

Hephie wanted to correct the family name, which he had pronounced as ‘Bloke’, but she felt it would be disrespectful.

“Is the camp far from here?” Marie Louise asked.

“It is on the south side of the river, past Pierre Boucher’s domain.”

“The Pierre Boucher seigneurie?” Hephzibah exclaimed. She turned to Marie Louise. “That is close to where my father is, I believe.”

“What did the girl say? I have difficulty with her accent,” the priest asked Charles Emmanuel.

“Her father is presumed to be on the Islands of Saurel.”

“Oh, Mister ‘Bloke’ was sent to operate the mill, yes, yes,” the clergyman remembered. “Well, they will be able to see each other, perhaps, but Saurel is further down river than the sprig encampment. If Mister ‘Bloke’ is of sound mind, he will realize that our instructions are to convert all to the one True Faith and thus we may all be of one fellowship and of one Spirit. He would do well to abjure. Then he would be able to live in peace here, having the right to receive you, my child, into his home; you and your younger sisters.”

Michel and Charles Emmanuel did not know what to say. They looked at Marie Louise. Hephzibah looked also. She felt that she needed to defend her father’s already ‘sound’ mind. Was he not still in command of it?

Marie Louise accepted the unspoken election of the group to address their

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concerns to the priest and she slowly stated, “Monsieur Chaumonot, we are extremely grateful for your kindness and we will be sure to speak to Mister Block about your recommendation. I do not know, however if Mister Block is a peaceable man; if he is a true machéomai and a fighter for the weak and oppressed; if he is a rebel and coward, or if he is a martus - a martyr who defends his testimony. But one needs a ‘marteau’ to shape a ‘martus’ and perhaps his identity has already been fashioned. If so, he will be, who he will be.”

“You are a scholar, Madame?” the priest asked, wondering at the way she used classical Greek words.

“I studied the Greek language at the Convent in Paris and I teach cyphering to the young women at the House of Providence of Soeur Bourgeoys,” Marie Louise replied.

“Although I will speak boldly, I am of the peaceable faith of the Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace to whom you and I both pray.”

Neither Charles Emmanuel nor Michel hoped she would reveal that she was Huguenot. Charles Emmanuel decided he would intervene and keep her away from a confrontation. He put his interruption into the form of a question. “We have heard the young Kanien’ Keha:ka men shouting in their death dances when they are injured and I would like to know what the word ‘garego’ means.”

“Garego - I make war, sarego - you make war, arego - he makes war,” the priest translated into French.

“Truchement- does translation interest you? It is truchement that interests me the most here at the mission. We hear many dialects because we are at the intersection of the Richlieu Iroquois, Algonquin Outaouias and St-Laurent rivers.

There are very few

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abstract words in the Iroquois language. The words wisdom, faithfulness, justice, mercy, gratefulness, and piety have no equivalents. There exists a word for happy, tender, love and kindness, but not much more that goes beyond concrete general experience. The King has decreed that they should live here, in order that we might bring them to faith in Christ. I do what I can to bring the knowledge of God to these people and the Latin we instill in them is rich in scholarship.”

This unexpected direction of the conversation toward his work, flattered the priest. He was pleased to have such interested company. The rain had stopped. He decided to escort them personally to the dock and give them help with their belongings.

When they left the chapel, Hephzibah remembered to look up at the bell. It was indeed the one from Deerfield.166 Warham’s sister, Eunice, saw them and came to the dock also.

“I saw the bell, Eunice. It is a little piece of home that you can see every day.”

Warham was so pleased to see his sister again. This second visit served to reassure him that she belonged to him and that she still wanted him to be her brother. He told her, “I now belong to Madame Côté. Hephie has paid the ransom.” He took great pains to explain the meaning of a ransom, which he himself hardly understood.

When Charles Emmanuel awkwardly climbed into his canoe everyone assisted him in some way. Hephzibah and Marie Louise, who had laid down blankets, were in the boat, ready to receive him. Michel was holding him by the waist, while the priest, Warham, and Eunice steadied the boat.

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This bell can still be seen at the St-Franôis-Xavier Church on the Kahnawake Reserve, near Montréal. A library, museum, and the Raotitionkwa Cultural Center are maintained on the Reserve to provide information about the People of the Flint. A high school called, The Survival School, supports various projects that maintain oral tradition and connects residents with their roots.

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Eunice waved to them and many people came out to wish them a safe voyage.

Some Lacrosse players were among them. The Montrealers brought back ground corn and cedar pitch, dried eels and beans that they had traded. The priest saw that their ammunition was returned to them. He helped Michel check the muskets.

Hephzibah watched the faces of the people as the canoe drifted off toward the eastern islands. She wondered if there were some faces that she had seen at the massacre.

She closed her eyes. Why was she not afraid of them anymore? Was it because the worst was over; that there was security in having suffered the worst? She hoped to be able to return to New England and tell her relatives that she had met their enemies and that she was no longer afraid of them. Eunice Williams had even learned to love them, well almost all of them.

This direction of the river’s flow was more easily managed. They were in the current that moved with the canoe and not against it.

“I can handle the boat until we get to the river’s midstream. Hephzibah, you must help me across to the other side when the current starts to pull us away from that shore,” Michel instructed her.

“I will tell you what to do,” Charles Emmanuel reassured her.

“I will help you if you get tired,” Warham announced.

“That will be my responsibility,” Marie Louise corrected him.

Warham added, “Then I will help you, madame, when you get tired.”

Hephzibah was surprised by her own strength, but Charles Emmanuel reminded her of her small size and that the paddle would continually slap the side of the canoe unless she could extend her arm out away from it and sweep, before the water forced it

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back. She felt the force of the current and dipped in harder in imitation of Charles Emmanuel. Fixing a point on the horizon, she was able to steer straight and her shoulders pulled with all their might. She was glad they were not going back to Montreal until she could see where her brother was. He would be with his wife’s people further down river.

Charles Emmanuel began to sing. It was a funny song that talked about having beans again for supper, and the skunk ate the lard, so, they ate the skunk as well! The rhythm of the song kept time. It fit exactly with Michel’s strokes, but not so well with the shorter strokes of the front oarsman. In fact, Hephzibah tired not long afterward and Marie Louise took over until Hephie regained her strength. Then they switched again, but the current swept them away too much while they changed places and they despaired of making much progress.

Suddenly the canoe hit a swirl of current that knocked everyone to the left side.

Michel’s foot collided with Charles Emmanuel’s arm.

“Aiee!” growled the injured man as his face winced. “My collarbone!”

The children took hold of the sides of the boat and steadied it while Marie Louise and Michel gave the paddles a hard plunge into the river. Michel was starting to think they should just take him to Ville Marie.

“A decision has to be made,” Michel informed them. “We will not be able to continue to the encampment at Saurel167 without a rest.”

“We will most definitely arrive at Verchères before sundown,” Marie Louise said to encourage everyone. “Madeleine, the daughter of François-Xavier Jarret, Sieur de Verchères, who came with the Marquis de Tracy in 1665, was responsible for saving the 167

spelled ‘Sorel’ and is combined with the name of the Marquis Alexandre de Prouville de Tracy who arrived in Quebec from la Rochelle in June 1665. This city is in the Lower Richelieu region on the St-Pierre archipelago and is the fourth oldest city in Canada.

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village, Hephie. She was only fourteen years old at the time,” the Canadienne said as they traveled along. “We must continue to get you to see your brother and there is little time to waste. Perhaps we will still succeed,” Marie Louise stated, “but we could find a nearby place for Charles Emmanuel and send word to the captain to come and get him.”

Michel and Charles Emmanuel agreed with her plan.

When Ile Ronde was at their starboard side, they approached the dock on its southeast side. They could send a message to Captain Côté and to Marie Rouensa from there. Charles Emmanuel would seek shelter with one of the inhabitants of Ile Ronde. In this way, he would be able to rest from the constant movement of a boat.

Shelter for Charles-Emmanuel did not take long to arrange. They left the dock for a nearby inn and along the path Michel met a young woman who helped him. She was anxious to tell how important she was. She had a deceased father who had been an famous explorer. He had traveled with René-Robert, Le Cavalier de La Salle. She could receive them into her large residence, she told them. The voyages her father had made were down the St- Louis River, as the Mississippi was called in those days by the French.

He and other explorers sailed through the North Sea of the Caribbean, and had as their purpose to find the south end of that long river. Aboriginals had described it, and they alone, knew the route. “King Louis had wanted Monsieur de La Salle to establish a French Colony there at the river delta,” she was told by her uncle who had adopted the girl.

She served them some pigeon pie. Charles Emmanuel settled on the floor with his back up against the wall. He observed the dark-eyed girl who had barely any mouth and such a long nose. The skin on her hands was red and dry, bearing the signs of necessary

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and frequent toil.

“But ‘le Cavalier’, was a hard man, was he not? This René-Robert I have heard of corrected each of his companions’ mistakes and forced the crew to comply with his perfectionism,” Charles Emmanuel said carelessly.

The plain, resolute girl of seventeen years of age, replied in disbelief, “I think you must be misinformed.” She changed the subject of dangerous explorations to her own personal hardships. She was an orphan now. “I live with my uncle and his two sons, my cousins. They have gone today to work at Fort Saint Ours. My poor mother died before I was four years old and my father never returned from his explorations with La Salle. I must tell you that I am alone until tomorrow afternoon. My uncle told me not to have any guests today, although this is a guest house for visitors to the island.”

“I will be gone before they get back,” Charles Emmanuel reassured her, now taking on the same serious tone as if to imitate her. “I need to be in my own bed, as you can see. I have already sent for my father to send me a vessel in which to travel back to the main island.”

They made Charles Emmanuel comfortable in the guest house pantry where there were barrels, he could lean against, and rest his arm. They could not convince her to give him one of the guest rooms, but he would have a place to rest until someone from Montréal came to get him.

For the first time, Hephzibah realized that a fur contractor would not likely hire him this year because of his injury. He would have to inform the leader of his expedition.

She wondered if the others had thought of this.

The rain was threatening to return, so they said ‘Goodbye’ and left the young

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woman with some ground corn, which she was pleased to accept.

Michel found a young man in a field who was willing to accompany him and the three others down river. His name was Colin and he implored them to wait while he fetched his own paddle. Warham was therefore charged with the responsibility to care for Charles Emmanuel’s paddle. The little boy was pleased and promised not to let it fall out of the canoe. They were soon back in the current of the Saint Lawrence.

Hephzibah sat on the floor of the boat, resting her head on Marie Louise’s lap.

She told her benefactor of her fears of meeting her brother’s wife.

“You will have a lovely gift to give her. Did you not bring the lace trim you were working on?”

Without Hephzibah having to explain her feelings in complete sentences, Marie Louise seemed to comprehend everything she was thinking. What was it about words that made them the poor servant of sentiments and ideas? Very little of what is communicated is said with words. Most is said with gestures, noises and the intonation of the voice.

“Yes, the lace is here, and I have some letters I have written to my brother, if only I might find someone to whom I might entrust them, should we fail to find him,” Hephzibah said haltingly.

Marie Louise who was feeling her age, leaned back,

exhausted, and fell asleep.

When she awoke, they were still on the river. Hephzibah thought she might ask Colin where he lived on Ile Rond168 and if he knew someone living on Ste-Hélène’s Island named, Gilles Guerin. Marie Louise repeated Hephzibah’s question to Colin and

168

Round Island

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they were pleased that he knew Gilles.

“He is a scholar that one, knows too much and wants to start a foundry. He says there are foundries in New England. I think he wants to have iron for guns. He is always talking of some gun called a rifle that shoots twice as far as a musket. He says the shot goes through the barrel in a spiral instead of straight out. We told him there is iron ore in Fort François down river but he will not find a blacksmith there, not unless he brings one over from France or captures one from New England.”

Hephzibah got angry inside and her face turned red. “Or captures one from New England,” she repeated to herself. It is so much simpler is it not? Just take one and kill the children and wife, or all of his neighbours. The bitterness was deep and it sank her into a sullen mood. She did not say anything until they were near land. Then she remembered how kind it was for Michel to have brought her to the encampment where she could look for her brother and maybe inquire about her father.

They had instant success, which drew Hephzibah once more to her heavenly father in prayer. “Thank you for seeing the sparrow who falls,” she whispered gratefully.

It was mid-afternoon. The beach was very accessible so they pulled the boat up onto it near the campground. Her brother was known by the first people they met. Yet he was unavailable. His wife would receive them.

“Oh! I am so glad to finally meet you, said a lovely young lady with whom the English hostage was now related. Warham, Marie Louise, Colin and Michel were received in a teepee with a fire in the center by the new sister-in-law. Some food was baking over it. Clean bear furs were arranged on the floor. Marie Louise accepted the invitation to sit down. She sat and arranged her skirts. Then Hephzibah sat and arranged

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her skirt. Michel took a more relaxed position with his knees up; his tired arms leaning on them. Colin and Warham were deciding where to sit down and Warham ended up sitting on the man’s lap.

The Algonquin lady, born on the River of the Algonquins, sometimes called the Outaouais, who had a very pleasant face to look at, allowed two children in the teepee to help her open bags with wild garlic in them. “Were these her own children?” Hephzibah wondered. The lady held out the plants to the visiting women and spoke to Michel, seeing at once that he knew some words that she could understand.

“Your brother is coming here soon, she says.” Michel explained to Hephzibah.

“The lady has sent her older son to find him. I have told her about Marie Rouensa’s tribe.

I thought maybe she would know it but she says she does not.”

They waited for several minutes and Hephzibah searched for the lace to offer to her new sister-in-law. It was under a shawl in her bag. Her hands were shaking nervously when she brought it out. She remembered not to smile because it was not always understood when white people smiled. Instead, she held it out and indicated it was a gift.

The dark-eyed woman with long fingers reached for the white band of hand crafted artistry and examined it for several minutes. She showed it to the children. They said some things that seemed to be questions. They looked at Hephzibah as if to say, “How did you do this?” Hephzibah could not help herself. She laughed and smiled and then everyone laughed. No one could explain it to them, but Hephzibah showed the action of lacing with pins on a large cushion and little invisible bobbins dangling at the bottom of the cushion holding the ends of each row. Then she gave up because she saw

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how inadequate the demonstration was without needles, bobbins and thread. She was not even sure she was responding to the question appropriately.

When they heard shuffling outside and some voices, Hephzibah’s heart began to beat quickly. The door was drawn back and her brother stood, dressed in his own breeches, his long torso covered in a shirt made of deerskin. His face was shiny and his straw-coloured hair was tied back behind him. He wore a tricorn. Immediately he came and sat cross-legged in front of Hephzibah and held both her hands and spoke to her as if they were the only two in the tent. Then he wondered if his wife had been introduced to his sister and if the two women had liked each other. He remembered anxiously the presence of the others around them. Exiting the teepee, he went to find a small box which, when he returned, he covered with a bearskin and offered to Marie Louise whose dignity and class he felt were being abused by seating her on the floor.

Hephzibah noticed that her brother’s eyes were filled with tears. He breathed heavily and the wells of water sank back into the recesses of his eyes, which began to dry.

The children pointed to Hephzibah and excitedly showed the lace to him. He spoke a few words to them but then he returned to sit with the visitors. Warham went to him and sat on his lap, putting an arm on his shoulder. He stayed there until the aboriginal children drew him into their play. Michel began teasing them but Warham wanted to play with Charles Emmanuel’s paddle that lay on the floor. Meanwhile, Colin went outside to look for some company among the Frenchmen in the encampment.

“What news do you have to bring me, Hephzibah?” Ebenezer asked. Who brings you here?”

“This is my lady Marie Louise to whom I have been entrusted until our Governor

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can reach an agreement on our ransom. She is very kind and has the light of our Lord Jesus in her. This is a man - she turned to Michel - who trades furs with Madame’s stepson. Both men made a new canoe together during the winter and have kindly brought me here. We were looking for you at the Xavier Mission. Charles Emmanuel, the other one who made the boat, was injured...Oh! I have so much to tell you!” she exclaimed.

“Does your...” then she hesitated as she looked over to the woman behind Ebenezer.

“Does your wife understand what I am saying?”

“I think she can understand more French. Can you change to French? Then more of us will be able to understand.”

The change forced their conversation into the common phrases that might be comprehended by all. It made Hephzibah realize that nothing would be the same in her life again. She struggled to deal with this as the others took over the conversation. Soon, the explanations and introductions were made all around in French and everyone was properly aware of the relationships present. Then she remembered the letters she had written. Of course! There was so much to say and most of it was in her thoughts, recorded in the lines she had penned in Montreal! She produced the papers and showed them first to Ebenezer. Then she explained to Kanonwu (for that was his wife’s name) and the children that the paper was made by Marie Louise’s manufacturing company.

This was as astonishing to the children as the lace, but she would not let them touch too long because of her desperate persuasion that, not just ink and words but, her heart lay in the pages she had prepared for her brother.

The conversation turned to exploration. Ebenezer was asking Michel if he had ever traveled on the Connecticut River.

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“The river was named after the Algonquin Ritwan words for a long river,” Kanonwu explained. Ebenezer was proud to say that his grandfather’s brother, Adrian Block had been the first European to navigate it, and that an island was named after him Block Island at the top end of the Long Island. Hephzibah had always been proud of her Dutch ancestor but now she wondered at the impression this would make on her new sister, whose people had navigated the Connecticut River for many years before. Michel told them that his own explorations had only taken him west and to the lands “up above”, in the Great North.

Marie Louise showed the children that they could touch her wig and the lace on her sleeves. They seemed curious to find out how both would feel.

Ebenezer spoke to Hephzibah about his reasons for leaving the “people of the flint” and coming to the Algonquin encampment. “The Grand Council had decided to return the dead husband’s property to the clan and restrict the future rights of Kanonwu’s children in the hunting parties. This was a hard blow to her even though they had replaced me for her deceased husband. They had explained to her their willingness to adopt me into the tribe as a war prisoner, but some other rules had to apply to her children. Her son, now eight years old, could not aspire to become chief or council member among the Kanien’ Keha:ka people. Furthermore, the Kaianere’ko:wa - the message about the Great Peacemaker - was not to be related in private session to me by the elders. She would have no one to carry this honour in her family, for knowledge of the Great Peacemaker made one part of the inner clan.

Marie Louise was interested in the couple’s troubles. She turned to Kanonwu.

“This message of the peacemaker...” she began awkwardly. “You have not lost anything

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if Ebenezer has spoken to your son about our Prince of Peace, Jesus. The shalom peacemaker169 has come to us. He has spoken to us through a testimony that the Spirit of God helps us understand. Then in a wonderful way this Spirit joins with our spirit. If your son is joined to this Spirit, he will understand true peace.”

“I have asked one of the women of the Council,” Kanonwu replied. “She now believes in the Great Law of Peace, the Kaianere’ko:wa.

She told me that if this

generation makes decisions that benefit seven generations, then the plans are worthy.

Three older generations behind must approve and three new generations before us also must decide to approve. Needless to say, our own generation in between must approve.

Ebenezer helps me to make plans for seven generations. That is how we came to decide to leave the People of the Flint,” Kanonwu replied. “…seventh generation of descendants?” Hephzibah asked for clarification, but the conversation had already changed again, this time to her father, about whom Marie Louise was the first to inquire.

Ebenezer responded, “The master, a descendant of Monsieur Pierre de Saurel, has brought our sisters, Sarah and Elizabeth, to Fort St-François. It seems they are not yet with our father. He is doing well and is of great help to his overseer.”

Ebenezer removed his hat for it was getting hot in the teepee.

“Your ears!” Warham cried out, and scrambled out of his lap to touch them.

The young man’s ears had been mutilated and were ragged and the tops were only half the normal size.

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In the Hebrew language ‘shalom’ means peace or togetherness; wholeness. It means the opposite of ‘hell’ which refers to separation (of body from spirit, people from God, people from each other, and ultimately people from the benefits of a sustainable, cultivated environment.) Christians believe Jesus is the prince of shalom. The Accuser of his followers is the prince and instigator of all separation. He will take with him any who are willing to isolate themselves from God, from others or from a developed home and cultivated world.

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“My ears were a tasty meal for the women of the Snake Clan, that first night when I was brought to their village,” he laughed. “They are not of the domiciled French citizenry, as you can tell.” He laughed again and Hephzibah was reassured of the peace their Peacemaker had brought him. “If I were a soldier these would be my rank badges.

If I were a savage, these would be my feathers, but every man I meet honours me because of them,” he pretended to boast, “and now they are not a discomfort to me. I think the women pitied me because my ears had been badly frostbitten. They thought their teeth, rather than a knife should be used to trim them,” he explained.

“Parbleu!” Warham exclaimed, imitating Captain Côté. Both Ebenezer and Hephzibah were astonished.

“You should not use that word,” they said in unison.

“But Pépo uses it,” he whimpered to Hephzibah. Then he changed to another thought. “Hephie has a toe missing too,” he told Ebenezer.

“It was also because of frostbite, but while I was unconscious, I think the doctor at the hospice cut it off,” Hephzibah said sullenly. “I am expecting that my face will always be disfigured as well.”

Her brother looked at her, surprised, “It is just as I remember it.”

Hephzibah felt her jaw. For many weeks now, she had not thought about it. There was much that concerned her besides her own appearance. She had not taken time to look carefully at her reflection. Yet, her chin did feel much better. She could tell it was more evenly shaped than at first. What comforting news!

Marie Louise also assured her, “I have seen the improvement. Your face has healed quite well in the past months. You did not notice it, but I did, when I arranged

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your hair yesterday morning.”

“I am relieved to know this, since I was troubled by it,” Hephie said and felt her face again.

“Let us see if these are ready,” Ebenezer Block said, as he reached into the fire with a stick and pulled out some packages of wrapped leaves. He pushed a spoon into the soft flesh of a cooked arrowhead duck potato that was probably taken from marshes nearby. There were about eighteen of them in the fire. They were served with some freshly picked clover greens. They were sprinkled with minced red wintergreen berries, and accompanied by Jerusalem artichokes and fern sprouts, fried in porcupine grease.

Hephzibah and the others were sure they had never tasted a finer delicacy. Ebenezer reached into a barrel and pulled out a small keg of strong drink. “Genever,” he explained, “from juniper berries.” They each had a small cup of the gin, which warmed them inside even though the alcohol itself was cold.

Michel and Ebenezer then discussed the trading of ‘l’eau de vie’ and the effects of the alcohol on the Indians who were so easily intoxicated. They found however, that they did not agree on the need to put restrictions on its sale to the First peoples in the area.

Michel claimed that whole villages, women and children included, were drinking from barrels of it and mission posts were being closed because of its abuses. There were unnecessary brutal killings among the tribes-peoples.

Ebenezer was hearing this

information for the first time and, unable to master his arguments either way, resorted stubbornly to taking a defensive posture, even though he might have let himself be persuaded otherwise.170

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when the French outlawed trading alcohol to the indigenous populations, the Dutch and English, to the south, continued the practice.

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Hephzibah was disappointed that her brother was no longer interested in her, and, turning her attention away from the two debaters, found some shadow-casting games to play with the children, by the light of the fire in the growing darkness. The shapes of hands took the forms of wolves and bears and porcupines.

Marie Louise spoke to Ebenezer’s wife about the health of the children.

Even though it was not late, the rain forced an early couvre-feu171 on the group and they were all soon crowded into sleeping positions, heads and hips, lumped above the floor, creating a relief of mountains and hills similar to the ones outside. They awaited the morning, when traveling might again be possible.

A compassionate neighbour brought an extra blanket, which was to be given to the lady “with the shiny white head dress.” Marie Louise accepted it, and for warmth, slept with her wig on her head. It also muffled the sound of the wind that brought rain, to drum against the side of the teepee.

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A curfew 213

Synopsis: chapter five While Samuel is on his way downstream to be reunited with his father without his younger brother Warham, a crew of five sets out upstream in the new canoe made by Michel and Charles Emmanuel. On the way, Charles Emmanuel tells of the beatified Lily of the Mohawks, Katari who lived with these people. Marie Louise wants to help Hephzibah contact her father and brother. He heard that three negotiators from Albany had been traveling in New France to learn of the welfare of the captives from Deerfield.

Mr. Wells, Mr. Livingston and Mr. Sheldon were able to redeem five of the Deerfield people in 1705.

They had recently been to the Mission of François Xavier where

Kanien’Kehaka or Agniers people live. The aboriginal people of the flint, meet them on the opposite the shore near what is known today as La Prairie. Soon we are introduced to little seven-year-old Eunice, the captive of the Williams family, the Grand Council women, the priest Chaumonot, and lacrosse players.

When Marie Louise, Warham, Hephzibah, Michel, and Charles Emmanuel arrive at the mission on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River the young men go off to trade for some needed supplies for their next trip in the summer. They become distracted by a game of lacrosse which is played a little like the British game of cricket. While playing with all his masculine strength, Charles Emmanuel falls and breaks his collarbone.

Meanwhile Marie Louise is looking for a woman from the Women’s Caucus of the Grand Council to explain their search for Mr. Block and his son Ebenezer. Hephzibah and Warham wait by a fire until Eunice, Warham’s seven- year-old sister arrives to visit with them. They visit the longhouse where she sleeps.

The accident and an unsuccessful attempt to locate the Blocks, forces all five to

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spend the night in the mission chapel. Father Chaumonot, a Jesuit priest, informs them of where they may find Ebenezer Block who, Hephzibah is afraid, has suffered terribly.

When the departure for the Algonquin camp comes the next day, Charles Emmanuel finds he cannot continue the search for Ebenezer. The others leave him on an island near Montreal, where he finds hospitality at an inn. He sends for his father’s help, hoping not to irritate the owner of the inn who has left his niece alone with instructions to receive no one until he and his sons return from Fort Saint Ours.

Hephzibah and the others are successful in finding the aboriginal wife Kanonwu with her two children at the Algonquin spring hunting camp. Very soon after, brother and sister are reunited. hopefulness.

Ebenezer reassures Hephzibah of his present security and

Michel and Ebenezer get acquainted before the night settles in and

everyone is asleep together under the sound of rain beating on the side of the large teepee.

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illustration: Pépo in his bed, dying with a high fever

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CHAPTER SIX: Healing Two of the Carignan-Salières soldiers were awake. The priest, who was taking students down the St. Lawrence River to the Jesuit mission at Sillery, and then on to Chateau Richer, leaned his head over the log that supported his back. He gave a yawn, stretched, and closed his eyes again. It was a warm, but wet, spring morning. They were camped near the Lac St-Pierre archipelago, some distance yet from Fort St-François.

Samuel had been able to sleep only in small doses, because of some pain in his foot. He was wide-awake now. He watched as two soldiers. They were armed with their muskets (men took their guns with them everywhere in New France, Samuel concluded).

The men made a decision to remove some trash from the past night’s meal. This should have been done to ward off animals during the night, but the travelers were so exhausted, they neglected to do this. The soldiers did not see that Samuel was awake.

Some squirrels overhead persisted in their loud squawking, a noise they had begun some time earlier. “This must have been the call that woke the soldiers,” Samuel thought.

Chagnan leaned over to speak to one of the other Abenakis Indians, also camped with them. They seemed to be speaking about the animal. The two boys rose and peered into the trees. Another soldier got up and prepared his gun for a quick dispersal of the pests.

Suddenly, a brown ball dropped from a tall maple tree and landed on the ground, an arm’s length from Samuel’s pack. He was so startled he forgot the crushing pain in his ankle. He had sprained it while descending a tree used as a lookout. He unwittingly leapt to his feet. Limping, he turned toward the soldier with the musket in his hand. Had

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the man thrown something at the annoying creature? The sixteen-year-old New England captive was confused. Until some sense could be made of what he saw before him, he had to make several observations.

Never in his life had he seen such a sight. He could not count the number, but there were more than four small squirrels, their tails hopelessly entangled by constant turning in their tree habitat. This jumble was not allowing any of them go free. The mother scampered off into the woods in a panic. Samuel’s first reaction was of overwhelming pity.

“Oh, you’ve got yourselves into a fine state! Let me get you untangled,” he said out loud. He moved out of their way as they scrambled senselessly back and forth. They escaped his attempts to catch them. “Your mother will do it with her teeth, then!” he said, exasperated.

The soldiers and the Abenakis came over to get a closer look. They both broke into laughter so exuberant, that Samuel at first froze in panic, sure that these brash men would do something out of insolence to hurt him. He crouched down beside his pack.

Ouch! His ankle! They continued to ridicule, and he drew in a long breath until nervous laughter came bursting out of his throat. By now some others from the encampment were awake. Three Abenakis had joined the first one and they appeared to have made a decision. One hurried toward a pile of supplies.

Samuel again looked at the squirrels. Now he was able to count them. Five.

What a noise they made, and not one of them could run in a straight line! The pain in his ankle was gaining in intensity. He also feared that the soldiers would harm the squirrels.

He decided to throw his coat over them and pin them down. He felt the cold moisture of

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wet leaves soaking through the wool cloth. Samuel’s two hands, extended over the garment, showed the impossibility of the task, which was drawn to the attention of Chagnan, his companion, who had been watching, amused. Chagnan laid down a musket on one loose side and spread his left hand on the opposite side of the coat. “That is how you will trap them, my friend,” he said in his native tongue. Together, they managed to detain the brood, which was rising and falling with every jump. Ever since Chagnan had met Samuel, he considered him as his first “friend” in this new life among the French and English. He would be returning to Montreal, but Samuel would be staying with his father, the pastor, Reverend Williams, at Chateau Richer.

Chagnan, who had run off to speak to the Abenakis, signaled to Samuel with his eyes and hands to get ready to lift the covering. Samuel did not think anyone but the aboriginals was aware of what would happen next. His only thought was that he would witness another bloody scene. A flash in his mind distracted him. He saw all the inhabitants of Deerfield making for the main road; but even as they ran, they stumbled to the ground and some lay still. Returning his gaze to the present scene and trembling, Samuel picked up his jacket and turned away, moving as fast as he could, hoping that the tomahawk would not be aimed at him. Then he crawled away on hands and knees to a safe distance.

Samuel positioned himself to watch the scene. The squirrels had made their way to a nearby tree. One was desperate to climb the tree. As the baby leapt up the bark, a blow of Chagnan’s ax made a swift cut, leaving him with half a tail but freeing him to make the desired ascent. The four below scuffled, and a second one attempted the climb.

Whack! went the ax, and another animal was flying up the trunk, this time with three tails

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attached to him! Chagnan was aiming for a third strike when the last three clawed at each other and two waddled off into the woods. One of them wore his own and half of the first squirrel’s tail. The other, without any tail, had been badly hit and was slowly able to make it to safety. The fifth squirrel lay, unmoving, in the grass. Chagnan gave names in his language to the four live squirrels, ‘No-tail’, ‘Half-a-Tail’, ‘Tail and a Half’ and ‘Three-Tails’. The soldiers, having seen enough, turned away and laughed with the Abenakis, at the event that had entertained them this first hour of the day.

Samuel was left to wonder what would have happened to the brood if they had been left to themselves and how many times he would have been bitten if he had tried to untangle them. In those few moments, as things suddenly seemed clear to him, something had vanished from Samuel, and he knew it. All the terror and horrifying sights of the massacre were being purged from his mind by some mysterious kindnesses that defied explanation. He had known in Deerfield that native warriors were to do their duty, and he feared that duty. French and English sided with their regiments and commanders.

Kindness was weakness. “May God take care of you, because we cannot! is the final cry of an exasperated soldier. Not with Chagnan. Chagnan knew how to mix bravery and compassion. “Bravery and compassion,” he prayed. “God, give me bravery and compassion.” Therein lay a satisfying resolution to the madness of his suffering. ___________________________________ The others with Hephzibah and Warham were all out of the tent and talking loudly. They made decisions about the return to Montreal, further west. This awakened the New England children who were the last to leave the warmth of the sun-soaked tent.

When the outsiders stopped talking, the sound of crows, calling to each other in the trees,

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replaced the sound of their voices. Hephzibah had become accustomed to morning in the city; the bell or musket fire announcing news from the Town Cryer, the garrison bugle which woke her on most mornings, and the sound of Pépo, coming in or going out the door.

She prepared to leave her brother, Kanonwu and the children. She had tried to write the children’s names in her mind, but she was unsure she would ever be able to pronounce them.

First, they had to eat something. A fire was already started, with birch bark strips and a miniature bow that was spun on a string. To make a spark fly off it and into the tinder, the spindle had to be vigorously rotated between strong hands. The meal consisted of fresh water sturgeon with mushrooms. Hephzibah was soon full and she washed her hands and face in the river.

It was soon evident that she was not going to avoid the flood of tears as she said goodbye to Ebenezer. Seeing his ears, she was reminded that there was danger everywhere, and she feared that their life in captivity would end tragically - by disease, cold, hunger, or murder. She may never see him again.

She confided her latest thoughts. Her older brother was eager to listen. “I think Samuel has been treated unjustly. Eunice is losing her English and forgetting the catechism. Reverend Williams and Papa are being forced to wear rags and be separated from their children for not converting. What can we do, Ebenezer? The Massachusetts Governor, Mister Dudley is working to have us returned to the Colony, and when that happens, I want Papa to take us all back,” Hephzibah sighed. “I think we could live in Boston and you could build ships by apprenticing to someone at the harbour.”

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She suddenly changed subjects. “The painting of the Road to Emmaus was stolen, Ebenezer. I tried to get it back.”

He held her shoulders, to keep her sobs from overwhelming her. His reply comforted her. “You got left behind at the lake beside Fort Chambly. We did not know what happened to you, but father told me of your safety and now that I have met Madame Côté, I am sure you will be taken care of. Do not worry. Death has died, Hephie.” He reminded her of the painting and its subject. “I have to forget Deerfield, and shipbuilding. You should also start giving some thought to the present and the future.”

All of the people at the encampment waved to them as they set out west to Montreal. It was a sunny morning and the air was fresh and huge flocks of white bustard birds flew noisily over them into the sunrise. Colin was with them once again and he paddled steadily in front. Michel, who was stronger, took the stern.

“You are from Pennsylvania?” he asked Hephzibah, who was seated facing him.

“No, we were captured in Massachusetts Colony,” she said and then she sighed.

“Does not everyone know what dreadful things have happened to us?” This trip was becoming a disappointment to her. First, the priest in François-Xavier’s Mission was demeaning towards her father. She had seen the disfigured head of her brother. Charles Emmanuel’s injuries, and the fears she had for Samuel and Warham’s sister, Eunice, were beginning to weigh on her heart.

“I have thought of going to Pennsylvania,172” Colin responded to her. “The Governor, William Penn, has sent an invitation for Canadians to settle there. He has land for us. When I am finished my three-year term here, maybe I will go there, where the climate is more favorable.”

172

one of the thirteen colonies before the founding of the United States in 1776

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Warham had fallen asleep in the bottom of the boat. His head lay on the newly purchased moccasins that Michel had bought from the Algonquins.

“I have heard that Delaware has just separated from Pennsylvania,” Colin added between strokes.

“Where have you heard this from?” Hephzibah asked, surprised of the news. But before Colin could reply, the rich rumble of Michel’s voice interrupted and outdid her own, as he addressed Marie Louise who sat on the bench opposite him.

He was telling her of the dried peas, beans, sea biscuits and salt pork that he had packed for his next venture with the fur trade. He was looking forward to the Indian corn, mixed with bear grease that he would be able to procure from the squaws further along his route. He asked Marie Louise, “You must spare me some trinkets to give to the Old Lady when I arrive at the western lakes,” he begged.

‘The Old Lady’ was the fear of all Voyageurs. Hephzibah only knew that there was a belief that if trinkets (cheap jewelry or household decorations), were thrown into the immense lake173 where the Old Lady (the wind) was believed to reside, she would be kind and not let sudden storms destroy their canoe.

“On Royal Island, they have been talking of it,” Colin finally was able to respond to Hephzibah’s question about Delaware Colony. “I just heard the news from a Frenchman at the Algonquin encampment.”

“I thought I might ask you - where is Royal Island?”174 Hephzibah asked the young man. She was quite ignorant of the French settlements, situated on the Atlantic

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Georgian Bay (northeast of Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes) Royal Island is now called Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and the Fortress Louisbourg is on the east side of Cape Breton. This is where the French displaced the English in the time of Charles-LeMoyne d’Iberville. Louisbourg was first captured by the English 1745. http://www.louisbourg.ca/fort/.

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Sea. She never did find out, for they were already unable to have a conversation. The waves were coming against them now.

Later, at Round Island, they banked the canoe and walked up the road to the house of the young woman who had given lodging to Charles Emmanuel. __________________________________ Meanwhile, still camped with the Abenakis, Samuel prepared his breakfast from the piece of deer meat he was given. An officer handed him some hard tack.175 He introduced himself. ‘Capitain, le Monsieur de Beauville, Frère de l’Intendant’. They had traveled in separate boats and Samuel had not yet met everyone but his own crew.

“I have an English Bible. Do you think your father might like it?” he asked after he had heard Samuel’s story and that his father was an English pastor.”

“I think he would like that very much, Sir. Do you read English?” Samuel asked.

“I have read enough English to know I would not like to be an Englishman,” he laughed sarcastically. “Have you ever read the writings of Jonathan Swift?”

“But Sir, I believe Mister Swift is an Irishman.”

“Oh... yes, you may be right there,” Monsieur de Beauville replied correcting himself.

The officer of the Royal Navy finished eating and went over to sit with one of the native men beside a shelter, made by one of the Indians. The man beside the shelter was

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a kind of thick cracker that resisted mildew. It was commonly packed for long distance travel.

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Wendat,176not Abenakis, Samuel noticed by the designs on his clothing. The older brown-skinned man laid down a piece of canvas on the ground and sat quietly until Monsieur de Beauville squatted down next to him. A half hour later, when Samuel looked, they were laying out sticks in between them. He asked Chagnan what this meant.

“It means they have decided to talk to each other about nine subjects. Look.

They have nine sticks. Maybe they will put down a tenth, but every time they want to come back to a subject - one they have already spoken about - they will point to that stick. It keeps them from getting confused. That is why I want to learn to read and write your languages. That Indian man there does not know how to remember things,” Chagnan said mockingly. When I get old, like the white men, I will have an advantage over my age, from being a student at the Sulpician’s school in Montréal, and from learning to record my memories.

Samuel observed the negotiators for a while. Then he cleaned up his dish and knife and packed his bag. When he looked again, the Wendat was holding a painting, the painting that used to hang in the Block’s house by their table! The Captain was giving the Indian a handful of white and black European-made wampum beads. Samuel drew closer to see if this was the painting that Hephzibah had tried to retrieve at Chambly from her Wendat guide.

“Sir,” Samuel said to the captain. “May I sit down?”

“Do you speak the dialect of the Ours clan?” he asked.

“No, Sir,” he said, almost in a pleading tone, “but I speak the language of one who is puzzled inside. A young woman I know lost this same painting you are selling.”

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The principal site of the Huron or Wendat people was called Huronia (near the Great Lakes) but wars with the Iroquois over fur and tobacco trade (they kept their monopoly over corn) forced them to found a settlement near Quebec City called Wendake or Village of the Hurons

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The officer Beauville stood and put his hands on Samuel’s shoulders. “Sit and tell us about it, if it be true,” he said. The Indian made room for Samuel and put down a tenth stick. Then the French Captain explained to the native, in the Ours dialect, the young New Englander’s interest in the painting.

When the story was pieced together, Samuel was able to discover some important news that he was anxious to tell Hephzibah, as soon as he could get some writing paper and ink. It was more important to continue discussing other subjects, so he turned his attention again to the men.

The officer Beauville told Samuel a story, but first the Indian gestured to him to lay another stick. When the officer had done so, the Frenchman began his account.

“A certain ‘Pastedechouan’ was sent to a monastery of the Recollets to be made into a missionary. The Recollets sent catechumens177 to la Flèche, to Paris or to SaintGermain-en Laye, years ago. In 1631, Pastedechouan was sent over the ocean because he was particularly gifted. When he was in France, he was enticed to take part in the glories of the court and the church. This was used to bring him to the point of wanting to convert his fellow Indians. Therefore, he was baptized with great ceremony, in the Cathedral of Angers. A godfather was chosen for him, ‘Pierre of Rohan, Prince of Guémenée,’ who christened178 the Savage, ‘Pierre’. His godmother was Antoinette of Bretagne.

Eventually, he was sent back here, but the newly baptized, Pierre, did not prove to meet the expectations of the missionaries when he returned to his tribe, even though the 177

students, studying the testimony of the first Christians and the doctrines of the church in order to take the vows of a priest 178 ‘christening’ is another word for Christian baptism, a ceremony where a name is decided upon and officially registered. Guardians are appointed unless this is done in the civil courts. Rightly understood in its biblical meaning, it is a visible sign of the pureness of heart that God, through the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus, is willing to apply to the child of believing parents, or to anyone who is born under the false salvation of Adam and Eve and is reborn by the Holy Spirit. True salvation must come from the Messiah (the approved likeness of God). Baptism is in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and is applied by faithful leaders of a congregation where the Messiah is welcomed.

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Recollets had thought he would make an excellent ambassador of faith.”

Samuel wondered if the Savage was still alive, or if his people wanted to also go and see the impressive cities of the lands over the sea. Samuel, who wished to travel and study had never had this privilege himself.

Officer Beauville continued, “The convert’s son, now over thirty years old, was enlisted recently to guide our soldiers to Deerfield. He could...”

Here Samuel wanted to interrupt but it was too impolite... “Could this be the one who threw Hephzibah in the River?” was what he wanted to ask.

Père Le Jeune, who was converted to true religion, from the pretended reformed sect, at an early age,” officer Beauville was saying now, “told us about him in his writings. When the father, Pastedechouan, returned to his country, he was reinstalled in the clan of his brothers to once again take up the language and customs he had almost forgotten. He also, unfortunately, took up the same barbarous behaviour that he had known before going to France.”

“Yet, the unfaithful catechumen’s son,” Samuel noted in his mind, “is now a chief of the Wendats. Maybe it was he, the guide who led Hephzibah from Fort Chambly and who was also my father’s master, his Indian guide from Deerfield. I remember him.

He was the Savage who killed five moose while we were on our journey. Now I know he is the son of a Wendat, christened in France? Would he do this to Hephzibah?” Samuel was perplexed. ___________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, Hephie was waiting to sort out another puzzle. How had Charles Emmanuel been so brutally treated while they were away, and for what reason? Marie

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Louise was speaking to the crying woman who sat at the dining room table. They were in the house where they had left Madame Côté’s stepson.

“Charles Emmanuel is back in Montreal”, she said to Hephzibah.

“My uncle returned early in the evening, before Charles Emmanuel woke up,” she sobbed, “before his father came with the others to get him.”

“When my uncle and cousins saw that there was a man’s coat on the chair, they forced me to show them where the man, to whom the coat belonged, was. I do not know why my uncle does not trust me. I am not pretty and I have no suitors. My cousin found him, before I showed them, and he kicked him without pity, not even noticing his bandage. Charles Emmanuel shouted at him and then, because he does not speak the same dialect and did not understand right away, my uncle dragged him out of the house where...” The distraught girl was unable to finish. She was crying because she was fearful of what they might do to her.

They found out from others at the dock that the injured Voyageur had dragged himself to the riverbank to wait for his father, who did not come for him until the next morning. To make matters worse, Charles Emmanuel was later fined for having disobeyed the curfew on the island.

“Hephzibah was trying to decide in her mind if the girl had told the truth, or if something was happening in the guest house that might have angered the uncle. Left alone, had the two young people abused their freedom by shaming the other or by shaming their families? She resolved not to let these thoughts go on. “I must take peoples’ words for what they are, Mama said, when I am judging motives.”

“The motives are sometimes covered by a mask, but they will come out in deeds

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done by the hands. Hands do not deceive,” she said. Hephzibah listened to the distant voice of her mother’s wisdom and put aside her own prejudice, resolving to let ‘the fruit of the plant show which plant she was studying’. She would not be able to know from the girl, and because they were absent, no one was able to confirm the story with the uncle and cousins, who had returned once again to work at Saint-Ours.

The travelers left the guesthouse and promptly went to the shore to find out more about the incident. Some witnesses told them of Charles Emmanuel being loaded into a canoe by some of the militia. The witnesses thought he had been arrested, but in fact, men, sent with his father, were rescuing him. Satisfied that they had as much information as could be given to them, the travelers returned to the canoe and set out across the river for Montreal. Another man desired to travel with them and took Colin’s place.

When they arrived, Hephzibah and Warham helped by carrying the paddles up through the St-Pierre gates and to the Côté house. The door was locked and with the large iron key still in the lock, Hephzibah swung the door in on its hinges. The iron metal whined with its familiar creaking groans. She called to Charles-Emmanuel. He was not downstairs.

“Upstairs in my room,” he replied, weakly.

When Hephzibah, Marie Louise and Michel arrived at the door of the room, they were greeted by a smell of leftover fish coming from a dish on the floor. A blanket lay dragged across it. Michel spoke rapidly to Charles Emmanuel. He heard the whole story of the uncle and cousins before Hephzibah could hear it properly. While Marie Louise arranged the covers, she asked Hephzibah to remove the fish. Her curiosity, unsatisfied, she was frustrated that she could not stay to hear the news. She obediently went

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downstairs with the dish in her hand.

She ran into Pépo who entered with a stack of wood in his arms.

“Pépo, what happened to Charles Emmanuel? Did he tell you?” She captured the attention of the boy before he left for more wood.

“He was too much of a joker and he was not in the right company for that,” was all Pépo would tell her.

In later conversation, Marie Louise explained that he had spoken in a jesting way to the uncle and cousins about the fact that both he and the girl, Thérèse, were beyond marrying age, she being seventeen and he being twenty-one and that no intimate relationship had occurred between them. The cousin was unaware that Charles Emmanuel was injured and before hearing the whole defense through, he had fabricated an insulting story in his mind. Now, days after the incident, lying defenseless in his bed sulking, the victim was plotting his revenge.

The household took to caring for his physical needs, which he permitted them to do, but with reserve. Unfortunately, most of the remaining planting had to be done by the rest of the family and once again Hephzibah and Pépo went to their beds, exhausted from long days of labour.

The clover was ripe and it was time to wash the sheep in the river and then shear their wool coats from their warm bodies. One lamb had eaten too much fresh, humid clover and before anyone could relieve it from the gases trapped inside the stomach, the pressure had caused the animal’s abdomen to burst open. Pépo was saddened by the little animal’s unnecessary suffering. A quick incision to the stomach would have saved her.

The boy loved to watch the shearing and was the comedian who entertained the

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workers, when they had a moment to look up. Most often, he would imitate the soldiers, and sometimes he would pretend to be a black-robed member of the Company of Jesus.

But regretfully, he was not left to mock. Until the end of the week, the bigger, burly men treated him as if he was an annoying, pesky bird. Hephzibah saw him eating less and less at mealtimes. He came running in the door, on the last of these shearing days, with blood all over his hands and face. Someone had shaved off his hair with sheep shears. He had struggled so much to get free, that the shears had taken some of his skin.

“Hephie! Help me get this bleeding to stop,” he wailed.

Marie Louise was at the factory. Charles Emmanuel was upstairs still recovering.

Hephzibah placed a linen cloth over a large incision above the nape of his neck. Pépo held its corner over a cut near the left ear. When he could reach his hands to the proper place to hold the cloth himself, Hephzibah ran outside for the pot of water that she had set down earlier beside the front door. She bathed the cuts in fresh water and was reluctant to leave the boy, although he wanted to go to the barn and rest.

Hephzibah thought about the last few days. He had been handling all the chores, making meals and sorting out seeds for planting. He was also helping with the animals.

This year the Côté’s stable housed some chickens, several pigs, three cows, two new calves, and a team of oxen to work the fields and to pull the wood in winter. Pépo’s eyes were dull and his skin was warm. When he went out, she followed him to the stable.

Pépo turned to her and said, “Hephie, I think the Quakers179 would have let me go free, with my father. My Mama said he was going to be freed.”

Hephzibah listened carefully to every word. It was so hard to get Pépo to talk about himself. Before she commented, she took the occasion to ask him a question that

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was on her mind.

“Pépo, where did your father come from?”

“I do not know. Mama was Miss Killigrew’s wet nurse180 and I know her father was born in Spain.”

“You were believed to be a slave when you were brought here, were you not, Pépo?”

“I was a ship boy.”

He changed the subject as he thought of other Caribbean Islands he had traveled to. “I saw the earthquake holes in Jamaica181. They were really big. Some towns were rebuilt when I went back to that place.”

Hephzibah was not interested in geology, so Pépo let her ask another question.

“Were you sold as a slave?”

“I should not have been sold at Fort Orange by that gun trader. I did not belong to him,” Pépo said, as he climbed to the top of a shelf to lie in the loft on his bulrush mattress. She helped him up the wooden post.

“I think you labour at great cost to your life. I have seen the way you are treated,” she said, as she sat on a milking stool. “These important matters must become clear in our minds, Pépo. There are free blacks in the place where you were born. If you are one of the Spanish born Africans, whose children were born in freedom in the mountains of Jamaica,182 you might be able to defend yourself as a free man someday.”

“Now do not talk about getting away from here, Miss Hephzibah. I tried that and

180

a wet nurse provides breast milk to a mother who can not breast-feed her baby

181

An earthquake hit Jamaica in 1692

182

Maroons

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it did not work. I sure would like to go back to my Misses Killigrew and those sugar canes. That sweet taste of molasses is all I can think about sometimes.”

“You are forgetting that we have maple sugar here, Pépo,” Hephzibah reminded him.

“Maple sugar is hard to get... Oh, I feel so hot, Hephie, even the taste of molasses or maple water would make me die,” Pépo groaned.

“What are you doing there on your bed, caring for nothing! Morbleu!” boomed a man’s voice.

It was Captain Côté. He was covered with ropes that circled his shoulders and he dragged a harrow with him. The sweat shone on his forehead. His hands, grimy and blistered, he began to unload the heavy hemp from his arms. His frustration with Pépo increased when he saw the boy vomit in the hay. He grabbed an end of the rope and hurled it at the boy on the upper platform.

“You want to get the animals sick? Then we will have to drag ourselves through the woods in winter searching for meat.” The man was tired and thirsty, but his fury eventually subsided. He wrapped up the rope and hung it on a peg. “Go out to the manure pile and be sick,” he said, while motioning with his hand. Pépo started down from the loft and passed in front of his patron with downcast eyes and a soiled shirt. The captain was startled by the bald head with dried blood on it. Pépo placed his tricorn carefully on his head.

Hephzibah stood bravely and said gently, “You, Sir, are unjust. This is the son of a Maroon.”

“A Maroon! Tréédame! How do you know that?” The captain grabbed her

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shoulder. She struggled to get his dirty hand off of her white blouse. He let go.

“Pépo ... he told me about his mother’s father,” she said, now quite frightened, but praying to be brave.

Pépo looked back at her, as he went out the door, and his eyes seemed to cry out, “I did not! You have gotten me into trouble now.” Then he disappeared and she was left with the captain, and a doorway full of animals entering from the fields.

“I do not know if he is the son of a Maroon, Sir,” she confessed. “He comes from the islands, in the south, where it is warm. I have heard they have free negros called Maroons,” Hephzibah said innocently.

The captain was not accustomed to speaking to Hephzibah, but because of these comments, he was interested in her knowledge. “He comes from...” “I have heard...”

“Maroons.” These were all staying in his ears, impressing upon him her increasing ability to communicate in his language, something he was sure would be impossible for her. He heard her quite well now and understood her. He took Pépo’s mattress outside, then came back again to talk to Hephzibah, who had directed an ox to its stall, and was about to leave.

“The Spanish are wealthy traders, my girl. I was a buccaneer,183 and a Corsair,184 for a time. It looked easy to take some of that wealth for myself...but it was not easy,” he laughed. “The king rescued me from that life and put me to better use.”

“Did you lose your fingers doing that?” Hephzibah dared to finally ask, something she had often wondered about.

183

boucan is the French word for smoke from which came the knickname ‘boucanneers’ or ‘buccaneers’. Pirates sold smoked meat they preapred on beaches near ports of trading ships.

184 corsairs were privateers who were hired by kings to pirate their enemy’s ships. The North African Barbary Coast (Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis) was a prime target. So too was the North Atlantic Coast.

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“No, I was injured as a child. My father had a mill. My fingers were caught in the gear.”

“You are the son of a miller?

“Yes, from Rouen.”

“And I am the daughter of a miller.”

Then I will tell the daughter of a miller a story, the captain said. He was already aware that her father was working a wind-operated millstone further down river. Mister Block had sent him some money, ‘for the care of his daughter’.

“There once was a buccaneer...” Captain Côté began, “he had a wooden leg, a hook for a hand, and a handkerchief over his eye.”

The captain told his story while cleaning the harrow. Hephzibah relaxed. She knew Captain Côté was in a better mood. He loved to tell stories. He showed his hand and made it into a hook. “...A young sailor asked him how he had gotten the injury to his leg.”

“Ah! that came from the battle where I fought between two ships and they came together and crushed my leg between them,” he said.

Hephzibah made a face as if horrified.

Then the sailor asked, “How, then, did you lose your hand?”

“Ah, that was from getting a rope caught around it while falling from the mast in a storm,” the buccaneer said. Hephzibah winced again.

“Well, how did you lose your eye?” the sailor asked.

“That was a bird who dropped excrement in it.” Hephzibah looked in disbelief.

“How could it have made you lose the whole eye?” the sailor wondered.

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Hephzibah wondered the same thing as she followed the story.

“I had only had my hook for one day!” said the buccaneer. He gave out a loud laugh and Hephzibah too could not contain herself as she thought of the pirate putting a hand to his eye, having forgotten it had a hook on the end.

When the Captain could contain himself, he said that he had worked from the headquarters on island de la Tortue, off the northwestern coast of Hispaniola in the main line of the North Sea commerce.185 “We took cattle from the Spanish plantations and dried the meat on grills and sold it to vessels that put in for provisions.”

“We met Maroons between the Dry Harbour Mountains and the Santa Cruz Mountains of Jamaica. The English drove their Spanish owners from the island. That is how they escaped and defended themselves. Now their children are free; they were born in freedom,” the captain explained. Hephie watched him put the equipment in a corner.

When he was finished, he went out to the barley field again to work.

Did he know Pépo might be a Maroon? she wondered. Does he expect to free him when he gets older?

Hephzibah went into the house again and found Pépo with Charles Emmanuel.

“Clean this little mocking bird,” Charles Emmanuel ordered the girl, and stomped back to his room.

Pépo, who was angry with Charles Emmanuel said, “It is like everyone got up this morning as idiots, and he woke up smart.”

Hephie took a bowl of water and washed blood and vomited bile from the feverish boy. She apologized to him for giving uncertain information to the captain about him

185

The Caribbean Sea was divided into north and south

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being the son of a Maroon, but at least she was able to explain to him that maybe he had come from a family of Maroons. Maybe that made him free. He might once have been owned by the Spanish and freed by the English. Maybe his parents gave birth to him in freedom. Maybe someone would come and rescue him, the very thing Hephzibah hoped would soon happen to her. She thought often of the advantages of being free.

The doctor at the Charon hospice had straightened and set Charles Emmanuel’s collarbone. He was able to use his left arm and was doing some very light fieldwork. He talked constantly with his father about how to get even with the family of the girl, Thérèse, whose family name was Trutot.

Pépo did not recover as he lay under the roof of the stable and the captain was afraid of him bringing disease to the livestock, so Marie Louise insisted he be made to sleep in Charles Emmanuel’s room. She intended to make it her ‘hospice,’ if she could get a priest to come and approve it. If not, she knew Pépo must, for hygienic reasons, be sent out of Montreal to recover.

It was too easy for everyone to forget about the black moor. There was much to do, and he was unable to do his own work so the household had to replace him. Days were long and were beginning to get warm. The priest gave permission for Pépo to stay at home. Marie Louise and Hephzibah prayed for him to recover, but he did not.

Hephzibah began to think he would die. She let it slip into her conversation one evening when she took some bread pudding to him and he was unable to talk to her even though his eyes were open. Alarmed, she began to ask Marie Louise if it was the “Pest” or Yellow Fever, the kind that had taken so many people a few years before in Boston, or something worse, like smallpox. They prayed for him, and they asked God to, “make us

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know our own end, and the measure of our days, so that we might remember how frail we are also.”

“If I am going to die, I would like you to read Mister Mather’s book to me,” Pépo whispered to her the next morning, when she came to see if he had died during the night.

She had forgotten about the book. It was with the New England Primers, still stored in the drawer, under her bed. She came in from doing the laundry the next day and took it out so she would remember to read it that evening.

The forty-day fast of Lent was over and vegetation from the ground and trees, as well as spring shipments of food, made the meals so much less dull than the end-ofwinter’s meager offerings. Marie Louise went to the market and the King’s magasin and prepared the tastiest meals she could for Pépo. It was hard for the two New England children, who, although they were hungry, also observed Lent because of custom and obedience. Nevertheless, they helped prepare food for the sick boy. The Church had given Pépo an exemption so that he did not have to observe the fast restrictions, if it would improve his health. But Pépo could eat nothing. Marie Louise had kneaded fruit into the bread, but there was no appetite left in the weakened body of the black servant boy. In the end, she secretly gave the food to the others, rather than waste it.

One evening, Hephie began to read ‘the book without pictures,’ as Pépo called it.

A Token for the Children of New England, Or some examples of children in whom the fear of God was remarkably budding before they died in several parts of New England; published for the encouragement of piety in other children.

by Cotton Mather186 She finished two pages, but Pépo was already tired. He thanked her, and she went

186

this book, reprinted in 1994 by Soli Deo Gloria Publication, Morgan, Pennsylvania also contains a collection of examples of children’s deaths in Holland and England, compiled by the Reverend James Janeway.

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downstairs.

Later the next day, Madame Bergèse came for a visit. She told of the flood early in the spring on Bonaventure Island, north of the Island of Montreal.187 “Our workers,” she said, “who are mostly soldiers from our Compagnie de Blaise Bergères, saved the house and the barn by lantern as they scooped out the water.”

After hearing all about the disaster, Hephzibah told her of finding her brother at the Algonquin encampment.

“You must try to understand his situation, Hephzibah,” she told her. “He will do well because he is still young and can use all his wits.”

Marie Louise had more time to tell of their trip and of the different events that had happened in Montreal during the winter. Hephzibah excused herself and returned to finish up her mistress’ work.

Later, the two women prayed for Pépo, and Madame Bergèse visited him. Pépo, who spoke often about her afterwards, remembered her visit.

“My husband and I are going to hire a boat, Pépo, to take us and our belongings once more to Ile Ste-Hélène for the summer,” she told him. Pépo remembered his visit there once, with the captain and some of the soldiers. “Our field workers will have use of the house on Ile Bizard for their summer lodging.”

At the stone chapel of Bonsecours, Hephzibah had to stand two Sundays without Pépo next to her. Charles Emmanuel was feeling much better and returned to attend the services. Warham was starting to learn to sing the Latin Mass, for he heard it every week.

187

now called Ile Bizard

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When she returned to the house on the second Sunday, she was a little ashamed of her own coquetry. Instead of modestly walking down St-Paul Street, she softly danced as she went. In a dozen subtle ways, she made herself more attractive. Her voice (when she greeted people) dropped and her eyes sparkled, sending new messages to the young men she met, in startling, unspoken promises, never dreamt of before. Her own behavior puzzled her, though. If she had not been too shy to ask, Marie Louise would have said she was a normal young woman, with some very desirable qualities.

In the house again, she ran up the stairs to see Pépo. It was too late. He was asleep again. Tonight, she would read to herself from the book ‘without pictures’, as she was now accustomed to do every evening. She would remember what she read. Then she would reread only the best parts to Pépo in the morning, before she started setting the table.

Charles Emmanuel was up and out of the room earlier, but there would be little time, so Hephzibah would try to make the most of it.

“Pépo!” she greeted him, one morning.

“Hello Hephie,” he said weakly.

“I have nearly come to the end of the introduction,” she began, “but I will tell you more if you want. I have finished the book myself.”

“Could I first have a drink? I am very thirsty.”

“Yes, of course,” said Hephzibah, and she searched for his cup beside his mattress and got water from a bowl on the dresser. She was thankful it was not winter, as the water would have been solid ice.

“I thought it would be best to die in the night... when it is quiet... but I do not want

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to die of thirst,” Pépo said.

“Reverend Mather saw many children die, Pépo. He spoke at their funerals. I have seen many people die horribly, Pépo. The children, whose lives are recounted in this book, all die - mostly of disease, but that is not the worst thing that can happen to a child. Dying without Christ, is that worst thing…being forsaken, which happens to none of the children in this book. Oh Pépo, I do not want that to happen to you!” Hephzibah sobbed and threw her face on the wool blanket.

“What does Reverend Mather say I must do, Hephie?”

“He asks every child to read this book or another, that was written about children in Holland and England by another minister. Some have their parents read it to them. It is about children who, before they died, were given such messages in their hearts that they even comforted their parents. The suffering children pleaded with their sisters and brothers to know Christ and to believe in Him, for they were at peace. This came upon them after they gave their lives into His hands.”

“Could you just read a little bit today?”

“Pépo, if you like, I can wait. Do you want to rest?”

“No, Hephie. I am near the realm of a King. You are His ambassador. Instead, I want to walk in the sunshine outside and go to the barn and help Captain Côté.”

“Pépo, you are not strong enough,” she said and felt his skin again. He was a little cooler, but still warm. Hephzibah began to think he was hallucinating.

“I want you to read to me, then. Read as long as you can. I like to hear your voice. I like to hear it in English.” Pépo closed his eyes while she read from a part of the book. Reverend Mather quoted from James Janeway, a minister in England.

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“...shall Christ tell you that He will love you, and will you not love Him?...

Get yourself into the chamber or some private place, fall upon your knees, weep and mourn and tell Christ that you are afraid that He does not love you, but that you would gladly have His love. Beg Him to give you His grace and pardon for your sins, and that He would make you His child. Tell God that you do not care who does not love you, if He will but love you. Say to Him, “Have you not a blessing for me, Thy poor little child? Father, hast Thou not a blessing for me, even for me? Oh! give me an interest in Christ! Oh! let me not be undone forever!” Thus, beg for your lives, and do not be contented until you have an answer. And do this every day with as much earnestness as you can, twice a day at least.”188 Pépo’s glossy eyes were welling up with tears. This made them shiny when he opened them, as the morning sun reflected off them. “Does God have a blessing for me, Hephie?” he asked.

“Cast your cares on Him, Pépo, for He cares for you, and He will never suffer the righteous to be moved.”

“I know, “Pépo said. “The bruised reed He will not break and the smoking flax He will not quench,” They quoted from the Bible; words which they had hidden in their hearts from past sermons and lessons of their parents and believing teachers. It was all the comfort they had.

Warham came in and asked, “Hephie, do you know where the ladle is? Marie Louise is looking all over for it.” Hephzibah wiped her own eyes, kissed Pépo on the head, and went to the dresser where the ladle still sat in the bowl.

“I will pray for you, Pépo and I will bring you something to eat,” she said and ran out the door and down the stairs with Warham, who was trying to pull the ladle from her hands so he could get the credit for having found it. They nearly toppled down the stairs, wrapped in Hephzibah’s skirt, but Warham wriggled the ladle out of her hand while she

188

from the preface of James Janeway’s A Token for Children, retyped from an 1806 Philadelphia edition © 1994 Soli Deo Gloria, Morgan, Pa. p. XXII and XXIV

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tried to keep the book in her other hand from falling. Soon the boy was in the dairy giving the spoon to Marie Louise.

“How is Pépo?” Marie Louise asked when she came out of the dairy.

“I am afraid he will die soon, but I do not want him to die without Christ - that is the worst thing, is it not?

“If we but hope for this life, then it would be a pity, would it not?” Marie Louise said after a pause to think. “Did he drink anything?”

“He is drinking and he is thirsty, but he is having visions of being outside.”

“We can not do much more for him here, or even at the hospice, if he were allowed there. Yet, he does not appear to be getting worse, so we will pray that he gets better,” Marie Louise said cheerfully. Some who have Yellow Fever are restored, if they do not fall into the second stage.

Hephzibah was curious to know what symptoms of the ‘second stage’ were, but her patronne did not explain.

The two women prepared the bread dough and Hephzibah took it to the oven to be baked. When she returned, and it had cooled, she took a piece to the ailing boy. He ate a very small portion and then turned to go back to sleep.

“I have begged God to give me a blessing and I think He will, Hephie.”

“I think He will too,” she said quietly and descended the stairs, this time, at a more reasonable pace.

The next day, Warham accompanied Hephzibah to the Governor’s house where they delivered a letter from Captain Côté. They went out of the palisade to the Hotel Dieu of Jeanne Mance and M. Jérôme le Royer. On the way, they passed the property

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that was to be used for the new house of Jean Baptiste-Claude-Roch de Ramezay and his family. Hephzibah loved the way these French names felt in her mouth as she said them.

“Jean-Baptiste-Claude-Roch de Ramezay,” she repeated out loud to see if she could still say it now that several days had passed since she had heard the news from the Cryer.

Once at the hospice, they went past the guard and picked up some sacks, one half full of dried peas and the other of onions. The onions smelled musty with a bitter afterodor to them.

“Hephie, I do not want to carry these,” Warham was saying to her when they stopped inside the gates. Soldiers and dogs milled around them as she stooped to explain to Warham that her sack was heavier than his, and he must be a helper by bravely carrying his own bag. One dog came and sniffed the bag. It played a little with Warham’s hand in his jaws. Then it pulled. Alarmed, Hephie hit it over the head with the bag of peas and it released its grip. The hand was only scraped, but Warham was so frightened and yelled so loudly that Hephie decided to carry the boy, peas and onions as far away from the beast as she could. She found a tree and turned her back to the dog, facing the tree with Warham between her and the trunk. The strong dog balanced on its hind legs and lifted its paws, setting them on her shoulders. It clawed at her shawl for a few seconds, but, soon tiring of this, it went away to join the other dogs.

Rushing to see what had happened, the two soldiers shouted curses at her, calling her ‘the bloody entrails of an Englishman’. They complained about how she had treated their dog. One soldier got hold of her shawl and pulled it away from her apron. She was shaking terribly when she retrieved it from the ground, but she said some words of

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instruction to Warham, and in order not to trip, she watched the road carefully, as they scurried toward the house.

When they were home, Captain Côté promised to speak with the guards, but Hephzibah could not tell him which ones were on duty. She went to bed early, after she got Warham settled on his mattress in the barn. She had not been to see Pépo that day, thinking it best to wait until the next morning.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” Warham asked, hoping he would not have to be alone. It was a special privilege to be in the barn, he thought, but not when Pépo was not there, not when his hand was still sore and wrapped in a bandage. She prepared to lie next to him until he fell asleep and, in the end, she too fell asleep.

When she awoke, it was still night and she still heard voices in the house. She went in and said, “Goodnight” and curtsied to Marie Louise. Captain Côté - who it appeared to have injured himself at hip level - sat with Charles Emmanuel. He was seated at the table in conversation with his parents. She knew she should not interrupt. Quietly, she cleaned her face and hands beside the dairy, and slipped behind the curtains of her bed. She undressed, and crawled under her blanket. Now, she was thoroughly awake and, without moving, she listened. The three voices at the table seemed to be full of emotion.

Marie Louise was speaking.

“I want to forgive this man his offense against God and against us, Charles. I was enraged, but I have given my grievance to God. He has restrained my desire to get revenge. I am confident he will hold that evil desire from me like a horse’s rein until the Last Judgement. I would like to consider the man as a brother in the Kingdom of God, to love his family with the love of Christ, and in that way, continue under my heavenly

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king’s reign over me. Christ has loved me with a love so tender, that I would like also to be tender with others. I do not desire to humiliate them by reminding them of their fault, which they now realize. The Lord of heaven has exposed to me my own wrong, using the light of his Word. He has distanced my sins from me to make room, without obstacle, for His love, which He wants to give me. That is what I want to do, Charles, cancel their debt, start at zero, each time this incident separates us from each other.”

What was Charles Emmanuel about to do? Hephzibah thought that he had murdered someone, but maybe he had left an Indian wife in the West with children and no father. What if it was related to the girl, Therèse, on Round Island? Had he gotten vengeance on her uncle? Why had Marie Louise gotten angry? She left her thoughts and returned to listening. Now Charles Emmanuel was replying.

“I realize that clemency, Madame, does not bring me the same joy as it does you.

You are a woman.

“God’s image in me is that of a woman, for he made us male and female to resemble him. It is God you want to imitate and not a woman,” Marie Louise corrected him.

Charles Emmanuel tried to reason with his stepmother, “I cannot hope to hide this bitterness and wish it to disappear from my heart without exposing it to you.

Nevertheless, my soul risks falling into a torment so deep, because of the unjust blame that lay on me. I wish not, Madame, to be delivered to the Devil, who owns not my soul, nor to become one of his devices.

“God would be deaf to your prayers, if in need you called out to Him with soiled hands from your proposed vengeance,” she replied.

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“Have you told us everything there is to tell, then?” asked Captain Côté.

“Yes, Father, everything.”

The room was quiet. Marie Louise stood and brought something to the table. She continued speaking to Charles Emmanuel, repeating what she had said before.

“I will work against you each time you throw yourself against the Law of love for God and for your neighbour, yet I will always remember my own distance from His holiness, leaving my grievances against you, with Him. You may find meaning, Charles, in the forgiveness He once offered me, in my own youthful waywardness. May He pardon you, as you pardon them. It is when I came to him in silence, that I waited for Him to give me patience until the day of my enemy’s repentance.”

Hephzibah was unable to breathe. She had never heard anyone speak like this before. She did not want to miss what the young man was going to reply. He began to speak with more courage.

“Remind me what I have done that displeases God. Any rebellion has been against Him, has it not?”

“Son, if these people have hatred for us and we are not in violation of God’s Laws, then nothing remains but a persecution against us. God would be our Defense and we would have nothing to be ashamed of,” said the captain. This is the law of resistance.

“Yes,” Marie Louise agreed, “I would rather see you rejoicing,” Marie Louise replied. For sharing in the suffering of the persecuted gives great reward in heaven.

They may repent of having persecuted us. If they have wished that evil befall you, then, they are not just. If they have wanted the best to befall you, then let us allow them, rather, to desire your highest good.”

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“I have never heard it so well spoken, Madame,” continued Charles Emmanuel.

Could I say the same of them? Could I desire their greatest good? I am not sure of my intentions. I do not even want the highest good of God. Let God be God? No, let me be me and because, faithless I am, let Him remain far from me so that holy He may remain.”

“The truth is revealed sooner or later. By not being rash, you will not become a reason for the disgrace of those younger ones who seek God. Nevertheless, your example of taking these matters seriously is to be lauded,” Captain Côté reassured him.

Hephzibah smelled the smoke from his pipe and could picture him puffing on it with one ankle resting on the opposite knee while he leaned back in a chair. In fact, his sore hip kept him from such a position.

“I do not wish to suffer from divine condemnation and I am sorry for the injury it has brought to you, Father. Will I turn away from injustice, even if I am the cause? I will throw myself on God and He will deal with my enemy and deliver me from him. Please refrain from reminding me of this fault. I beg you, forgive me.”

“What injury had the captain suffered and why?” Hephie wondered.

Marie Louise changed the tone of her voice. It was still genuine and sincere, even earnest, but more jesting. “Well then, you are going to give me an opportunity to be merciful as my Father in heaven is merciful. That is why I treat your desire for revenge with such seriousness. I do not want to change the God of justice into a God who evaluates unfairly. We cannot hide ourselves from Him. I do not want either of us to have an accusation against us when that day of final evaluation comes. Regardless of what you choose to do, Charles, I will commit myself to your wellbeing and offer you lodging, food and sustenance. I do not choose to grieve the Holy Spirit of God by which

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I have been marked for the Day of Redemption. You will love clemency, you will love it not, but I will still love you with the love God gives to me for you.”

Hephzibah wanted desperately to quench her curiosity, yet also to go to sleep.

She was barely able to concentrate on what they were saying. She decided to let this final word ‘clemency’ be her last thought for this evening. It had already been such a difficult day. Her mind, however, returned to thoughts of Pépo who she had not seen since early yesterday. Could they be talking about him? Charles Emmanuel wanted to do something dreadful to somebody. Had he taken out his anger on the weak boy? How could Marie Louise forgive Charles Emmanuel if he had harmed the sick, homeless boy? She jumped out of the bed, almost catching her heel in her nightclothes, and she blurted out in her obvious English accent, “Is Pépo well?”

The others were so startled, that they gave all their attention to her.

“May I go see him?” she asked.

They thought she was having a bad dream and Marie Louise replied, “I will look in on him when I go upstairs, Hephie. Go back to bed.”

“He is not dead?” she asked, still unsure of what was going on.

“Go back to bed. You must be worried about him, but he is alive, Hephie, and he is getting well. If he has been ill with Yellow Fever he has, by God’s mercy, overcome it. He will surely be able to eat downstairs tomorrow. Now let us resolve this question of the suffering caused to Charles Emmanuel on Round Island.”

“You spoke well, Madame, yet I did not know what you were talking about.

Forgive me too please. Forgiveness, you say, is for the one who has done wrong, but I find it is very hard to know if one has clemency in one’s heart.”

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“Let us talk about this tomorrow,” Charles Emmanuel said, embarrassed by the interruption.

Hephzibah was reassured, however, and finally comprehended the conversation.

She returned to her cabin bed and drew the heavy canvas curtain closed.

She remembered then that she had not read the book containing the last words of dying children who had been buried by Reverend Mather in New England. So many colonists had not survived the Yellow Fever that had struck Boston in 1690, only fifteen years before. Some were stories he had recounted with great sadness, saying some children struggled long with doubt until they came to a full satisfaction that God had truly blessed them. When that battle was over, they believed that they were saved by a free gift of God and that Christ lived in them, therefore they lived. Some quoted up to fifty Scripture texts by memory before dying, thus constantly reminding their sisters and brothers and parents of the most precious words of God. Hephzibah lay repeating some of the ones, a girl her age who had died from the Plague in Holland, had quoted. They were her favourite ones also, and now they were like gold coins hidden under her pillow.

“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, because they rest from their labours and the good that they have done will go with them.”189 “Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you before the beginning of the world.”190 The children, she noticed, in the stories, often in great pain in their last days, would ask forgiveness of their parents for wrong done to them. They were seven or eight years of age, and they possessed what some adults had never gained in humility and trust.

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Revelation of John 14.13

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Matthew 25.34

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“The sufferings of this present life are not to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed to us.”191 “I entrust my spirit into your hand. Rescue me, Lord, for you are a faithful God.”192 Hephzibah let these last words stay in her mind as she fell into a deep, restful, sleep.

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Romans 8.18

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Psalm 31.5; Luke 23.46; Acts 7.59 New Living Translation ©Tyndale House, Wheaton, Illinois.

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Synopsis: chapter six Samuel Williams is on his way downstream from Montreal and has portaged in the Lac St Pierre region (Sorel) just before coming to a place opposite Fort St-François.

The group of travelers includes Chagnan, a young man from a clan called the Bear clan, who has been sent to learn writing and reading from the French scholars at the Sulpician boy’s school.

Samuel has injured his ankle, and yet must continue on to Chateau Richer where he will stay with his father until the end of the captivity. The morning brings a nest of baby squirrels whose tails are tangled to his attention.

Charles Emmanuel’s injuries from the Lacrosse game heal but he has had to forego using his fur-trading license, the last one he will be able to get because he is not married. Also, he is older than the law permits for unmarried Voyageurs (fur traders).

He seeks revenge against a man on Round Island who threw him out of his house for supposed lewd conduct without knowing that Charles Emmanuel’s collarbone was broken.

The men shearing the sheep by the river mistreat Pépo. He has been working hard and wearing himself out. When the men shave him and he comes back bleeding, he contracts a disease. The trauma and infection cause him to acquire a dangerous fever and, weakened by the illness some think it to be the Yellow Fever that took so many lives in Boston in 1690. He is preparing to die. Hephzibah comforts him from a book written for the children of New England.

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illustration: Samuel Williams A young man (16 to 17 years old) from New England, dressed in French clothing. He is sitting at a desk writing a letter with ink and feather pen. A priest looks over his shoulder as he dictates.

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CHAPTER SEVEN: Summer 1705 Almost daily, ships arrived in the port and the dead were removed according to the Governor’s regulations. Waiting friends and relatives hoped for the safe arrival of their own. After being in quarantine with the healthy, the sick travelers were lifted out of the boats and taken to the hospital of the Charron brothers where military and ship’s crews were most often treated. The king paid for their expenses.

Pépo had finally and wonderfully fully recovered and it was decided that his Yellow Fever was cured, not having reached ‘the second stage’.

Marie Louise, in order to protect him from further weakening his small frame, allowed him only to collect myrtle seeds and hemlock, which she also allowed him to sell in the market for dyes. She would not allow him to go near any adults, except to sell to his findings at the market. Cloth, wool and basketry were all tinted. The roots and seeds would fetch Pépo enough to trade for coins he collected.

It was good to have Pépo back beside her in the chapel, Hephie thought. One day, during a mass in the hospice chapel, she leaned against the cool stone of the inside walls, still within speaking range of her young friend.

“Pépo, there are fifty-two Sundays in the year and forty-five feast days of the saints. We also observe sixty days of fasting or abstinence. How many holidays does that make altogether?” Pépo tried to use the heads of the people in the Hotel-Dieu Chapel to calculate the correct answer. Instead, the mass ended before he was finished and they were soon moving out the door with the crowd.

They immediately noticed something unusual outside. The Intendant of the city had announced that there was to be no galloping of horses while leaving the hospice but

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someone had violated the ordinance and was being pursued on foot by a guard who shouted after the carriage. “Take your beast elsewhere and be gone with you then!”

There were too many horses in New France. It was summer. The smells were unbearable. Women of the city carried around small bags of perfumed scents to keep from inhaling the putrid odors. Sometimes a footman was given the task of carrying the purse with the scents in it. Pépo was Marie Louise’s footman. Once, when the weather was hot, he took off his leggings and was severely reprimanded by his mistress and women in the street for not complying to the bishop’s ordinances for proper respect of self. His skin was not as noticeable as the skin of white inhabitants, but bare legs under a linen blouse do not go unnoticed.

Today, Hephzibah left the Christian worship with a letter in her hands. It was quite soiled on the outside yet she could read the clearly legible hand script of Samuel Williams on the pages within. Chagnan, who had returned from the voyage to the Lower Town at ‘Kebec’, had brought it to her at the chapel. He assured her that her friend had arrived safely but that he had injured his ankle. When he left, Samuel had already gone on to Chateau Richer. She put the letter in a pocket and looked around for Warham and Pépo, who were just behind her.

“Warham, Samuel is now with your father, I believe.”

“Is the dust bothering you, Pépo?” she asked, still protective of him, although he was not taking any precautions himself.

“No, Hephie, but it is so nice and warm out here. I was getting cold in there.”

Warham was not as comfortable. “I am hot, Hephie.” Could I take off my coat?”

He took off his little jacket with her permission. Using her as a shelf, which she was used

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to having him do, he laid it over her arm. They walked along St-Paul Street and waved at people they knew riding by in their carriages. The Côtés passed and arrived at the house before them. Thirsty and hot, the three walking also arrived.

“Warham, will you get me a drink of water, if it pleases you,” Hephie asked.

“Yes, it pleases me,” he jested. “I will get one for myself too!” he declared and marched off to get some cups. Pépo went into the stable.

Hephzibah sat on a bench in the shade of the house, opened the seal and began reading the letter.

Chateau Richer, Saturday the 17th of July, 1705 My suffering neighbour, I write to you of a matter of great urgency. Therefore I will employ our English language in hopes that I might also protect our privacy. Chagnan will deliver this to you, if indeed he can make the return journey in safety. Your mistress will also receive a letter from me to be read to Warham. The present letter you must however keep secret...

“Chagnan was so discreet in giving this to me before the mass and left off giving the letter to Marie-Louise until after the mass. He was being careful,” Hephzibah said to herself. She looked again at the letter.

Samuel wrote, ...I have been greatly deceived and am writing to warn you not to fall into the same temptations. I must also ask your forgiveness for the insults I have bestowed unkindly on you. I mean calling you ‘Azubah’. It is rather I that have forsaken and been forsaken. Here are the details of my sorrowful humiliation. M. Meriel, the schoolmaster of the seminary was convinced of God that he must persuade me to convert to the Catholic religion. He and others were continually at me about it.

At last, I gave over to it for the change of my will came after I heard from the school master a most convincing story that two English women, who in their life time were dreadfully set against the catholic religion, did on their death-bed embrace it. The one, Abigail Turbet sent for M. Meriel the sabbath before she died, and said, many a time upon several following days that she committed her soul into his hands, and was ready to do whatever he pleased. I later learned that

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he alone witnessed this supposed conversation. She desired him to go to the SteAnne Chapel and there to say a holy mass for her, that she might have her sins pardoned, and the will of the Lord accomplished upon her. Her cousin Mrs. Badston, now Stilfon, asked Abigail, whether she should be willing to do as she told her; she answered ‘yes’. Tuesday she was taken into the Catholic church, in the presence of John Laland, and Madam Grizalem, an English woman, and Mrs. Stilfon also, with many French people besides. She was anointed with oil on the same day, according to her will then. Upon the Wednesday following, an image of Christ crucified was brought to her; she caused it to be set over across from her; at the curtains of her bed; and looked continually upon the same; and also a little crucifix was brought unto her; she took it and kissed it and laid it upon her stomach. She did also make the sign of the cross upon herself, when she took any meat or drink. She promised to God that if she should recover, she would go to the mass every day. She, having on her hand, a crucifix, said,‘Oh my Lord, that I should have known thee so late!’ She did also make a prayer to the Virgin Mary the two last days of the week, according to M. Meriel. She could utter no word, but by kissing the crucifix, and endeavouring to cross herself, she gave evidence of her faith. She died on Saturday, the 24th of November, at three o’clock in the afternoon. Her soul was prayed for at the mass the next day. The burial was in the afternoon beside the church next to Justice Pefe’s wife, all the people being present at her funeral. Besides this, Esther Jones, another English girl, was buried next to her, having confessed to believing in the seven sacraments and kissing the cross.

This so affected me that I was sure there was some mistake in my faith and I must need the changing of religion to be saved. M. Meriel, hearing my doubt, therefore forced me to write to my father to tell him (in M. Meriel’s words) what my conversion meant to me. But Father was not entirely persuaded it was of my own will, though my hand had written the dictation.

I would send you the letter my father wrote to me while I was at the seminary in Quebec, but it is so dear to me. I nonetheless will give you some of its contents.

Take these words also as a warning to your heart and impress them upon Warham.

Your former neighbour, Samuel Williams193 “Oh dear! Hephzibah said. Warham, who had come to her with a cup of water, thought she was displeased with him. She kissed him, thinking of what protection he still

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The correspondance between Samuel and his father is contained in the 1707 account of the captivity by Rev. John Williams entitled, ‘The Redeemed Captive Returning to Zion; or a Faithful History of Remarkable Occurences in the Captivity and Deliverance of Mr. John Williams, minister of the gospel in Deerfield who, in the Desolation which befel that Plantation, by an Incursion of French and Indians, was by them carried away, with his family and his neighbourhood into Canada.’ Rare Documents Collection, McGill University. Letters to Hephzibah are imagined by the author, or are inspired by excerpts from the letters to his father.

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needed from her, according to Samuel’s letter.

“Thank you, Warham. Thank you very much,” she reassured him and he sat quietly with her while she read the next letter from his father, who was now forty-two years old.

“Son Samuel, Yours of January 23, I received and with it had the tidings, that you had made an abjuration of the Protestant faith to the Romish194; news that I heard with most distressing afflicting, sorrowful spirit that I ever heard any news...

“What did Samuel do, Hephie?” Warham asked.

“I do not know quite yet. Let me finish the letter. Some things are confidential but please do not ask me what confidential means, not now,” she requested gently, deep in thought.

Reverend Williams added, “...O why have you neglected to ask a father’s advice in an affair of so great importance as the changing of religion! God knows that the catechism, in which I instructed you, is according to the Word of God and so will be found in the day of judgement! Oh! I pity you. I mourn over you day and night! Oh! I pity your weakness, that through the craftiness of man you are turned from the simplicity of the gospel! I persuade myself you have done it through ignorance.

Oh! consider and bethink yourself what you have done! And whether you ask me or not, my poor child, I cannot but pray for you, that you may be recovered out of the snare you are taken in. Read the Bible, pray in secret; make Christ’s righteousness your only plea before God, for justification: Beware of all immorality, and on God’s Sabbaths, do not insert worldly concern. Let a father’s advice be asked for the future, in all things of importance and right timing. ‘What is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’ I desire to be humbled under the mighty hand of God thus afflicting of me. I would not do as you have done for ten thousand worlds. My heart aches within me, but I will yet wait upon the Lord; to him I will commit your case day and night. He can perform all things for me and mine; and can yet again recover you from your fall. He is a God forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin: to the Lord our God belongs forgivenes though we have rebelled. I charge you not to be instrumental to ensnare your poor brother, 194

Roman Catholic

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Warham, or any other, and so add sin. Accept of my love, and do not forsake a father’s advice, who above all things desires your soul may be saved in the day of the Lord.”

Hephzibah explained some of the contents to the Williams boy sitting next to her.

Warham’s reaction was a surprise to Hephzibah. He wanted to get up and leave to go directly and find Samuel.

“I will find him and tell him to do what Papa says.”

“No, Warham. He must have done it already. He said in the other part of the letter that he had not completely decided to abjure. Let us pray for him tonight with Marie Louise.”

“I am going to pray for him now. Is that the end of the letter?”

“No,” she said and continued to read the rest silently.

Samuel confirmed, in his letter to Hephzibah, the news she had heard that he had been threatened to be sent back to the indigenous Canadians and was forced by the bigger French-speaking Canadian students to go to the mass.

It was by being beaten and whipped that he came to realize his need of a Defender more powerful than a father or a king.

Hephie was shaken by the words of her suffering friend. “He must want to be hidden like I do sometimes. Where can he hide? If we run, we will do worse. Has he seen his father? Was Samuel now in the Romish Church, and what was she to do, when they ask her to abjure,” she wondered. The next paragraph responded as if he heard her; as if he had understood her possible reaction.

“I was not undone in my hatred for the treatment I received, but flooded with great zeal for the task of forgiving that lay before me,” Samuel wrote. “Do not fear for me. I am now with my father and we have great comfort in being

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reunited. Do not fall prey to our enemy, the Devil. He would have us fear and hate people but this is the main cause of our distress: that we cannot persuade men of their errors before they lash out at us.”

Hephzibah remembered the injustices of which she had been the victim. The danger of her suffering was well explained by Samuel’s wise statement. ‘Do not fall prey to our enemy, the Devil.’ He would not have us forgive and we know that we cannot persuade men of their errors before they exercise judgement on ours.

“What comes next?” Warham asked. She read on.

‘The following letter is in my hands now that my father has returned it to me. It will help you to share in my present joy...’

“Listen Warham, this is what Samuel wrote to your father.”

‘Honoured Father, I received your letter which you sent which good letter I thank you for, and for the good counsel which you gave me; I desire to be thankful for it, and hope it will be for the good of my soul. I may say as in the psalms; The sorrows of death encompassed me, and the pains of hell got hold on me: I found trouble and sorrow, then called I upon the name of the Lord: O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul! Gracious is the Lord and righteous, yes! our God is merciful. As for what you ask me about making an abjuration of the Protestant faith for the Romish, I dare not write so plain to you as I would, but hope to see and discourse with you. I am sorry for the sin I have committed in changing of religion, for which I am greatly to blame. You may know that M. Meriel, the school master and others were continually at me about it; at last, I gave over to it; for which I was very sorry. As for that letter you had from me, it was a letter transcribed for M. Meriel: and for what he said about Abigail Turbet, and Esther Jones. Nobody heard the girls but he, as I understand, only he being able to verify their words. I desire your prayers to God for me, to deliver me from my sins. Oh! remember me in your prayers! I am your dutiful son, ready to take your counsel.’

“That is the end of what he said, Warham. Now he is speaking to me. I will read it to myself.”

Warham took this moment to go and see Pépo in the stable. He said as he was

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turning the corner of the house, “I wish I could see Papa again.”

Hephzibah wondered what else Samuel would tell her or what the letter, given to Marie Louise, said to Warham. She looked down again at the ink-filled paper the Savage boy had given to her. ‘...My Father has used many Scriptures to point out to me the errors of my imagination of which I would have become a prisoner had he not proved it to me.

This I believe now, Hephzibah, that the Word of God cannot be an offense to any man’s conscience but Romish matter or manner of worship is an offense to the human conscience. I have been sifted like salt as was Peter, our Lord’s apostle, and now I must fortify my brothers because I am restored195. Be careful that the same does not befall you or Warham, but if it does, there is mercy with God. I have many things to tell you of the Society of Jesus Mission at the Cove of Doleville on the seigneurie of M. deSillery. There, we first landed after our arrival at Quebec.

I must tell you of some great news that several days before was given to me at Odanak near the delta of the St-François River. We were received at the StFrançois Fort on Lac St-Pierre. The news I received is verified by one of the Abenaki tribes. It concerns your struggle with the Savage that threw you in the River of the Venimous Serpents.196 I have the painting of which you were robbed, but I obliged myself to send it to the Governor of New France. If I had not done so, I would not have it at all.

It is still in very good condition, although it requires a new frame.

I learned that one hundred and sixty years ago, the Recollet missionary, M. de Sagard, befriended and made a brother of one of Chagnan’s ancestors. The ancestor’s name was Oonchiarey.

My new native friend was but 10 years of age when a member of his tribe died at 85 years old. The deceased man’s name was Louis de Sainte-Foy and he had been baptized the 8th of Dec.1627 at the Cathedral of Rouen, France. Of course, in the Bear tribe village everyone still called him Amatoucha, son of Saranhes. When he died, Chagnan was at the burial. The men dug a round circular hole and lined it with furs. Then they put the old man’s body in a sitting position with his knees touching his chin and laid him on his side. They covered him with branches and earth. It looked like he was in a womb and had become again like a little baby, my friend told me.

So, you see, my friend has an interest in the Church of Rome and yet Chagnan’s responsibility in his tribe (before the Treaty in 1701) was to prepare himself to be The Keeper of the Wampum. The Council chooses The Keeper. It also elects the women of the Grand Council (women usually over 40 years of age.) Now he is being educated at the mission school and he likes it because he 195

Luke 22.31,32

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the name Iroquois (given to them by other tribes) means venimous serpents. The Richelieu was patrolled by them.

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wants to learn how to read. The native women all admire the missionaries because they ‘look at marks on paper and say what they mean’. The wampum is going to become less important now because Chagnan is going to write the stories of his people in letters and numbers.197 He has a guardian genie (okki). The picture of this genie (a porcupine) is tatooed to his arm. He was obliged to pass 8 days and nights in the forest without food when he was old enough. During that time, he kept a record of his dreams and chose one image of an animal or thing that reappeared most often in those dreams.

He likes to swim. He boasts all the time of the tribe into which he came, and his clan is that of the heron. They live in the village called Tequeunoikuyaye, which the French have taken to calling La Rochelle, like the city in France.”

There are 300 families there in 40 longhouses.

Chagnan taught me some death songs that the Indians sing, to show the lack of fear of death, but I am sure I can find some of our hymns more edifying.

All people have more courage when they sing, do you not think this is so, Hephie?

I will write of those matters concerning you tomorrow and send the letter with this one. Your humbled friend, Samuel Williams Hephzibah searched excitedly among the pages of the letters. There was no second letter. What happened to it? She must find the boy, Chagnan. Maybe he forgot to give it to her? It might be with Marie Louise’s letter to Warham. Hephzibah climbed the stairs inside the house and rapped on Marie Louise’s door. The voice of the captain replied saying not to disturb them. They would be out later. Love must have time.

The perplexed girl descended the stairs and went to the square on the corner of StPaul’s and François Xavier streets. There was nobody from the Boy’s School of whom she could inquire. She decided to go find him at the school but she must find Warham first and take him with her.

She had seen Pépo go down to the riverbank, but where was the Williams boy?

“Warham!” She called out and searched the yard. Warham had gone from the stable into the field. When he saw Hephzibah coming, he hid the radishes he was eating 197

spiritual revival took place two decades later both among the English and the Indians of New England

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behind his back.

“Show me what is in your hands,” she said.

“No, I have nothing.” He wiggled his fingers and the bundle of leaves and dusty radishes fell to the ground behind him.

“If you are caught, Marie Louise will be fined. You will be flogged, Warham!”

Hephzibah rebuked him sharply. This is a fast day. You must know that! She grabbed him by the arm and checked to see how dirty his hands were. They approached the outdoor cistern and she washed his hands and face afterwards, wiping them on her apron.

He was crying loudly, so she softened, remembering guilt-filled that on fast days they were allowed to have light snacks of vegetables or fruit.

“Did you understand the news from Samuel?” she asked him, changing to a different tone of voice. “Samuel has reached Chateau Richer and is safe with your father.”

“When may I go, Hephie?” “I want to go too,” Warham was crying louder now.

He had been caught eating and was still hungry. He was unable to bear this news and Hephzibah turned to him, herself weeping, the great emotion she was holding within bursting now upon her. She caught him up in her arms and they left the Côté property by the east side. She could hold him no longer, although he was not heavy for his age. How thin he was! He jumped down and regained his balance.

“We will go and ask the priest,” she said boldly. “We will find the young man who brought me the letter. There is another letter that was lost.”

They went toward the north gate of the city. The soldiers and dogs were seated on the ground in the shade of the lookout. What would she say?

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“I would like to go to see the Sulpicians?” “I need to get a letter from one of the students at the School of the Mountain?” She tried both. The only response she got was the pull of her arm and the wet kiss of the nearest soldier sitting on the ground as she fought to keep her balance. Warham kicked him in the back as the man lay beside her struggling to get hold of her as she thrust violently and screamed. He let go when another soldier disapproved of the play.

“Let the English girl be. She will have the captain after us, if you do not.”

“Of which officer do you speak?” he asked.

“She is with Captain Côté.”

The man looked surprised and let her stand up. His name was Gérard, a soldier dispatched from the sunny province of Gascogne in France. This man was not sure if the Indians were the worst enemy or if it was the cold Canadian winters. He wanted to return to France. He despised the cold rude winter and the campaigns he had been forced to participate in across the barren land south of Lake Champlain. He had lost his nose to frostbite and seen thirty of his company die in the snow. But now it was summer. He would have to stay on for a while longer.

Hephzibah straightened her dress and brushed the hair out of her face.

“Why should I be interested in you?” she blurted out and turned back towards the house. She did not know that another soldier, born in Canada, René Boucher de la Perrière, was looking on. He had participated in the raid on Deerfield. He quickly replied to his fellow soldiers, “There’s a hard-headed girl, if ever I met one !

“There is no way to make a lover out of an Englishwoman,” they agreed.

Warham turned and shouted, “Vous êtes des Babars!”

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“Shh!” Hephzibah warned him. “They will do worse to us. The word is Barbars. You forgot the first ‘r’.”

Startled and disappointed with her second confrontation with the guards, Hephzibah decided to write, instead, to Samuel in hopes that her letter might be carried by the Royal message deliverer who embarked at the Royal dock in front of the Bonsecours Chapel on the first day of the week. She also remembered that one must have a firearm before leaving Ville Marie palisade and, of course, she would never have permission to leave and certainly not with a firearm.

The market was not being held today on the Common, but several girls leaning against the wall of a house inside the palisade were carrying baskets full of radishes.

Hephzibah had seen them before at the market and wondered what they were going to do with the food on a fast day. She passed them staring. This caused one annoyed girl to call out, “Is this what you want to look at?” Then she threw a cluster of the vegetables at her.

When the others recognized that it was the English captives who passed, they joined in throwing three or four more.

The shelter of Marie Louise’s presence was wearing off. This was surely a sign that she and Warham were known, but not always welcome. Hephzibah felt more like a stranger than she had ever felt before. She remembered Samuel’s warning about being prepared to forgive. “Not to make excuses for them,” she added, but like Marie Louise said, “being ready to forgive when they turned from their unkindness.” She was satisfied by this thought, but she would need to tell the girls sometime how they had hurt her. Then they could feel the same pain as her and it would soften their hearts. Warham pulled her by the arm and they ran toward home.

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The next day was market day and Hephie sighed, when, after finishing the bread kneading and forming the oval loaves, Marie Louise asked her to go with Pépo to sell the myrtle seeds and hemlock. She would come later, after the bread was baked, with paper and lace to sell. Would the English captive meet the girls with the radishes again?

It was another warm, humid day. She walked slowly with Pépo and they went out by the West gate near Monsieur de Callière’s house. The sight of the market stalls brightened her mood. The inhabitants of Ville Marie were not permitted to sell any merchandise from their homes or workplaces. Instead, they were obliged to present their wares openly at the market on the front street between the river and the wall of the city.

Some sales door to door were permitted, but not until after 11 o’clock when they had been first displayed in the market. So much happened here besides. Warham was always excited to hear the cannons fired near the King’s dock. There was also music.

The children were pulling birds down from trees by the water and selling them straight away. The fishermen were cleaning their morning catch and laying out the splayed flesh. Coming from the river were downstream visitors and upstream visitors; some European colonists and some Hodinonhsioni (Iroquois) peoples.

The market economy was not like that of a trading post. The King of France fixed the currency. Values were paid in silver or paper as long as it lasted. Piracy kept much money from crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Soldiers would use cards and the cycle would begin again... a silver coin would be gotten for a paper bill and a half a card. It worked reasonably well. Yet there was the usual complaining. The courts would somehow regulate the disputes, for this provided the weekly entertainment. No money exchange was required for fresh food, however. Bartering with other “effects” was common.

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Hephzibah and Pépo found a light wood frame, cradling a thin board. They placed their basket of foliage upon it. They distributed the fastened bundles across the end of the board and Hephzibah retrieved a bottle of ink, paper rag, some vellum, and a quill to finish writing labels. Her spelling was legible but she still had to return to a book she had brought for some guidance. A passerby looked at the book and wanted to buy it from her.

Pépo called out, “Hephzibah! Marie-Louise will not allow us to sell her book.” She had to refuse the young lady but managed to sell her some hemp that could be used for rope making.

The passerby, whose accent was strange and hard to understand, gave Hephzibah a puzzled look. She finally asked, “Are you Y’hudi?”198 “I am sorry but I do not know what you mean,” Hephie replied.

“Your name...Hephzibah...” the young woman called it out, “it is from the Book of Prophets. You are from the tribe of Manasseh199?”

“I am from Massachusetts Colony,” said Hephzibah, not knowing if this was what the woman meant. A young man who appeared to be her husband now joined them. He spoke to the young woman in a language Hephzibah had not heard before. Then he changed to French. He seemed excited to know what her name was. They both seemed so friendly.

Pépo recognized their clothing and whispered, “They are from that ship over there in the river.”

“She has a diamond and gold bracelet on her arm. Do you know where it could be from?”

198

Jewish

199

eldest son of Joseph (the son of Jacob by Rachel) who became the head of a Hebrew tribe that inherited Canaan

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“I do not know, maybe from the land called Brazil,” the boy replied.

Hephzibah wanted to know where they were from. Surely, they had heard her name before, as it was commonly given to children in Boston.

They were happy to tell her. “We are from Tyre and are Y’hudi and we are returning to Dahomey on the African coast where we will pick up pepper and palm oil and ivory to take to Portugal, to the palace of the Braganzas.200 Would you like to buy a barrel of vinegar, or some pretty cotton cloth, or a box of copper this size?” The man held up a square sheet of copper. Then Hephzibah knew what ‘cuivre’ was. She had forgotten whether ‘cuivre’ was copper or leather. How could she remember all of these words? ‘Cuire’ was the word for leather. She sighed but returned to the conversation.

“My mistress will be here soon and I think she wants a barrel of pickling vinegar but she only buys cotton thread. Do you have some of that? We are not pot makers so we do not need copper.”

“But you can use copper for many other things. Are your people building the new Chateau for the Governor of Montreal?”

Pépo answered. “No, sir, our master is a Captain of the militia and our mistress is a paper maker.”

“So, you will need some,” he replied, with a twinkle in his eye. As the couple walked off, he called out, “I will be in the port for the next market day, after which we must set sail to get the dried cod from the Atlantic Coast towns,” The two walked off smiling arm in arm, returning to speaking in Armenian, their native tongue.201 “You know they have women soldiers in the Kingdom of Dahomey. The sailors 200

the dynasty that ruled Portugual from 1640 to 1910 and the Empire of Brazil from 1822-1889

201

developed between the 11th and 15th centuries as Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Latin speakers came together.

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call them Amazons; Agaja’s Amazons,” said Pépo and imitated their size by elevating himself, throwing out his chest and puffing out his cheeks. Wide-eyed, Hephzibah wondered about this. “In Oyo, they sacrifice humans”, he added, trying to impress her.202 “The ocean is a large road that brings many travelers, Pépo,” replied Hephzibah a little embarrassed by the boy’s exaggeration. She looked about to see if Marie Louise was in the market.

“Look at that ship that has just come up river,” Pépo pointed. It was a threemasted Portuguese ocean trader with square sails on the fore and main masts. There was a lateen-sailed mizzen course with square topsail. The ship settled into a position and dropped anchor. Sixty cannons projected from around its four elaborately decorated decks.

“It took more than eight hundred trees to build that vessel,” commented an elderly butcher next to them who was spearing a roast of veal while his wife salted the flesh. It was a little difficult to hear him. A minstrel fife player was walking by.

“Excuse me, did you say eight hundred?” Hephie asked. She did not know what it took to make such a ship. She thought of her father’s mill. “That is a lot of lumber to prepare for each vessel. My father is a miller. he used to grind grain but he has begun sawing lumber for the ships you... uh I mean... we make down river.” She had to remember she too was a part of the French community now.

“Oh, he will not be making ships today! Montreal’s eleventh Governor will have his house first. They are all the King’s trees that grow here, you know. I heard the Governor has taken most of them to his own sawmill at Baie St-Paul,” the butcher said. I

202

Former African Kingdoms of Dahomey (Benin) and Oyo (Western Nigeria)

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myself think he should build a sawmill closer to Montreal.”

Marie Louise had arrived and overheard part of the conversation. The butcher’s wife embraced Hephzibah’s benefactor. She seemed to know the couple. Then Madame Côté joined the butcher in defending the Governor and commented on the wood crisis.

“Our protective overseers, the Sulpician brothers, come to our doors looking for firewood as often as they need. We must ‘give back to God what is his,’ they tell us. The Intendant wants to put a stop to it. The shortage is being felt. There is not a cord of wood available today at the market, as far as I can see. I have to get some pulp for the factory tomorrow. Nevertheless, the Governor has promised to supply all I need, I suppose.”

“It is a help to you at the paper factory when a frame goes up, is it not, Madame?

The house up there on Notre Dame Street for Sieur Jean Baptiste Claude-Roch de Ramezay will grace the heights of Montreal. He will need your paper too,” the butcher’s wife added approving the new development.

This being the second time that day that Hephie had heard again of the new building project, she became more curious to see it. She wanted to repeat that beautiful French name, the name of the New Governor of Montreal.

At that moment a thunder sound rolled across the sky. Everyone looked up to assess the weather, but continued on with business.

Madame Côté introduced Hephzibah to the couple managing the butcher stall.

They were from Varennes, a little to the east, she explained to Hephzibah and were ‘fellow Huguenots who came north from the Ohio River settlement of Gallipolis where a group of French refugees had been given asylum in the New English Colonies of the

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Americas’.

“When they heard of our suffering in New France, they came here to comfort us,” Marie Louise explained. They are very brave people and dear angels sent from God but they are also now sharing in our hardships. They must only give their tithe to the Holy Papacy and all of their grown children must return to France or be imprisoned. They are not allowed to send or receive correspondence. They are too frail to travel, although they are being warned that to live a better life, they ought to leave New France.”

“You speak too kindly of us,” the butcher’s wife said, touching Marie Louise’s arm.

Hephzibah lifted the paper and lace packages onto the beam of wood on which the dye plants were spread and cast a glance at the couple standing next to her. The couple wondered if she understood what Marie Louise was saying.

Hephzibah felt they should receive graceful treatment; she thought of the long voyage back to France and how little the chances were that this frail couple would survive the two-month trip. “Grace is filling up the empty spaces with God’s commitment to us,” she had been told by her mother. Compassion suddenly overwhelmed the girl. Could the authorities not calculate the need and commit themselves to what was lacking? Could they not make it possible for this family to stay?

Maybe she could do something.

“I will tell my father, Mister Block, to send a message to Gallipolis when I am freed so they will know of your troubles,” she compassionately decided to promise them.

“Oh! you are very kind, child,” the older woman said and squeezed her hand.

“We have four children and nine grandchildren who are in La Rochelle where the

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followers of the Cardinal, Duc de Richelieu203 have them in their power. Some still want to separate the wheat from the weeds but we know they must remain together until God harvests the grain. We would join them, but they have said, by way of a certain Recollet that they trust, that we are better to stay here. I survey the ships as they come in, to hear if one of our relatives has not been banished to the galleys of a war vessel.” She changed subjects. “To send information to Gallipolis, my child, you will need to have an address and our letter. I will write it out for you and we will let you have it before we leave.”

She turned to Marie Louise and said, “now you have your first sale of the day.” She took a sheet of the cream-coloured parchment and pulled out a hard ochre-coloured crayon.

“Cleontine, you must let me offer you a quill and some ink if this is to be legible,” Marie Louise said. She produced a leather box, which she set on the board to give her some space.

“Madame, I still have some ink in my quill,” Hephzibah pointed out to her mistress.”

“I will try to remember the county. Do you remember it, Jean?” Cleontine asked her husband who was serving a customer.

Unfortunately, the crowd was not going to allow this much conversation and soon all, including Cleontine, were busy with clients who expected service. The letter would have to wait.

Pépo was trying to do two things at once. He had begun to make a fife out of a branch and was at the same time holding a bundle of myrtle in his teeth. When Marie 203

Armand Jean du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu 1585-1642 was a bishop near La Rochelle who had switched from a military career and later became cardinal and chief minister of Louis XIII. His strong influence in France brought about the union in marriage of the king’s sister to the Englishman who became King Charlaes I of England. This influence also established absolute sovereignty to the French monarchy, and in order to do so, broke the military and political influence of the French huguenots. He also founded the French Academy, a literary association, which to this day still reflects the same absolutism.

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Louise saw the purple stains the dried blueberries were leaving on his mouth, she reprimanded him sharply and sent him back home. After several minutes (her anger subsiding) she told Hephzibah to continue the sales and to bring everything back to the house in the large basket, taking care not to get the saliva-covered myrtle on the clean parchment or lace.

“Do you need any copper or vinegar, Madame?” Hephzibah asked, remembering the Y’hudi couple.

“No, my dear. There is no money for that today. It must be paid for in livres and I will not have any until after we sell the paper, unless we can trade for them.”

Mme. Côté said goodbye to Jean and Cleontine, picked up her skirts, as well as a package of salted pork rinds and a quarteron of lard, and left for the house.

Hephzibah watched her wind her way through the crowd and cast a glance up the hill through the city gates to where the Claude-Roch house was being built. No doubt it had a place for all the Governor’s children. Maybe she would get to know them. Would they shun her also like the other city girls? She was daydreaming about having her own house. How would she want it built?

Cleontine quickly passed the promised address into her hand, which Hephie immediately laid in the large basket. “Thank you, Madame, I am hopeful that some news will reach your relatives.”

When the woman was gone, Hephie suddenly was overcome with self-pity. She did not have enough information on his exact location, to dispatch a letter to her father.

Her mother was dead and her siblings were scattered into homes of the French and tents of the early nomadic inhabitants. She felt very alone and out here on the riverbank she

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suddenly felt homeless. Tears welled up in her eyes and she moved away from the lace and parchment to keep from staining them.

Several indigenous men came to bargain with her. This distracted her for the next hour. Marie Louise was particularly fond of the musical instruments they made and the household needed eggs from the wild fowl. The Y’hudi people, she noticed, were also minstrels and played for the crowd with a lyre and flute. A young calfateur204 told her that they were playing a piyyut205. It was a liturgical song called the Ma’oz Tzur ‘…rock of ages… and your word broke their sword when our strength failed us’. ‘Rock of ages’, were the words they repeated often in the song, the shipbuilder explained to Hephie.

M. Côté needed tobacco and Charles Emmanuel said to watch out for a good trade on fishhooks. He would not need more than three, she remembered. It was not easy to persuade one man to take the lace that she thought would be equal to the value of the ten wild duck eggs he placed in front of her. He wanted another piece of less value. So, she gave it to him. She then summoned her sense of fairness and indicated to him that she would take a fewer number of eggs. He gave her eight and then left grateful and satisfied.

“That was very judicious of you, Mademoiselle,” came a voice that she recognized. She looked up into the face of Gilles Guérin who had been observing her transaction. “If we do not trade well, we must steal,” the voice said.

“Monsieur Guérin! I am... I am quite glad to see someone who knows me. How are you doing, Sir?” Gilles was carrying two large sheets of copper and a sack of tools. He placed 204

this tradesman caulked or sealed places between the ship’s wooden joints to prevent leaks. this Talmudic liturgical song is dated from the 13th century and was sung in the home and, since the songbook was produced by Gustav Gottheil in 1886, it has been sung in synagogues.

205

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them beside the stall, her little store.

“There is never a lack of work here. I am presently occupied at building a house, the one for the Governor de Ramezay. What can a man do, who has no family and no wife? He can only be in service of the Common Good - a recruit.206 I am praising our Lord Jesus who is the foundation that is already laid for us in this world. Have you thought about that Hephzibah Block? If what we have built survives (and each one should be careful how he builds) we will receive our reward. We ourselves are God’s building, laid over the Foundation who is Christ.”

“You are so joyfully preserving our faith, Gilles. Just before you came, I was wishing my life could return to the way it was. But it can not and I am bitterly disappointed.”

“What makes you so sad? Your safety has always been assured. There can be nothing that separates you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”

Hephzibah smiled weakly and swallowed the lump that was coming up in her throat. Her hand came to rest on the parchment and she felt Gilles place his over it.

“You will be blessed, there is nothing to fear. God has not abandoned us.”

“Then you are a believer in the Holy Scriptures?” she asked.

“What else is there? We discover that, without them, all that is in them is nevertheless true. One cannot ask, ‘where is God’ but rather, ‘where is He not’, for we can not get Him to go away.”

Hephzibah smiled. She remembered that she ought to be grateful to him also.

He removed his hat and bowed to her, then strode away toward a stall that was

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all new immigrants were hired or enticed to come by land grants

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selling bread.

“How can God be so good to me to always be giving me such reminders of his love?” thought Hephzibah. “The timing was so right. I have to keep the hope inside me the hope of God is never disappointing.”

It looked like some rain might fall presently, so when others began to pack up their merchandise, she also began to retrieve the remaining plants, paper and needlework.

She placed them carefully in the basket. It was not too cumbersome to lift and there was still time, so she decided to walk by the Château de Ramezay. She walked along Rue de la Commune and entered Ville Marie by way of the main gate. Up the hill she went until she reached the site.

Old and young men, and some young women, were working around the framing that stood above the foundation. The roof was not yet completed, but drops of rain were falling about. The air was suddenly filled with the smell of wet sawdust. An old discarded sail was thrust over the top beam of the roof to protect the workers below from a downpour. This added the odour of wet canvas. Light for accuracy would now have to be provided from some reflection off the floorboards. Hephzibah took her apron and covered the basket of paper. She watched the pounding mallets fly and the beams being hoisted and fitted.

Her shelter was now a roof that hung over a bake oven. It was set at the corner of the street. Soon the rain came down steadily. It was not difficult to make her choice of better protection. She would have to run to the stable of the Jesuit missionaries where there was also a public well. She dashed over and nearly bumped into a woman who was filling a caldron with cold water from a jug. Hephzibah waited, then dipped the common

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ladle in and drank of the cool water. She sat down on the hay and watched the wind drive the rain hard against the flapping canvas of the unfinished roof. Soon, the only remaining workers took cover and there was a good deal of loud talking. The smell of sweat and hay gave her a feeling of being swept up in the heart of the activity.

Gilles did not notice she was there, but she located him and watched his interaction with the men who stood around. He seemed so at peace about his life, and the changes he had gone through seemed to have bettered him. How could he not feel that God was scourging him? “That is how I sometimes feel. I want to find God good, and I am worried that He finds me evil. I am a pot that the potter wants to get his hands into to smooth out the flaws,” she concluded.

It felt so good to finally sit down. She was surprised when another girl of about fifteen sat down beside her. She was not shy and looked at the lace in her basket.

“Did you make this?” she asked without touching it, for fear that her dirty hands might soil the crisp white handwork.

“I made some of it - this collar right here - but my mistress made the rest. The paper comes from her paper factory. Do you know Madame Côté?” Hephzibah asked.

A natural smile parted her lips as the young woman told of how Marie Louise and her first husband, Pierre, had taken her in for a short time when she was but a baby. “We suppose that my parents, or just one of them, left me on the dock before leaving and never returned. I was without name and Pierre gave me his wife’s name. Yes, I too am Marie Louise, but they just called me, Marie.” The older girl frowned. “She has not told you about me since you came?”

“No, I never knew that my mistress had cared for a baby,” Hephzibah explained,

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puzzled. When Marie Louise had told her of her Huguenot cross, she had wanted to tell Hephzibah but decided not to go into that part of her story.

“I am trying to live up to my name. She is a very good example. Maybe she has never talked of me because when she became a widow, she was very distressed and could no longer care for me. “You make me jealous that you live with her.”

“I have a good place to live now but if I lived with Marie Louise, I fear could not do everything she told me to do. I do not think she cares for me much. I have not the same zeal as she does. Maybe she would not be pleased with me. Her stepson Charles Emmanuel is over there.” The girl pointed down the street to where he stood.

“I know he is looking for a wife but I am totally unsuited to him and the Chalifours, my guardians, will not have it.” Again, her face showed dismay. She paused, eyes downcast, “Maybe I would not do anything Marie Louise would tell me to do. I am afraid she would not allow me to dress well, or to amuse myself in my own way, nor to sing or dance, as it pleases me to do.”

Hephzibah thought to herself, “my lady sings with me and we sometimes skip to the bread oven and she gave me a beautiful dress.” Then she said to Marie, “I have fears too. I am afraid she will not be strong enough with me and I will not feel supported or appreciated for my work or that my work would become unworthy of anyone’s approval.

I am afraid she will not hear or listen when I speak. Then I would be so distant from her and lonely. I might become seem unkind to her and I would not be able to keep my promises to her so that she would be unable to do the good she has decided to do for me.”

Hephzibah noticed Charles Emmanuel now. He was talking to the soldiers at the street corner. They were standing under the eaves of a tavern. He must have also signed

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up to help with the building.

“Did you see Madame Côté at the market?” Hephzibah asked.

The orphan girl said she had just arrived that morning to help with the crew, but she was not allowed to visit in the city.

Because the older girl was so in need of affection and was bent on self-loathing, Hephzibah tried to think of something with which to comfort her. She thought intuitively of her own situation and drew a mental picture of it. It was true, she no longer had a living mother whose example she could continue to imitate. There was still bitterness left that she too must root out. No, there was no comfort there, within her. Papa was trying to survive just like she was. So was Ebenezer, her older brother who lived as a nomadic native now. Should she be like him? “I cannot be like my grandparents or my ancestors.

I live in a different country and speak a new language,” she said to herself. She realized that she did not know who she was and needed more comfort than she could give.

Nevertheless, she decided to respond to the hired girl.

“If I can be once again with my father and sisters, we will make a home and you could come and be my neighbour. Maybe you could come to New England,” Hephie finally said to Marie.

“I think some day I would like to look for my father. I sometimes think he is right here watching me,” the girl said.

“Madame Côté, who lost her father, hopes to be, what she calls, ‘an imitator of Christ’ because she learned from the Bible that when we see him face to face, we will be like him,” Hephzibah added, remembering that her benefactor was also an orphan.

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“But should she not try to be like Notre Dame207?” the hired girl said, “Madame Bourgeoys said the mother of Jesus came here to Montreal before all of us.”

“Oh, yes,” Hephzibah said, “Women everywhere know how Mary was blessed. It could be disputed that she came to Ville Marie in person, but it should not be disputed that she was the mother of God. Could we forget that her son is God? My minister at the plantation told us that the Hebrew mother was the ‘bearer of God’ and yet God lived in a woman, like us. He said we ought to look to Jesus and his Word, testifying to him with the help of his Spirit. That is how to be blessed by him. We must stay in step with him as he walks and hear him speak. That is what his mother was also obliged to do.”

“Does Madame let you read her Bible?” Marie asked her.

“I have read it with Pépo, her South Sea captive. I am even teaching her some prayers in English. She likes that,” Hephzibah answered.

“I am not able to read Latin very well,” sighed Marie and she got up to get another ladle full of water. “I can read the papers that the Town Cryer distributes, though.”

“They seem to include a lot of rules about preventing fires,” Hephzibah replied knowingly.

“Did you know that smoking a pipe is not allowed in the street because the houses might be in danger if the straw on the ground caught fire? I do not smoke a pipe. Have you ever tasted one?” Marie asked.

“I once put my father’s pipe in my mouth. It was a bit like tasting burnt leaves,” said the New Englander.

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‘Our Lady’ refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus, also known as the’madonna’ from medieval italian

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“I try to read the king’s or the bishop’s ordinances so I will not carelessly do something else that deserves a punishment. Do you read them...what is your name, excuse me?”

“My name is Hephzibah Block.”

“Oh, that is different,” she said.

“I hear the Town Cryer every day, near the center square. I somehow think, Marie, that it would be easier if the king would tell us what is in the Bible, then we could obey God and the king at the same time,” she said simply.

The girl, Marie Louise, was sure that if the church was to guide her, she could stay in hearing distance of Christ. She could do all the priest said. Somehow Hephzibah thought that was the way it ought to be also. Then the king would have to obey too because God is over all.

Hephzibah gave the girl a piece of parchment to practice her letters on. It had to be wrapped carefully in a vest that the girl took off. As soon as the rain stopped, she would wrap it properly and save it to take home to the seigneurie of Monsieur d’AiguesVives. She lived east of Montreal with Monsieur and Madame Chalifour.

Gilles Guérin spotted the two girls and greeted Hephzibah again. She introduced the younger Marie Louise to him. He said he was thankful but he had already been introduced. They were, after all, part of a team of young colonists who had responded to the summons to help build the Ramezay residence.

“You will have to excuse me, but I must get to the roof again. I have some more copper to nail over the gable windowsills. They have given me only one job but it will keep me busy. There are a good number of windows in the plan,” Gilles explained.

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Marie returned to sanding pegs that were used to fasten the framework. The two girls separated.

Hephzibah passed some men working on a door. Then she walked to the Côté house. It was still raining lightly. The eggs rolled around in her basket but none broke.

Warham was in the kitchen playing with the dog and trying to tie it to the curtain that circled her bed.

“No! Warham you will tear the curtain,” she warned him. “Have you finished collecting the eggs?”

“There was only one again today. The hens are not laying,” he whined.

“It must be too hot or they heard thunder and got nervous. Well, I have eight beautiful duck eggs here. Come and look!”

Warham stretched himself up to get a look in the basket on the table. He asked what they might do with them. Hephzibah said she would get some flour and they would make a steamed maple sugar pudding for supper.

Marie Louise came downstairs and helped them. She was always surprised at what Hephzibah thought of doing with the maple syrup. The English in New England were boiling it and making it into cakes and using it for puddings. The pork and some fresh bread dipped in bean stew from the pot over the fire outside completed the menu.

Captain Côté and Charles Emmanuel were very appreciative after their day spent in the soldier’s barracks and in the poudrerie208 to come home to something special.

It was not so hot this evening because the storm had broken the stifling humidity of the past week. Hephzibah remembered to write the letter to Samuel.

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a vaulted room where gunpowder is stored

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“Samuel, my former neighbour and friend,” she began, dipping the quill pen in the ink.

“I am sorry to hear of your trials. I will be careful to write only what I should like my father to hear from me and not what the Recollet who teaches me wishes me to say. I regret that I have not received your second letter and the news of which you spoke has not come to me by any other way. I have yet to discover how I came to the hospice. The Frenchman Gilles Guérin, who was unknown to me, rescued me from the river into which I was thrown. I wish to know what obliged you to give my father’s painting to the Governor of New France who I believe is spending his usual season at Fort St-Louis in Kebec. I do not mind if the Governor and his wife, who I have heard is a lovely lady, should wish to keep the painting, although it is, in some way, still clinging to my heart as do so many of our earthly possessions that have been lost. I would like to know what the Abenakis told you about my enemy.

I assure you, Samuel, that I will keep Warham from harm and being tricked to do things he should not do. I know not if I could protect him from an Indian attack should that take place. We are all still very vulnerable here in Montreal. Just the other day a priest was walking to the maiterie209 of Madame Bourgeoys. He tried to save the lives of the others with him by distracting the Savages, but the attackers who were of two clans of an untreatied tribe killed him.

They fell on him even though the others had time to flee. Most of the other tribes, it seems, respect the treaties signed at Monsieur de Callière’s assembly four years ago.

I am learning that our people, that is, of the eastern countries of France and the Netherlands and England, are of one mind - that there is first God, and then there is his creation. The peoples of this continent are of one mind that there are not these distinctions such as we believe. They are of the Vedantic philosophy and are not theists but monists, or ‘gnostics’210, as the Recollet who instructs me tells me. They view the creation and God as one. Everything is in one circle, whereas Christians have two joining circles, because we are saved by what is outside of our circle. Does he teach me the truth? God is there and he is not silent, is he Samuel?

I thank you for your kind letters which are an encouragement to me and the instruction within teaches me to be prudent in these hard times.

Sincerely and with affection, Hephzibah Block”

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a leased farm on a seigneurial domain.

210

Gnosticism (also revived today in the New Age Movement) teaches that everything natural is part of a closed, united system with no outside unrelated intervention from a deity. The Greeks taught this. Disciples of Christ definitively refuted this since the Son of God was born and lived in a human body and proved he was the divine Messiah sent from above.

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There was one other task to do that evening. The pomatum211 kept the curls of M. Côté’s wig in place and the powder Hephzibah sprinkled on afterwards clung to the ringlets. “There! That is done. Now I may go to bed,” she said to herself. She placed Captain and Madame Côté’s wigs on a shelf and went to her corner. She drew the curtain around her sleeping quarters and settled herself on the mattress.

After a short dream about the Recollet priest trying to make her improve her pronunciation, the opening of the front door suddenly awakened her. Heavy boots walked across to the fire. It was the captain and Charles Emmanuel. She vaguely heard what they said. They were talking about a marriage. It seemed Charles Emmanuel was going to be married to the girl on Round Island whose uncle had thrown him out of the house when he was injured. They were laughing and wanted to wake up Marie Louise.

“She must already be awake, from their noise,” Hephzibah thought.

“Now, Father, you will not have to pay a fine for having an unmarried reckless ‘Coureur des Bois’,” Charles Emmanuel remarked. Hephzibah nodded at them from her bed without saying a word and watched as the young man placed his arc à roulement212 on the fireplace mantle. She put her head back on the pillow and listened.

“Ah, but ma foi! I will have a son who will be whining that they will not hire him any more for the rivers! I know you. You will get a wandering feeling and then you will be wishing you were off in the woods again.”

“No, Father. I am here to stay and when you get your seigneurie, I will help you out.”

They both laughed and when Marie Louise descended the stairs and heard the 211

a hair setting substance a strip of oiled leather, wrapped once around a straight dry pointed cedar branch. This was spun around, employing the heat of friction while blowing on it to create sparks and ignite wood chips or dried grass (tinder).

212

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news, she was just as joyful. They were pleased. This was a turn of events. “How did the uncle and his two sons come to agree to an engagement?” Hephzibah wondered. “What made Charles Emmanuel pursue such a self-abasing union? Was the girl not an orphan of a common sailor, who, the Cavalier de La Salle had taken to explore the southern part of the Mississippi River? Yet Charles Emmanuel was the son of the good nobility? The families had been hostile to each other since the great injustice that was done to Charles Emmanuel.” They were telling Marie Louise how it happened. Hephzibah listened with curiosity.

Apparently, Captain Côté was passing from door to door to inspect the weapons that were required for every household to possess. Some people, he noticed, were keeping their weapons in the beams of the main room, cleverly hidden behind a loosened piece of the beam. They sometimes did not maintain them, so they were reluctant to show them for inspection. The home of the girl in question was next on his list but because he had never visited the guesthouse, he did not know that it was the same place.

When he entered, he introduced himself. After he identified his business and began searching for cuts in the beam, he made himself look very aggressive. The reaction of the girl’s uncle was to revive his hostility against the man. He accused Monsieur Côté, whom he now recognized by name, of having a son who had dishonoured his niece. He reminded him that the punishment in New France was a hanging or at least the assignment to a ship as an oarsman for nine years. The captain explained the injury that Charles Emmanuel had suffered, how preposterous was the accusation, and that if he wished to see the end of it, there would have to be a duel.

That same afternoon (as most duels took place in the late afternoon) the duel was

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held and the outcome was the injury of Captain Côté’s left hip where he fell during a lunge. The sport amused the other man but realizing that he had been harsh to both father and son, he got to thinking about some other alternatives. This made him call for a halt, whereafter he made an unlikely suggestion. He proposed that the two young people, both who seemed to be beyond the normal age of marrying, be asked if they might agree to a union. The two exhausted men dragged themselves to a cabaret where they drank, and sat and talked of the possibility. The whole matter had to be presented to the two youths, they merrily concluded.

It occurred to Hephzibah that this must have been the subject of the conversation held that night in the spring when Charles Emmanuel was so penitent. He was not going to harm Pépo but rather had been the cause of his father’s hip injury and the source of the distress of his stepmother who thought he should show mercy and not take revenge. It took some thinking to sort out this happy conclusion. From behind her curtain, Hephie would not dare invade this private moment but it was so entertaining that she squealed quietly and was still smiling with her head sunk into the pillow when Marie Louise peeked in.

“Have you heard, Hephie? Charles Emmanuel has chosen a wife and the captain has presented the dowry. It was accepted! The two will be married on the day before the feast day of Sainte Rose of Lima.213” Then Marie Louise embraced Hephzibah who just had time to move the curtain out of the way.

“When is the feast day?” Hephie asked.

“Next Thursday, August 30th.”

213

a Peruvian (1586-1617) principally known for her sober life and her desire for the salvation of the lost.

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“Hephzibah, you will not be jealous of Thérèse. She is not half as pretty as you,” teased Charles Emmanuel, “but she wants me and that is what matters.” He was so elated he picked her up in her nightgown and carried her around the room. She laughed and cried at the same time.

“Put me down! Help Madame! Monsieur!” she squealed mockingly.

Finally, he set her down on her bed and crossed the room and grabbed a leftover crust of bread from the table. Then he hopped up the stairs, three steps at a time, calling out, “she makes better bread than you!”

Hephzibah just smiled and wondered how he knew. She paused to think of how to say it in French and then called after him in her scrambled sentence, “I suppose she must be ready to keep house if she has already kept an inn.” He was already upstairs, however.

Monsieur and Madame Côté took a little more time to go up. The fire was first tended to and the boots placed near the north side of the door.

Pépo was astonished when he heard the news in the morning. What would he be required to do to keep the stable running without Charles Emmanuel? Would the new daughter-in-law come to live with them? It all meant more work for him, he thought. He got down on his knees and prayed out loud. “Father God I need your help. Please give me the strength of Samson to keep doing this work that you have given me to do.”

Warham was sure he knew what a marriage was. It meant that Charles Emmanuel was going to have a new mother. Hephzibah explained that the new bride was going to be a wife but he still did not understand the difference. Every house had a mother, he thought. Sometimes a man slept right in her bed. That was the monsieur. So,

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Charles Emmanuel was going to have a new family, he rightly concluded.

As was the custom, the couple would live for the first year with the parents of the bride, in this case, the uncle. Next, they would be allotted a concession and they had to build a house before a certain date. Charles Emmanuel, who was listening, explained everything to Warham, who was finally coming to understand.

The marriage of Joseph Charles Emmanuel Côté and Marie-Margaret Thérèse Trutot was signed at the Recollet residence in the office of the chaplain. Hephzibah prepared one of her best puddings to be eaten before the bridegroom left for the ceremony. Michel Accault and Marie Rouensa were present to give their friend the best of their wishes. The girl’s family accompanied her to the door of the residence but then the uncle and the two cousins and their families waited outside on the lawn where a carriage was to be handed over to the couple afterward. Hephzibah stood outside with Warham and Pépo. They waved when Charles Emmanuel went around the carriage to stand next to his bride. It was a carriage in which all the passengers stood. The day was very pleasant, even though late in the summer, and the braided hair of the bride shone, even as it peaked out from under her white bonnet. Charles Emmanuel wore a bright ivory-coloured linen shirt under his leather vest. His coloured sash, woven of silk and wool by Marie Louise who, to finish it, sat up late into the night. It was the last thing they saw as the horse rounded the stone chapel at the end of the driveway and headed out of Montreal, down to the river and to a vessel docked at the wharf. The boat would take the relatives and the couple toward the home of the new bride for a five day celebration with friends and neighbours.

Hephzibah looked around in her new bedroom. She had not asked to take Charles

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Emmanuel’s place, but it pleased her to now have it for she felt she would get more rest.

Warham was going to have her bed downstairs. The upstairs room might not be as warm as being opposite the downstairs fire. In this room, she could not get much warmth from the Côté’s fire. The bedroom door was closed at night. It was a good place to be however, and it was hers. As she undressed that night, she reminded herself to ask if Madame would tell her more about Marie, the new girl she had met a few weeks before, at the Ramezay house. The new mansion was now completed.

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Synopsis: chapter seven Hephzibah finds that there is far more contact with people in the summer. She can write and receive letters that will be more easily transported and she can go to the market where she meets people from New France and from the ships that sail the world’s seas. We learn of all that is sold or traded at the market.

She receives news from Samuel who has had a learning experience at the Jesuit school but is reunited with his father at Chateau Richer north of Ile d’Orleans where he now feels more secure.

Charles Emmanuel proposes marriage to Thérèse Trutot, the girl he had met on Round Island on the return from the St-François Xavier Mission. The uncle and Captain Côté first fight a duel because of the hard feelings that have been created by the unjust treatment Charles Emmanuel received while he was injured. The result is a solid pact, which includes the proposal between the two over-aged unmarried youths. They are married on the Feast Day of Rose de Lima, August 30th.

Hephzibah makes a friend, a fifteen-year-old girl, who is part of a crew to construct the new Chateau de Ramezay. She is an orphan who was cared for as a baby by Marie Louise and her first husband, Pierre. She is curious to have news of the Côté household.

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illustration: A man (Gilles) chained in a subterranean prison of the Ville Marie Garrison.

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CHAPTER EIGHT: The Spirits of the Manitous Captain Côté was sitting on a bench, inspecting the contents of a trunk, filled with uniforms that had been deposited near the front door. He then began to pile up, beside himself, a complete issue of new garments for two soldiers who had brought the trunk from the King’s dock.

“A new capote (greatcoat) for you, and one for you,” he said. He marked their names in the ledger he balanced on his knee. “It has been two years has it not? I am only allowed to give you a new one every second year. There is a new gilet (waistcoat).

You are both carabiniers, if I remember correctly. Should you need ammunition you will have to go see the General. He will not let me take the stuff outside of the gunpowder factory. For 62 calibers you will get 20 round musket balls to the pound. For 32 calibers you should get 140 balls to the pound.”

François Côté thought he should tell them about their fellow soldiers.

“You will have to get used to your Canadian-born superiors. They do not give us Europeans much honour, but then, you will learn to respect their achievements. My militiamen have to provide their own clothing and even their own weapons. Here are two caps. Morbleu! They must have separated the insignia. Ah! Here they are. You will have to find some fine seamstress to do the job of putting these on.”

“Hephzibah! Why do you not do that right now?” he called to her as she laid the new harvest of flax on the drying platform.

She came to his side and greeted the two soldiers with her curtsy. Then she went into the house with the two caps and their embroidered emblems. As she sewed them on with black lace thread, she could hear the captain repeating the list he had written in his

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ledger.

“One pair of pants, one tie, two pairs of socks, two pairs of shoes. You will have to get yourselves a good set of boots for the winter. Go to the barracks and ask for Lieutenant Gaillard. He gets some strong moccasins from the Kanien’ Kahaka people.

You will be making 5 cents a day. Remember the men from here do not get paid so do not create any hard feelings. Oh, also... you will have the benefits of medical care at the general hospice. That is the hospice over there,” he said, and pointed to the General Hospice of the Charron brothers. “If you are lodged on a concession of a seigneurie, well then, it is expected that the farmer must pay you 10 cents a day for your labours... but I will warn you, we do not always have cash, the bills can not be printed here, so we have got some fair- trading cards to offer in a pinch. If you receive paper notes, be sure the signature of the Intendant or the Commissioner has not expired. Why did you bring this chest up to my house? Next time you will know it goes to the barracks where the trunks are reused for storage. You are lucky I had my ledger with me.

Hephzibah, did you find some thread?”

He turned to the men. “Why do you not go sit in the house and I will get you some beer. You must tell me how the trip was and give me the latest news. I will tell you about our new prisoner.”

“Thank you, Captain, we will be glad of some refreshment,” one with blond hair said and noisily entered the front door.

Hephzibah wondered, “Who is the new Ville Marie prisoner that the captain mentioned?” but she put it out of her mind. She liked serving the mariners that he received at the house. They introduced many interesting stories and taught her of the

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world she, incapable of taking the risks, forbade herself to explore. A tale of the doings of a Sir “somebody” in the English Admiralty whose name Hephzibah missed, was already on their lips. The man was ‘Knight Rear Admiral of England and Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s Fleet’, she remembered. He had apparently engaged in piracy, going beyond the permitted privateering for the Queen.214 Sometimes Hephie imagined going to Barbados Island in the Caribbean, where Pépo had been indentured to Mrs. Killigrew and her husband, but she had heard so much about the lives of the thousands of girls who chose to be mistresses there. Men from Europe, visiting their own plantations and properties, financed the girls. She forbade herself, for the love of God, to think of becoming so dependant on adulterers. Her mother’s opinion was her own. She had not had an occasion to think independently on the subject because she needed and admired her mother. Something else, forming in her conscience said, “If I have Christ, I have all. If he has me, he will make me free to do what is agreeable to him and what is good for me.” She sang to herself as she worked.

Just as she poured the beer and got the fresh bread and cheese sliced, all the while being followed by the sailors’ eyes, a tall native Canadian stood in the doorway with the captain.

“Chagnan?” she exclaimed out loud.

The captain had already inquired of the business of the visitor.

“Hephzibah, the man has a letter from the captive, son of John Williams. I think it is addressed to you. If it is not in English, you will let me see it later,” the captain said and took off his boots, whose soles had collected an assortment of autumn leaves.

214

Privateering was legal stealing but piracy occurred when the Queen had not ordered the pillage.

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The girl was not often allowed to keep her letters. The captain tried to translate them and asked if she would do so herself. He was beginning to understand the relationships that had been established between Samuel and the Father Meriel and between Reverend Williams and the clergy at Chateau Richer. “A ragged conscience?”

He had never heard the term before he said when Pépo translated it.

Chagnan explained what he was about to give her. “This letter was lost in a bag. I left it in Fort St. François. The bag was brought to me this morning, so I am now bringing it to you. I never expected to see it again and I was glad that it was still there.”

“Thank you, Chagnan,” she said quickly. She hoped not to annoy the Captain by this distraction from her duties. So, she took the letter and put it on a shelf. She had a thousand questions for him but she thought the captain looked disapprovingly at her and she returned to the sideboard where she had been sewing. Chagnan left and she put aside the sewing to serve the bread and beer.

“What do the militia wear when they go on a raid?” one man asked.

“Oh, they have a brown great coat, each of them, and usually a knitted tuque215 for their head. I like them all to wear red woolen leggings to cover their shoes. We have a few felt workers who make them to fit. The black silk neckerchief in the front gives them a bit of protection from the cold and each has a strong leather belt.”

“How cold does it get, Sir?” “It gets so cold here, my good man, that you could get the whole population of Montreal to stand out on that river when it is frozen, and you will not even hear the ice crack.”

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a knitted, close-fitting, cone-shaped hat, usually having a turned up brim

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Hephzibah laughed at the thought of seeing all of the nine hundred residents of the city standing on the ice.

The three men did not need her now, so she asked the captain if she could go to the factory and help Marie Louise. She was given permission and prepared to go find Warham who was at the neighbour’s house feeding chickens with one of the children.

Before she went out the door, she took the letter off the shelf and put it in a bag filled with bread, raw turnip, and chestnut paste that she was taking to the factory for the mistress of the house.

The field next to the neighbour’s garden was not longer than the length of two houses. She stopped halfway and found a barrel to sit on, out of sight of any windows.

She read the contents of the letter.

“My friend and dispossessed neighbour, I am rested and my inkbottle has been refilled. Now I will put simply the news of which I spoke in yesterday’s letter.”

“So, this is the lost letter,” Hephzibah thought excitedly.

“Late one day during a land portage, our group came upon an encampment of Abenakis. I had twisted my ankle in the morning after scouting out the signs of their presence from a treetop. There was an easy way up; I used the shoulders of Chagnan, but the way was more difficult when I descended and with no one to help me, I leapt from the last branch and had the misfortune of falling on a round stone which made my foot turn. The ligament has completely healed but it was a most annoying companion for the rest of the journey and some should have had to carry me, but none would assist me, all of them being so preoccupied with their own affairs. Chagnan pleaded for me, so they did not leave me behind. Chagnan has been like a brother to me in other ways. I trust he is safely back in Montreal.

With the help of Captain Beauville, a translator and brother of the Lord Intendant, I spoke to a man who had your painting by the Dutch artist in his possession. The guide (for he was with us from Deerfield) is called Thaovenhosen and he is a converted Wendat who was travelling with the Abenakis to the Wendat establishment of Lorette near Quebec. Hephzibah, this was the very man who threw you into the river near Chambly!”

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She dropped the letter, still clutched in her hand, to the side of her apron. “How could this be true?” she asked. “It must not have been the same man. This man was a convert to the Christian faith?”

Hephzibah took up the letter again. “...When I came to Lorette, for we had decided to stop first at Sillery and then at Lorette before going to Chateau Richer, I heard him speak, I heard him pray, and I am convinced he saved the life of my father. Other Hurons were intent on killing a captive as blood exchange for a Wendat Chief who was killed at Deerfield.

They wanted to take vengeance on a Puritan Chief and my father, Rev. Williams, they said, was the one chosen to be sacrificed. Thaovenhosen pleaded for his life and the priest with us said that it was his pious intervention that saved my father.

The Wendat, Thaovenhosen, was carrying a bag along with him to the attack on our village. It contained their precious manitous. He has since given up his superstitious attachment to these articles, saying that God is in heaven and he does what pleases him, as it says in the one hundred and fifteenth Psalm. I was able to get him to explain to me the reason he left you so pitilessly in the cold water. This is the wonderful story of his repentance. When you went to get the painting out of his sack, he was sure you wanted to take the manitous. This would have taken away his good luck for the rest of the voyage. He was already regretting the whole affair of our capture. When he threw you into the water, he was sure you were dead, but he saw a short time later that you had completely disappeared. Remember how hungry and tired our captors were, not to mention us also? When he searched for you, it came to his mind that you must have been a part of a dream. He was overtaken by a voice reading Scripture from the Bible to him; a flood of cold water washing over him; verses that had once long before been told to him by Huguenot fur traders. “You shall love your enemies and feed those who hate you.” He could not kill you, though he would have, for fear that your weakness would have caused you to suffer a worse death than one blow of the tomahawk. What was of most comfort to him was that he believed it to be a dream. Now he is rejoicing that you are alive and well and staying with a Christian woman of godly beliefs and a soldier who is willing to keep you as fathers keep their children among their own people.

Thaovenhosen wanted to return the painting to you but the priest said it was part of the war spoils and had to be handed over to the Governor. He wished, if it pleased the Governor to buy it back and give it to you, but the priest would not hear of it. With that, the priest took it into his own home. From there it was to be sent to Fort Louis.

Sarah and Jonathan Hoyt are at Lorette. Sarah was going to be forced to marry a French man but she offered to marry any of the captives instead and Ebenezer Nims stepped forward. They are now married. Their father died of exhaustion in Connecticut and little Abigail was not spared. They believe Benjamin was killed at Deerfield. If you have any news of him, you should send it to me.

Having had many conversations with the French clergy, my father has sensed their shame in this war whereby even converted natives are turned loose to

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capture English settlements. With their own books, he has convinced some of them of the pure gospel, yet some mock him as if he condemns them as being ‘wolves among sheep’. These ones can agree with him when he speaks of the nature of man, but the governing rule of Christ through his church escapes them and their consciences will not let them free. This sin will be the sting in their death, when death overtakes them. I am convinced that death will not have a sting for those ones who have Christ as their Victor over death. With the force and power given by God, I would go to war to stop this senseless cruelty. My father wants me rather, to take up spiritual arms, which he deems to be more efficient, and he will send me, because of generous support from a Boston man named Sewall, to Harvard College.

We have had news that my sister Esther is well. She is at a mission managed by the Company of Jesus that moved from the Chaudière River a few years ago. There are about 200 clans that have moved in with the new mission.

They were forced north after King Phillip’s war, I am told. Now they are settled in Odanak and this, I have discovered, is from where most of the Savages have been recruited. We passed by there on our way here. We were on the other side of Lake St-Pierre, opposite Fort Françis. I would have tried to see her if I had known, having been so close. We still have no news of Stephen. Take care of our brother Warham, Yours with affection, Samuel.”

This came as such an unexpected interruption in her day that Hephzibah stood thinking about it for over a half an hour. She began retracing her journey from Deerfield.

Once again, her cold face was hidden in a scrap of wool, wrapped around her neck as she marched sorrowfully through the woods, ever ascending into the unknown hills of the Green Mountains, always single file, always faster than her legs desired. Esther Williams was sometimes in front of her and James Catlin sometimes took her place, pushing Samuel’s sister forward so she would not give up. She remembered their long last look of the smoldering ruins of the Deerfield stockade as seen from the top of the first summit.

The burning stockade became a prison to its inhabitants, not a shelter. They all should have fled instead of hiding in it. Houses became graves not hospices. If a man had left it alone, his family was more likely to have been burned with the house. To become a

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captive was the only living choice. She had heard that some hid and were later rescued, though. It must have been angels who surrounded them, she thought. Sometimes in struggling to live out of harm from one’s enemies, one had to know how to surrender, to give up one’s life in order to find it. It seemed that all the young people and the men were still alive but so many mothers and babies dead. These were given leave of the rigors of the trek; they were given leave of earthly woe. Shot along the way because they could not keep up, the weakest ones were eliminated one by one. She remembered it was March eighth, when they turned west to follow the White River and then continue beside the Winooski River which they all called the River of the French. They would stay near Lake Champlain on the East side until they reached Fort Chambly on the River called ‘the rich place’.

“I wonder if Abigail Bissel, who must have delivered her baby by now, is safe?”

She still marveled that a woman in pregnancy made it to the Fort. Still, God’s time is the best time. “Now the killed mothers and babies enjoy eternal felicity. There is no night nor tears, for what loss is there to lose a perishable body and gain an eternal one?” She presented to her mind the faces of the deceased as they sat in the Deerfield church listening to their pastor forewarn them of possible coming doom.

For he had warned them; he had taken on the voice of Jacob in his fearful and unworthy state when returning to meet his twin brother Esau from whom he had stolen the inheritance blessing. “Esau! Do not take me, and the mother with her children!”

Reverend Williams had called out. They all had feared an attack from the north.

The people of Deerfield had fasted in mid-February.216 Until December, they had

216

much of the new research accumulated over the past 30 years has been presented in articles and books written by Evan Haefeli (Tafts University) and Kevin Sweeney (Amherst College).

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16 extra soldiers sent by Governor Dudley in case of attack before winter. Would the French and Maquas217 attack in mid-winter?

Hephzibah remembered clearly the second sermon. Jacob met the angel and they struggled together; Jacob not letting go until the angel blessed him. “Bless me, O angel!” was the theme of that Lord’s Day sermon.

“Your angel was sent to bless me, then,” Hephzibah prayed thankfully to God. Then she had a sudden doubt. What if, when disturbing the manitous, she awakened the anger of the pagan spirits towards our precious Jesus? She waited until the thought was gone and reminded herself that the child believes everything, even anything, and that the woman must put off childish imaginations and cling to what is noble; given in writing for the believers’ knowledge. The Savage angel was sent to bless her, and she had struggled with him like Jacob had. Thaovenhosen was blessing her.

“But seek his kingdom, and food and clothing will be given to you as well...Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks, they can immediately open the door for him.”218 How many times had Mother reminded her of these words from the teachings of Jesus Christ?

Goodwife Block had not neglected to tell her children how she had come to such knowledge herself - from the sermons she heard in England by Dr. Samuel Annesley.

She told them how her father, now deceased, had studied Puritan theology for five years 217

refers to human flesh eaters

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the ethics of the Kingdom of God pronounced by Jesus, found in the four eye-witness accounts called The Gospels

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under Charles Morton at his Academy in Newton Green219.

“Am I seeking God, the Father’s kingdom?” Hephzibah asked herself. “Yes,” a little voice inside reassured her. It was confirmed by a remembrance of her zeal, to take that walk, with the risen Jesus, to Emmaus. She cherished this desire in her heart as she ate every day at the table near the painting. Then “Yes!” came the loud exclamation from her mouth.

“Who are you talking to, Hephie?”

Hephzibah jumped up off the ground, which startled herself, as much as the boy who had asked the question.

It was Warham. He had seen her on the barrel and had waddled along his way on an imaginary road with a simple cart and two stone horses. He had been playing with these hand-made toys with the neighbour.

“Marie Louise must be wondering when we are coming to the factory, Warham.

Let us go now and see if there is some paper-cutting we might do. Look at what you have done to your breeches!”

“Well, you have grass all over your apron!” he replied cheekily.

They stopped at the house where their benefactor was still heartily entertaining the two men, sent to the armies in New France by King Louis the Fourteenth. One of them followed her with his eyes as she ascended the stairs to safely put away her precious letter. He was equally interested in watching her descend, even though he was speaking to the captain all the while.

We are going to help at the factory,” Warham replied. The captain had asked what 219

Charles Morton broke the Stamford Oath for graduates of Oxford by opening a rival private academy for his students in Newton Green. After he was excommunicated as a non-conformist to the Church of England, Increase Mather, in Boston, offered him the Presidency of Harvard, which he accepted.

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they were doing. He was confused. Hephzibah said she was going there long ago.

“Is this your daughter and son?” one of the men, named Damien Vaillancourt, asked the captain.

“The girl is an English captive that my wife acquired for her service. The boy is another of the captives and one of the girl’s former neighbours in Deerfield.”

“In Guerrefille? (Wardaughter)?” The military envoy was having trouble pronouncing the name of the Massachusetts Colony settlement. Guerrefille was hardly similar in meaning to Deerfield but for the French ear there was little difference in sound.

“Then, she may not marry, I suppose?” Monsieur Vaillencourt asked.

“The king will make of her a ‘faithful lamb of the Papacy’ and a ‘loyal subject to his Majesty’, in exchange for marriage and a pension. Poor girl. She has no future here,” François Côté replied.

“Maybe she is too young to have convictions in religion? Will she convert easily and marry, or make a fine concubine who would not dare cause a stir?” the bold soldier inquired of him. He was beginning to think the captain was speaking treason.

“She comes from a pious home and her father is also a captive,” the captain informed the man from France. “They may soon be redeemed.”

Hephzibah felt warm tears fill her eyes as she left the house. It was not new to have to face the grim future her circumstances had allotted her. Would her patron give her to a soldier, or worse, take her to his own bed? The image in her mind of her future return to Deerfield, or more likely, Boston, was not yet completely formed. She resolved to put the future out of her thoughts, to leave it to God’s intervening action. Then Warham came running up to her from behind and distracted her.

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“Hephie. I saw a man in front of the church... on the Lord’s Day.... who was being held in the wooden frame with his hands locked in. He had done something very evil but I could not read the sign. Did you read it?”

“Yes,” she answered, remembering the sign. “He was very wicked. His crime was to have medicines in his house that only the priest is allowed to have.” The sign over the pillory220 said, “Here is a man who steals the medicines of the dying.”

“Oh,” said Warham whose mind was trying to separate the evil from the good, the unfair from the fair.

“There is much good in this place, Warham. There are people who will take in captives who have no homes to live in. There are sick people being cared for in the hospices and there is warm friendship among the poor who suffer long hours of work and see little results. But as in most places, the courts of the King decide the good and evil. I once read such things in Les Fables de Lafontaine221,” she explained dogmatically. “The animals were trying to determine who had caused an evil plague to come upon them and make them sick. Each animal confessed what he had done wrong. Yet the court agreed, regardless of what was true, that it was the donkey (who had only eaten a little grass) that had done the worst evil. So, he took the punishment for all the evil that befell them.”

“Can you read that story to me? Do you have the book?” Warham begged.

“I read it at the Maison de la Providence. Unfortunately, the book is not here, but maybe Marie Louise will get it for us and we will return it.”

They reached the paper factory where the activity was unusually accelerated.

Two women, whose hands were rough and red, were sloshing around the tree pulp in a 220

the wooden blocks that held the prisoner in view of everyone, where he could be mocked and tortured by passing spectators.

221 stories similar to Aesop’s Fables

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huge vat. A filter to drain the mash was being attended to by three young men, and the press was being made ready for this batch. There was someone opening a barrel of resin to hold the small fibers together and keep the paper smooth.

“Why is everyone in a hurry, Madame?” Hephzibah asked Marie Louise who sat at a desk, busy with a quill in her hand. She was calculating the latest information of the Paris Stock Exchange. She would reply to the letter next to it in a minute; a letter that, she told Hephzibah, indicated the required amount of paper they must send to Europe on the next ship.

“They require the wood pulp, packed in barrels as well, because we chop down so many trees and provide the best source of pulp for the St-Malo paper factories.”

Hephzibah noticed her lady had tears in her eyes. “What can we do to help? You need not be so upset. It will get done soon.”

Taking Hephzibah by the arm, she said quietly, “Gilles Guérin is to be executed, they have found out who he is.”

Hephzibah paused to repeat the information in her mind and hold the thought, to see if she had understood it. “Who could have told them, and exposed his secret?

Madame Blaise-Des Bergères? Then Hephie asked in alarm, “her husband?” She shed tears also.

“No, it was my husband, François. He did not know there was any cause for complaint against Gilles until an officer, newly arrived, disclosed it to him.”

“I was trying so hard not to give him away. Gilles was free to talk with us but he should have been more careful. Is that it?” the girl asked.

“No, this officer of the King’s border army who has newly arrived from France,

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recognized him from the Mount Lozère forests of the Cévennes where they were on opposing sides of the civil disputes.”

“But what is he charged for?”

“I do not know yet. I was only told this morning that this officer, an assistant major brigadier, has many accusations against Gilles, including that of deserting the king’s ranks to join the Camisards.”

“Should not Gilles be sent back to France, Madame?”

“The Governor Vaudreuil will not know how to verify these accusations. Perhaps War Council will be forced to decide to send him to be tried in France, but it would be costly, my child.”

“Might not we go see him, Madame? Where is he being kept?”

“He has been arrested and is at the Garrison Prison. When the work is done here, I will take you up there with me. I will send Pépo to hire the carriage. Now go to the fireplace and put water on to boil. I have not seen my worker Claudie do it yet and it will soon be time to wash up the screens.”

Papermaking required large frames called screens, because the mash of softened pulp was laid on the screens to be sized, the water being then drained through the screen or evaporated out of the fibrous parchment that took shape.

Hephzibah and Warham had to first ask for the copper cauldron from a man who was sitting on its upturned bottom. Then together they went to the St-Pierre River to fill it with water, and without spilling it too much, they returned to the paper fabrication building. Hephzibah lifted the pot onto the hook over the fire. The hook was so hot she burned her finger a little. It could not have been helped, she was so eager to be finished

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the work and be of service to Madame Côté. The white line on her skin stung for the rest of the day.

The last screen was being hung to dry and it would be impolite to make the carriage wait for them. So, Hephzibah, Warham, and Marie Louise waited for it outside on a white linen cloth spread on the warm grass. There had been no time to eat while the afternoon work proceeded, but Hephzibah proudly distributed the portions of bread and slices of raw turnip and fresh water from the river. She lifted the small cover of a wooden pot containing a chestnut paste, which they spread on their bread.

It was early October. Although there had been many very cold days, today was breath-takingly beautiful. The reds, oranges, and yellows, mixed with persistent green of the leaves, painted the foreground of the bright blue sky behind them. Migrating flocks of geese and other birds soared noisily across the clear sea of fresh air. The river was unusually busy with brulot, caque and galliotte vessels, some transporting whole families of aboriginal people and French inhabitants who were migrating like the birds.

Hephzibah, who was lying on her side, careful to keep her shoes off the bleached canvas, brought the clouded question to her lips. “What can we do for Monsieur Guérin, Madame?” she asked Marie Louise who was cradling Warham’s sleepy head on her knee.

He had his thumb in his mouth, while she combed his long brown hair with her fingers.

“It is a poor business to work against God. To work with God and for God pays better. Thus, it is easier to comply and succeed, than to oppose our Lord and fail. Is it just the good men that come to be in prison or to go to the galley ships? No, there are rogues and infidels also. Monsieur Guérin is an example of youthful diligence, one who has been so earnest in his studies that I can say I have never met a more learned person.

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He knows the value of time and gathers up moments more carefully than diamonds or gold; never letting them pass through his hands without improving them. Yet he lays up his treasure in heaven and already gives freely to the poor of our city. His measure of justice, mixed with grace, has earned him much respect among the officers who admire him greatly. I am so perplexed by the accusations against him, but I may have known only the better side of him. Ah! I wish to know nothing else, but without some hope of his innocence I cannot prepare to want his release, which also I desire greatly.”

“You speak like a lady of the courts of a king, Madame.”

“Am I not, as you are, a daughter of the King of kings?” The lady smiled.

Hephzibah thought for a minute and then determined to put all of her youthful passion into hoping for the release of Gilles. Although she had no proof of innocence or guilt, she believed he was in the hands of a wrongful rulership.

“Then we must speak to the officers. Will they let us?”

“The officers, my dear, will have no fear of us, fortunately, and I am sure they will respect me, but it is this new man that we must talk to. He may not consider us at all and dismiss everything we say. We must be careful not to upset him, if we talk to him at all. The first thing will be to get as much information from Gilles as possible.

They continued eating until the carriage arrived.

“Come! The carriage is here,” Marie Louise announced and packed up their belongings.

The two women helped Warham up into the vehicle and settled him onto a seat.

The order was given to drive to The Garrison but to first take the six-year-old boy to the house. Pépo was also now at the Coté house, according to the neighbour who owned the

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carriage. The driver informed them there was a young woman waiting on the bench in front of the house.

When they arrived, there was no one on the bench. Rather, inside they found Marie, the young woman who had been nurtured by Marie Louise when her parents left her on the dock as a baby. It was at Pépo’s invitation that she had finally come in and was sitting patiently in a chair, slicing a loaf of bread. Pépo was setting the table.

“Marie! How you have grown. This is the first time you have come to visit in years! I have not forgotten you. I know you are doing well at the Chalifour’s house.”

Madame Côté embraced her.

“Madame, I know you are disappointed that Monsieur Chalifour abjured from the Huguenot beliefs you hold to. I was afraid to let him know that I was coming to see you again. I was twelve when I saw you last, was I not? That was three years ago. Monsieur Chalifour still finds it difficult that his contact with you has been prohibited. He and Monsieur and Madame Freté miss the meetings you and Pierre held at the factory with the Swiss pastor.” Then she whispered in as short a sentence as possible, “We have secret meetings.”

Seeming to want to change the subject, Marie Louise continued. “Yes, Monsieur Valade was a good preacher. We were sorry when he moved to Fort Orange. Governor Frontenac wanted the people of New England to send him to France. Maybe he has been forced to return to Geneva.” In the end, she was talking to herself, for Marie did not know much of the geography of Europe.

Hephzibah tried to keep up with the conversation but both women spoke so quickly - the girl, because she was a little nervous, and Marie Louise, because she was in

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a hurry, and determined not to keep the driver waiting.

Marie Louise gave some orders to Pépo - to put Warham’s nightshirt on him and to keep the bread under an oiled cloth until they returned from the garrison. She asked if Captain Côté had been home yet.

“No, Madame. He is still at the garrison.”

“Good, then we will bring him back with us, when he is ready.”

“Marie, I must ask you the reason for your visit. We are in a hurry to see the prisoner, Gilles Guérin.”

“Gilles Guérin? The one who lives at the estate of Monsieur de Longueuil?”

“Yes, he has been arrested to explain his relationship with the French Camisards.

Do you know the man, Marie? Will you stay and pray for us? We will attempt to speak to him.”

“Madame, is he not one of the best young recruits? I would marry him, if he asked me. Surely, he will not be in danger. I will help your boy prepare the food. Yes, I will wait. I will set a place for Gilles also. He will return with you, I am sure,” she said naively. “When you come back, I will tell you why I am here.”

Marie Louise and Hephzibah quickly put on their capes and beaver hand warmers, for the night air was sure to be cold. They left through the front door and got into the covered carriage. It was dark now and the inside of the carriage had no lights. In the city, houses had their shutters closed so even the streets were dark except where a lit torch was present, hanging on a stone wall. The driver brought them up to the garrison by way of St-Pierre St. and Madame Côté spoke to the guard immediately upon descending. He allowed them to come in after they assured him they were carrying no

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weapons, gunpowder or musket balls.

The ground was hard under their feet from the constant wear of boots and carts passing over it. Several men were sitting around a fire with a steaming pot on it. They looked up and one said, “Oh, that is Captain Côté’s wife. She does not like to wear her wig half the time.”

“They all stood, for the presence of a woman of class was cause for an informal salute.”

The two women found a place to sit inside the chief commanding officer’s room.

While they waited, they quietly spoke to each other of the girl, Marie. Meanwhile, the captain was summoned to see his wife.

“Madame, Marie was here in the city working with Gilles on the new Governor’s residence. I think she sometimes sanded small wooden nails or wiped the glass frames on the windows after they were put in. That is where I met her,” said Hephzibah, “she told me you had cared for her when she was a child. She holds you in great respect. I have been meaning to talk to you about her.”

“Pierre and I kept her until she was five years old. Charles-Gabriel Chalifour’s wife took her in when Pierre died, I was so distressed at Pierre’s death and I was busy with the administration of the papeterie. I missed her terribly during the first year after she went to be with them. It was so painful for me. I had to put her out of my mind.

Then the Chalifours who decided to abjure, were discouraged from meeting with nonCatholics. We were out of contact.”

“She is a kind girl and I wish to have more time with her, if you will allow it,” said Hephzibah.

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“You must miss having friends and your sisters around. I am thankful for all of your help, my child.”

“I often wish to be with my sisters once again.”

“Here comes François.” Marie Louise sighed a little and rose from the bench as her husband entered the room from a hallway.

“Well, this is an unusual visit. What is it, Marie Louise? What brings you here at this hour and with the girl?”

“François, I wish to speak to the prisoner, Gilles Guérin,” was all she said.

Marie Louise rarely called her husband by his first name in public and when she did, she meant, “this is a life and death matter, do not question me.”

“You are getting involved in the right cause”, the captain said. He was surprisingly on her side. “This man is innocent of the charges against him, I believe.

Everything seems to point to his father as the guilty one.”

“Go down and see what he will say to you, but be careful of the steps and keep your overcoats on. I must finish my report for the day. Wait for me here in the room afterward. Did you come in the carriage? I suppose we are keeping those fine Canadians exercised but I guess they have a meal waiting for them back in their stalls.”

Hephzibah laughed. She realized that he was talking about the horse breed and not the people of Canada. She was pleased to be able to hear the French language and laugh, instead of having to listen so hard. Again, she found herself laughing at Captain Côté’s humour. They were relieved that he was on their side. He would defend Gilles.

A guard led them down into the second basement, which was the lowest prison cell. Hephzibah was no longer laughing. The two women were using smelling salts to

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keep from being overcome by the musty dampness and the putrid odours. This made it difficult to hold up their long skirts and capes. They descended in a spiral, the guard lighting the way down the narrow staircase. As they descended, the air became icy cold.

“Stay behind me. You must always let me be between you and the prisoner,” the young soldier, who was dressed in uniform, told them. They passed a room where a man cried out some foul words at the guard and rattled his chains at them. When they arrived at the place where Gilles was held, they stopped to survey the circumstances of the prisoner.

“Mademoiselle Block and Madame Gamonet! You are like two little lamps held up in the darkness,” Gilles said to them with the same clarity of voice that they had always heard from him. His body was weak, however, and he slowly rose from the straw covered floor, careful not to pull his wrists and ankles where the chains held him. Seeing him, Hephzibah remembered she still had a slice of turnip in her apron. She gave it to the guard who lifted it to his nose before giving it to Gilles. She wished she had thought of bringing him something more.

“We will bring more another time,” Marie Louise, who was thinking the same thing, said to Gilles. “We have come to inquire about the accusations that have been laid against you.”

The warmth of the torch brought the little group together so that their clothes were touching. The guard was witness to every word spoken, which made Gilles look at the faces of the women in an odd way, and he tested the guard’s facial reactions while he spoke. He began to explain his situation to his visitors.

“My father, mostly from terrible undernourishment and fatigue, was often in a

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state of prophetic vision when the Dragoons of Orleans left what we called ‘the Desert’, our encampment in the mountain caves, to go on the raids of village churches. He was called a ‘fanatic’ by those who opposed him among his former neighbours, yet he was loved for his wisdom and discernment among those of the Desert. He travelled to Geneva to study and brought me back the literature that I applied myself to learn. I was not too young to know the danger we were in, for my companions were being forced by the landowners to assassinate their own parents.”

Gilles addressed the guard who appeared interested in the story, “We were forced to fabricate our own bullets from the silver buckles and gold buttons of our enemies.

When our enemies retaliated, we realized that they were shooting back these same gold and silver musket balls!”

“The same gold and silver, you say?” the guard asked in surprise.

Gilles continued to speak to the women. “A regulation was posted - an order from the regional manager of Basville. It gave notice of a reward; of 5000 pounds sterling, to anyone who handed my father over to him or gave the information needed, leading to arrest. It was in order to punish those who are wrongly persuaded in religious belief for inspiring a spirit of revolt among the people and disturbing the peace.”

“May I go on, Hephzibah? Do you follow the conversation?” he asked. She asked a few questions for which the answers were satisfying to her and he went on.

“My father wrote a letter to the Lord, his Highness of Basville, explaining to him, with all humility, that he could not recognize the regional manager as his judge. ‘The legitimate judges have been removed. They used to protect the once-free people, under the perpetual and irrevocable edicts of peace. Treaties, now revoked, that were necessary

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and of themselves fair, have been removed,’ he told them. That is why my father could not accept being judged by a judge who used the people’s property and abused their children. Even though the people paid their tithes and their taxes, they were tortured for attending the assemblies of worship. We began to arm ourselves in order to continue our assemblies. My father said he could not stop doing what he had to do. He defended the innocent and faithful servants of our living Creator who only wished to own the freedom to serve, according to divine regulations, the One who had given them life. They also could not serve their neighbours.”

“The spirit of revolt, is that what God gives?” the guard asked, when Gilles had ended.

“No person can stop the Spirit of Jesus our Master, as no man can stop the wind unless he closes the door and seals himself up inside his hand-made dwelling,” Gilles replied. “These administrators were sealed up for an impending wrathful storm from God.” The irritated guard told them impatiently that they had another minute to visit and then he was leaving to go upstairs where it was warmer.

“It is the Spirit who is free and sets the man who receives our Lord, free,” added Marie Louise. “How are we sure, Gilles, that your father was approved by God and that his spirit was a godly spirit? The Lord, himself, was tempted to change rocks into bread.”

She wanted to test his innocence.

“I have not been given the task of judging my father. I do not even judge myself.

There is one who is in heaven who really sees.” Gilles slowed his speech to give emphasis to his point. “A Christian man is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A

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Christian man is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. That is how Martin Luther222 proclaimed what the apostle Paul had taught him in his letter to the Corinthians.”

“Who is the man who accuses you? Why is it you, Gilles, they have condemned?” Hephzibah asked quickly, knowing the time was short and she could ask Marie Louise later to explain other things he had said.

“The man who accuses me is the youngest son of the Count of Quissac who, being of the same squadron of the king’s troops commanded by our Captain Poul, was once in a disposition and willing to help me desert that company, which I was forced to join. He gave me instructions to flee in the direction of the Themelac Ravine where the chief of the Camisards, Gedeon Laporte, was stationed.” Gilles turned and then leaned against the wall. “Since then, he has had a promotion to a higher rank. My betrayer recognized me at once when we met Friday at M. de Longueuil’s home. Now, he appears to gain some personal advantage by my arrest. He believes he can find my father and claim the 5000 pounds sterling offered in France,” Gilles interjected before continuing.

“When I arrived to join with the people of the Desert, there were 8o poorly-armed soldiers who possessed only 30 guns that could fire. They were using the lead bullets Beltresque, their blacksmith, had produced by melting the metal retrieved from the stained-glass windows they broke out of the churches. A very rainy day does not help the muskets to fire. It was also the day Gedeon Laporte was killed by my former captain and it was the day I also received news of my mother’s death in the Tower of Constance.”

“You did not tell us of her imprisonment,” Marie Louise said with sympathy.

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this German monk was denied access to his church when he declared he would follow his conscience, which taught him to heed the teachings of the Scripture alone.

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“My betrayer informed me of this sad news.”

“The reward for my father is still being offered, and the man who accuses me is still unable to believe that my father is no longer alive.”

Gilles wanted to interest the guard, who might thereby lengthen the visit. He told him, “the guns were the new kind that make a spark from the silex, screwed between the tooth and dog and a steel briquet, that falls into a little container of gunpowder where it ignites the charge. They are an improvement of the snaphance gun.”

The guard looked at his own armament, which was a less-perfected musket but had a bayonet attached to it to make it look like the new kind. Instead of prolonging the time, as Gilles anticipated, the soldier decided to end the visit. He began to shuffle the women towards the stairs with his shoulder as he moved in that direction.

“Let us go now, ladies. It is getting late.”

Marie Louise told him as she quickly slipped off and handed him her felt coat.

“God be with you, brother Gilles, and sleep well. Here! Take my coat to lie on. I have another at home,” He could do nothing but accept it.

“It is not true,” Hephzibah thought, confused by this gesture. “She only has one cape.”

When the Captain, who was finished his report, came into the main room of the garrison headquarters, he discovered from the soldier that Marie Louise had given her ‘pelerin’ to Gilles.

“Send him a blanket and get the coat back!” he ordered the guard. “Oh, I will get the blanket. You go retrieve the cape before the rats chew it,” he added impetuously. The guard reappeared with the coat and, satisfied that a blanket had been found for Gilles,

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Marie Louise allowed her husband to put her wrap over her shoulders.

They went back home together in the carriage. Marie Louise and Hephzibah told the captain what Gilles had told them. He said he would include the information in his report since he was to sit on the War Council. They invited Marie to sit with them at the table. The young woman had audaciously already set herself a place.

Marie began telling them of the reason for her visit. “I have some news for you that has to do with a Huguenot officer, the Seigneur of Aigues-Vives, now residing at Perche de l’Argenteuil. The territory is now in the district of Berthier. He is very sick and Monsieur Freté has been told that, should he die, he wishes a Calvinist or Huguenot to become owner of his property - a domain several leagues downstream in the St. Lawrence River. Monsieur Freté reminded him that there is no legal possibility of transferring the property to anyone of the non-Catholic faiths. The Intendant will not allow it. The seigneur’s wife is no longer alive and he is left childless because of the smallpox; he has no descendants in New France. M. Freté convinced him to write an act of abjuration from the Reformed faith, and he agreed. He decided some good can be got from it because he asks himself, ‘What if I die and the title of the property is not settled?’ Then Monsieur Chalifour thought of you, Madame, and reminded M. Freté of your faithfulness. I have his letter with me, here.” The girl pulled the letter out of a bag beside her. “Could an application not be made to have the property given to Monsieur Côté, seeing as you, Madame, have always remained zealous for the faith of the Reformers? The seigneur agreed with M.Chalifour’s idea. That is the plan of M. Freté that I was sent to propose to you.”

“So, the Calvinists want to give me a seigneurie? Morbleu!” the captain

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exclaimed as he looked at the letter from Monsieur Chalifour. “Where is this property?

How much land is there?” he asked as he read.

“If M. le Seigneur d’Aigues-Vives becomes a new convert to Catholicism, you could receive it as a ‘gift’ from his estate. If he does not, then it must go to the Intendant’s registry and the property will become a holding once more of the king.”

“Well!” M. Côté leaned back in his chair and turned to his wife, who, he could see by the brightness of her face, was anxious to speak. “Marie Louise, you must already know of this. These are the people of your Huguenot Resistance.”

“No, my husband, I know nothing of this. It is not uncommon to abjure, become a Catholic and give property away,” Marie Louise said in her own defense.

Already realizing his good fortune, M. Côté understood. “The Seigneur d’AiguesVives being a ‘good Catholic’ could give me, a ‘good Catholic’ property to inherit so that you, Marie Louise, could benefit the Huguenots. Yes, yes, you must go speak with him.”

Marie Louise was not easily convinced that this was an invitation worth accepting. She understood only that the abjuration of another Huguenot to become a ‘nécé’ (new convert to Catholicism or N.C.) would open up future prosperity for her in the colony. Was it a temptation or a gift from God? She was getting older. Her husband was anxious to make gains into the society. He must provide a financial future for his son, although Charles Emmanuel was not as convinced as his father that land was of more value than money. Maybe, if the king repented and defended the Edicts of the Huguenots, with this new acquisition of property in question, she could, as before, provide another place to assemble for worship. She was silent for a long time, pretending to eat while the other two talked of the property in question.

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“I would be allowed by the Chalifours to come and live at your new manor,” Marie added. “Their oldest child can now take my place. I would like to do that, Sir,” she offered.

Madame Côté went to the fire to get more soup. Hephzibah offered to help, but she got a confused answer from her patronne who was thinking out loud.

“By the Rivers of Babylon, we wept at the memory of Zion,”223she whispered to herself. She carefully ladled soup into the tureen and pensively lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “I remember the goats, the chestnuts...and we had silk worms and bees when I was a little girl. We made wine from our vines and caught fish to eat.” Hephzibah could see tears in her eyes.

Then she looked down as if talking to the fire, “I think I would like most of all to see those who love God living face to face with Him, their benevolent King, eating food from their own gardens.”

Pépo turned to look at Hephzibah. They both shrugged their shoulders, unable to make any meaning of what she said.

When she returned to sit at the table, she replied to her husband, “Yes, I will go to the dying man.”

The matter was set aside while they gave Marie news about Gilles. She took it hard and promised to try to send food to him or at least a letter. Her visit did not last long for she had to be back, with the Chalifour’s lackey at the auberge, before the curfew. She embraced Marie Louise affectionately and searched for her cape. She said goodbye to 223

quoted from Psalm 137.1. Christians have the guaranteed hope that a peaceful reign like that of King David’s first years in Jerusalem will fill the earth under the reign of Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace for all nationalities. He has refused to do this through armed combat (his enemies, of which we all are, if left to our own stregth, will kill ourselves off) but neverthless, He will, by the power of the Ressurrection, bring back ‘captives’ out of the reign of ‘darkness’ (separation from God, self, others and the environment.)

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Hephzibah, Pépo and Warham, then curtsied to the captain. A group of travellers was leaving the city in the morning and she would be returning to the Chalifour’s farm with them.

Overcome with emotion, Mme Côté asked to be excused to go upstairs.

Captain Côté watched Pépo and Hephzibah clear the table as he smoked his pipe.

He told Hephzibah that the English and the Dutch were sending troops and weapons to the Cevennes along with the Irish.

“Respect of the king, who holds the sword, is now compromised by the sword of the Lord and of the Camisard Gideon,” he declared emphatically. He was referring to the biblical story of the Israelite judge, Gideon, who defeated the Philistines with only 300 men and the power of God. The captain was not a cynical man, but rather melancholic when he was not telling humorous stories, and he had seen too much war to be a violent man, although he had, without scruples, employed the tortures that make a man destroy his enemy.

The girl replied, “Sir, you might tell the king that his citizens could be of much usefulness in building the large territory of New France,224 if they had the great hearts such as that of M. Guérin,” Hephzibah petitioned bravely on behalf of the prisoner, whose plight made her feel more like a condemned prisoner herself.

“Do I not have a great heart like his?” the captain sulked, mockingly.

“Well sir, if I ever meet Queen Anne of England, I will tell her that you have been of excellent service to her captured servant.”

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some historians believe that the Eastern half of North America would be French-speaking today, if the French had not persecuted its Huguenot population, an act that caused negative backlash from the rest of Europe.

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He laughed at her quick wit. The captain was in a good mood. He had been made an interesting offer of land. Hephzibah, without showing it, was sullen and not as eager to continue speaking lightly of her own enduring distress. She went to her room to pray for Gilles and Papa, her brother Ebenezer and his family; not forgetting Sarah and Elizabeth, her younger sisters whom she longed to see again.

A month went by. With all the preparations of winter to manage, Marie Louise was only able to make brief visits to the prison, but she often sent food for Gilles by way of the captain. Her desire to petition Gilles’ accuser was satisfied, but it did not go well.

The man dismissed her plea to drop the charges because he had nothing to gain by such humiliation.

The War Council finally prepared the trial. That day, Pepo, Warham, Hephzibah and Marie Louise all went to bake the bread, visit the hospice of the Charron brothers, and then take food to Gilles. They sat in the General Headquarters of the garrison to find out the verdict of the trial.

There was nothing to be done. The highest officer of the Marine Commission now knew everything about Gilles, even his true family name before he changed it to Guérin, to protect himself. The prosecutor had discovered, by way of interviews with the Hôtel- Dieu workers and the servants of Charles Le Moyne, that Monsieur Vergougnouse, and his father (for that was their true identity), had resided near Deerfield.

In French province they had been involved with the Camisard uprisings in that area.

Some of the soldiers who travelled back from Deerfield said they believed him to be a lost delirious Canadian recruit and reluctantly allowed him to return with them.

The newly arrived brigadier again accused him of desertion from the Orleans

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regiment of the French army, not mentioning that he, himself, had assisted it. He spoke zealously for the honour of his majesty, the king. But it was not a discourse to convince the audience that he was defending the honour of King Louis’ army. He was not defending a neighbour beside whom he had grown up. Only his own honour was foremost in his defense. This demonstrated that for having brought the matter up, he really preferred to drop it - now that there was no reward for him. He was a man of mixed allegiances but his primary allegiance was not to the king, but for himself, in the name of the king.

Some women and men who had worked on the Longueuil seigneury had written petitions asking for his release. They were also present at the trial. He mentioned nothing that would indicate he had been in conversation with Marie Louise. Her pleas to the accuser had had no effect on him. She had begged him to expose his own former doubts.

Had he not been reluctant at one time to show allegiance to the King’s forces against his friends and neighbours who had joined the Camisards?

Allegiance to the king forced the Council to order the accused to go before a firing squad. There was a protest, however, from some Canadian-born soldiers who were too much in sympathy with the prisoner. They said they could not be forced to perform the task. Hanging would be a wiser choice, but he would have to be sent to Place Royal at Quebec, they said, and be hung outside the prison. It was too late in the year to send him there. The firing squad was better, the Council claimed, and shooting him in the public square would propagate the desired belief that all the citizens of Montreal were in agreement: his treason was an infection to their noble minds.

There was a dismissal and the details of the execution were to be decided that

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afternoon.

When everyone stood up, Hephzibah strode immediately to Captain Côté who sat with the Council. She was close enough to the prisoner to speak to him also before he was taken away.

“Gilles…Monsieur Vergougnouse...” She had trouble saying his name. “Thank you for saving my life.”

“You used great effort, the kind nurses said, to transport me to the hospice after I was thrown in the river.”

A soldier told her to move aside.

Before he was taken outside, Gilles had time to respond to her gratitude by saying, “So, your poor benefactor has been revealed to you.” He was ashamed to face her now. “Oh, do not think, Mademoiselle Block, that you could pull me from this frozen river?” Letting himself feel her kindness, he turned to look her in the eyes, “I accept your thanks, though. Pray for me and do not leave me without company, if you can.”

Captain Côté was taken aside by his pleading wife. She began a conversation with him that for days would tire them both to exhaustion. “Is there not a thing we can do?”

Charles Emmanuel, having visited his parents, was disgusted with the whole matter and decided not to get involved. Warham and Pépo were forbidden to go near the soldiers or the trial.

When they returned home at noon, Hephzibah heard Captain Côté say, “It appears to me that we have an interest in his life, as he does in ours.” He made comments about benefits the rescued girl had brought to him and his household. “If it were not for the life

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of the little girl, who knows where we would be? The colony does not need to lose young men like Vergougnouse. It needs, rather, to recruit more. I am going to talk with the chaplain before the council meeting this afternoon.”

The captain returned to The Garrison. The discussion Hephzibah’s benefactor had with the chaplain had a lasting effect on him. He had never spoken at length with a missionary of the church on such issues as justice and mercy. The teachings of StAugustine225 were discussed.

Hephzibah and Marie Louise had accompanied the captain and while he spoke to the chaplain, they went again to visit the condemned man.

He was pacing back and forth quickly in the cell and seemed to be ready to pull the chains off the wall.

He calmed for a minute and leaned against the wall.

Hephzibah, still overcome with curiosity, inquired of him the details of her rescue.

“When you were thrown into the river, I took the travoy,226 abandoned by the Amerindian and rolled you onto it. Then I dragged you out of the water,” he told Hephzibah. But his mind was on the trial. She was innocently annoying him, but he did not chide her. “We were already near the beginning of the overland trail to the Rivière du Canada so I headed west in that direction. Once I had the sled outfitted with you and the packed goods on it,” he explained briefly, “I prepared myself to follow the setting sun.”

“Why did you not return to one of the forts on the Richelieu River or go for help

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it was this African bishop of the 4th century, converted early from an immoral lifestyle, who gave the Latin language its Christian vocabulary. If he had also done so for the Arab language, we might not have the ‘Thought’ of the ‘Western World.’ Africa’s gift of the early catechisms that contributed to the consensus the church solidified, after the death of the Apostles, would have been remembered. St- Augustine’s Just War theory is upheld by many armies in the world today and is a reference used in international treaties. For a biography of Augustine see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine.html.

226 a sled, designed by Amerindians

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at a homestead? I must have been wet and heavy - Oh yes, you told me I was ‘Hephie’!” the grateful girl exclaimed, “I do not know why you took so much trouble and put yourself in so much danger.”

The young man was absorbed with his own thoughts and dismissed Hephzibah completely now that her curiosity had turned again to useless praise. What would making him a hero accomplish when there was now no cause to defend?

Marie Louise interrupted, hoping to redirect the conversation, “It is because he is the servant of all, Hephie, as he said of the Christian man who is free.”

“I was not free to go to any nearby place or household. I chose to leave you near a hospice. I am not free at this present moment but it is not by people that I am undone, but by the powers of greed and lassitude and indifference that rule the hearts of men.

Those are what imprison me. I think you must leave me so I might think and pray; that my conscience might be freed from bitterness. I cannot enjoy your company, friends. I live in bad company. I know you are trying to help, but it is more than enough that you pray for me.”

Marie Louise, although she felt helpless, could only think of one word to say as they parted, “Resistez.”227 Do not give up, resist, if you conquer the forces within, even your enemies without will be put to shame.”

Hephzibah’s wet eyes stung when the light and cold breeze outside the building touched them. A dance of snowflakes, the first of the winter, was fluttering around her.

She turned her eyes, unashamed by their wetness, toward the soldiers who were assembled by the fire in the courtyard. They rose and nodded to the two women.

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a word, scratched in the stone of the Tower of Constance prison, at the mediaeval, fortified city of Aigue-Morte in the south of France. Marie Durand, a Huguenot who spent 35 years there because she would not abjure (for the sake of conscience) is said to be the author who scratched it into the stone.

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“Maybe they seem more friendly or more kind, I do not really know,” she said to herself. “They all seem to wish for the release of this kind man.”

They walked back to the house quickly, for their feet were cold from the new snow. They would have appreciated a carriage.

Hephie was soon attending to her duties of churning cream and sweeping the dairy with Marie Louise.

“Tomorrow is November 14th is it not?” Hephie asked Marie Louise.

“Yes, I think the next day being the fifteenth is Saturday,” she said.

“It is my birthday, then, tomorrow,” Hephzibah said without emotion.

“You will be 14 on the 14th,” Marie Louise said cheerfully. Remember? I came to New France when I was fourteen.”

Her smile was pleasant and comforting.

The captain came back that night with some of the other officers.

He did not ask Hephzibah to stay up and serve them, so she went to her room. She hesitated going up the stairs, wondering if he might give some news, but was unable to ask him about Gilles. The other officers kept him occupied with their conversation about the morning drills. Maybe they were waiting until she left, to talk about the execution.

A week was all it took, from a Friday to a Friday. Gilles, born and named Vergougnouse, was dead by noon, shot by four men of the militia rather than the forces of the Carignan-Salières regiment, who had refused. The chaplain, who stood in the carriage, riding with him to Ville Marie’s Place Royal, had said that it was ‘too bad he was not of a more congenial nature, able to speak for king and for God with the same zeal.’ The crowd was large that gathered in the square close to the Côté home, but

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because of the cold, it dispersed shortly after the execution. Pépo went out at 10 o’clock.

He was nervous and he was not inclined to leave the captain’s side. The two women, who had risen early and gone to comfort the prisoner at The Garrison, were asked by the condemned man to accompany him to the execution, so they walked beside the carriage.

Hephzibah and Marie Louise were determined not to forsake him. “Death is not the worst thing that can happen to us,” they reminded him. He told them, “Without you, there is nothing but humiliation, but with you, there is nothing but glory - the glory of my weakness.”

His words to the women that morning were those from the Scriptures. “When the farmer plants the seed, it will not be what he plants that will come out of the earth. It will be the full plant that the seed gives rise to; a new and different shape that only the secrets inside the seed reveal, when the leaves and fruit form.228 God will turn this seed that I am, perishable and imperfect, sown in dishonour, into a glorious body that I have not yet known. I will be sown in weakness but raised in power - sown as the flesh and blood of the first man who became Giver of Condemnation - but raised with the Holy Spirit of the Last Man, the Giver of Pardon, who will give me a new imperishable body when the last trumpet is sounded.”

Hephzibah was unable to think of anything else that day but his words, the words that Gilles had suffered so much in his mind and body to believe, and here, now, with his life, to confess. She tried to remind Marie Louise of hope, for the older woman was beginning to believe hope had died. Hephzibah had to stop her, when she removed from her neck, the flowered cross necklace of the Huguenots. She would have pressed it into

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from I Corinthians, chapter 15

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Hephzibah’s hand, if the girl had not refused it. The older lady claimed she could bear no more injustice. They both wanted to cry out to the crowd but they despaired of not being understood. Instead, they waited with the crowd to hear the captain announce the reasons the court had given for the execution; High Treason Against the king and Desertion From the Orleans Regiment. The order was given to four militiamen to simultaneously shoot the guilty man who was tied against a pole and blindfolded. The well-aimed shots were not a danger to the crowd. Many were already shouting, “Vive le Roi!” He did not immediately die, however, so Captain Côté was obliged to use a revolver and shoot him in the back of the neck with a coup de grâce.229 That was the end, except for the blood. The fragile vase which held its precious life liquid, was now lying prostrate and broken. A cart was brought up and the corpse taken to be disposed of. Someone went out with a bucket of water and, obeying orders from the captain, washed the stains on the stones by passing a straw broom across them.

Marie Louise felt compelled to run to him, but she decided to run far away. She took the children to the factory to finish up the work there. She would have fainted if she did not have Hephie’s arm to hold. Hephzibah comforted everyone tearfully on the way.

“Gilles is now enjoying what none of us can describe, ‘what eye has not seen nor ear heard; things which have not entered the heart of man…all that God has prepared for those who love him.230’ For his living soul will not spill out the Spirit of God as his body spilled out blood, and we know from his confession that his spirit agrees with the thoughts of God.” The captain spent the afternoon chopping wood and stacking it near the door of 229

a shot to end an injured person or animal’s misery

230

from Isaiah 64.4 and I Corinthians 2.9

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the papeterie. His own soul was tormented by the execution, for he saw in Gilles a man like himself, a man like his own son. Yet, maybe even his son would now forever turn against him. He realized that only God could change a nation. Going to the Bonsecours Chapel that evening, he prayed for relief from his troubled thoughts. “Who speaks for God?” he asked in silence. But no voice inside answered.

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Synopsis: chapter eight Newly recruited officers arrive from Europe on the last ships before the winter closes the river. Captain Côté validates their issue of uniforms and gets the latest news from them.

Hephzibah receives a second, previously lost, letter from Samuel Williams who divulges the motives of Thaovenhoven, the Wendat Indian who threw her into the icy waters of the lake near Fort Chambly. He tells her of the converted amerindian’s reluctance to see his father Rev. Williams assassinated thereby rescuing him from the intentions of the Huron Chiefs.

Hephzibah reminisces sorrowfully about the day of the massacre and the march to Canada.

Warham and Hephzibah help out at the papeterie.

Gilles has been arrested for treason and deserting the Orleans Regiment in France.

A former complice is now in Canada and, recognizing Gilles, he decides to claim the 5000-pound sterling reward posted in Europe for Gilles’ father only to discover that Gille’s father is no longer alive. Afraid of humiliation and disrespect to the edicts of the king he pursues his defamation, rather than reverse his accusations.

Marie Louise and Hephzibah visit the prison where they learn of the tragedies Gilles has suffered because of His apparent treason. He sought the perseverance of his ‘People of the Desert’ in the Cevennes mountains of France. Formed to protest against the forces of King Louis XIV, they took up arms to defend themselves, and became as violent as their oppressors.

The girl, Marie, who lived with Marie Louise and her first husband Pierre, visits

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and delivers a letter to Captain Côté. The message tells of a plan to establish him on the seigneurie of a dying Calvinist officer at Berthier.

Gilles is tried and executed. The captain has a disturbed conscience.

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illustration: A flute (a type of river-navigating sailboat)

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CHAPTER NINE: Capturing an Old Wind in Fresh Sails Soon it would be ‘Christ Child Mass’. Twelve days were given to the festivities.

They would continue until Epiphany, which marked the coming of The Wisemen and the end of the twelfth day of the feast. Some of the new residents of Montreal and its nearby plantations formed a small orchestra. Using their music books, they practiced the pieces that would be the easiest to sing. They intended to find the best voices and train them for the event, with the approval of the clergy, of course. The Recollets and the Company of Jesus agreed to help them in their search, assuring those interested that there would be a fair distribution of parts.

Charles Emmanuel heard of the plans and managed to get Thérèse to join the music society with him.

When they visited at the Côté home after the practices, they brought out their books. It was comical to hear them the first two evenings. They could hear the music of the stringed instruments and flutes in their heads, Hephzibah was sure, but the sounds they made were relatively unharmonious. Then they improved, until finally they were singing a beautiful duet. Thérèse was concerned that her mouth was not round or open enough. She could not be consoled by her husband, who often liked her pouting, for it afforded him an opportunity to rush to her side and gallantly rescue her.

Instead of amusing Hephzibah, this irritated her. “Gallantry should be saved for women who are really in distress, not for a woman who is concerned about the shape of her mouth,” she thought. Charles Emmanuel was infatuated with his new wife. Maybe the New England girl was a little envious of the attention he gave her. She was able to befriend her, however, and they even began to talk in intimate womanly fashion.

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“Sometime, I would like to ask you about my body when I become more like a woman, Thérèse,” Hephzibah said, a little unsure of herself. “Marie Louise told me, ‘There is nothing more wasteful than to shed the lining of the womb. The body should be round and full like the moon”- not limp and unfruitful like hers has been’.

Thérèse responded kindly, “the womb is cleaned and ready for use, though. At the appropriate time, a marriage proposal brings new promise for a woman’s body, which alone, without pregnancy or a husband only belongs to itself.”

“Mama told her friends who were childless that a withered tree is not disagreeable to God. What is disagreeable is to refuse to be a part of Christ’s tree, which I think she meant was the Assembly of God’s people. Just as the body produces a baby, the Holy Spirit moves all the branches and the fruit grows. There, our hearts are refreshed from the cleansing of the Lord’s own covenant blood231 and his life becomes productive in all of us. We would have no life, if we could not share the Spirit who comforts us all in our weaknesses.”

“Hephzibah, you are as full as the full moon, with your mother’s wisdom about the Tree of Life, and of the Christian’s future hope,” the newlywed laughed. They had become good friends.

Hephzibah still stood under the triforium with Pépo at the Bonsecours Chapel Mass. The distribution of the body of the celebrated broken Christ meant she was a part of His covenant community. Here, the engagement meal was shared again.

She could recite the names of all the people Marie Louise knew who came to the Mass. There were usually a few visitors who stayed with family members over the 231

at the Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus used the words of the Jewish wedding vows…’This is my body, broken for you, this is my blood, shed for you.’ He was celebrating his engagement to be united with his new family. He wants Christians to remember this at the Communion Table. The final marriage banquet is at his future return, however.

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winter, but they would return to France in the spring when the ships began to arrive in port. These were brave people who did not seem to have a care in the world; who claimed they had found, in cedar bough tea, a cure for the illnesses of winter and sea travel. Yet, the hardship of winter still took many lives and there was never a ship that did not discharge some sick and delirious onto the dock of Montreal. Worst off, were the newborns and any undernourished, expectant mothers who did not survive the physical stress or illnesses of the winter months on land, or the perils at sea. Hephzibah often prayed for the weak when she went to the chapel. She also prayed for the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers of deceased babies. “God does not ask us to pray for the dead, nor inquire of them,” Father had told them after the funeral of one of his own cousins. She continued in prayer for the living.

Gilles was buried on Ile Bizard, a plot that had been given by Madame Blaise des Bergères because it was not permitted to lay his body in the cemetery. For several weeks Charles Emmanuel believed his father had arranged an escape. Not having been there, he imagined that the execution could have been a hoax, with false ammunition, and when someone in the militia went to clean the stones, he spread horse’s blood around the victim to deceive the crowd until Gilles could be carted away to safety. The captain finally convinced him, divulging the details and taking him to the burial site.

“The corpse was placed in an east-west direction, as is our custom,” the father told his son. “The Church teaches that the return of the Lord on the Last Day, in the place from which he was removed from the earth, will bring about the raising (for the final perfect evaluation) of all those who are dead and alive. Our theologians suppose that Christians will most certainly want to get a view facing toward the Mount of Olives in

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Jerusalem.”

Hephzibah never prayed for Gilles because she knew he had claimed God’s substitution for his wretchedness before he died. The Father above already allotted an inheritance in the New Heaven and on the New Earth to him. He was sure of the moment he abandoned his own pretended righteousness.

It was December, 1705.

St. Nicolas of Myra was remembered on the 6th of December. “His parents died of the Plague in Panthera of Lycia in Asia Minor and you dear people of this city will remember that he was the saint of the oppressed and the weak against the strong. He was also the guardian of young marriageable maidens and the orphaned poor.” St. Nicolas seemed to suit Hephzibah quite well, but then, anyone who had a heart that cherished Jesus suited her.

It comforted the New England girl to make the surprising discovery from the Recollet priest that the gift-saviour was announced hundreds of years in advance by the prophet, Isaiah. Charles Emmanuel, who was in Ville Marie for the mass one Sunday, discussed this with Hephzibah. “As you know, my second name means God with us”, he began. “What makes Emmanuel (God with us) different from a saint or a prophet or an angel?” he asked her.

Thérèse added some information that she had learned from the Round Island curé whose first name was Noël. He returned to Paris to the Grand Vicar’s residence on Christmas Day and heard this story from the Scriptures of the Bible. “Isaiah, the Hebrew prophet, requested the Israelite king, Ahaz, to ask for a sign from God. Ahaz was reluctant to make God go to the trouble. This displeased God. Isaiah could only reply to

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the king that, of his own choosing, God would give a sign to the House of David, even if Ahaz did not ask for one. (Ahaz was a fifth-generation descendant from King David.) It was the sign of a baby, a first-born son, born from a virgin. His name would be, ‘Immanuel’.”

Hephzibah tried to meditate on this, yet at the same time, she had to reply to Charles Emmanuel’s question on the difference between a saint, an angel or a prophet and the One who was called, ‘Immanuel’.

The former fur-trader loved it when she said something profound and coaxed her on for his entertainment. She ventured a reply, “We who are saints, as the letters of the New Testament call us, did not exist before all time and take on human flesh. Nor have we already been raised from sullen death to return to living again.”

“Interesting! So, you believe all Christians are saints?” Charles exclaimed.

“Well, one would suppose so, if the Holy Saviour made us that way, by the price he paid for us,” said Hephzibah. She was still surprised that what was common knowledge to Deerfield believers was such an enigma to someone living in New France.

“At the ruins of St-Ignace village in the west,” Charles Emmanuel said, “the Hurons sing a canticle232 that was written for the Christ Mass by a missionary of the Company of Jesus. His name was Jean de Brébeuf. He was among those who were tortured and killed by a clan of Iroquois.233 Harps and flutes accompany the song.

Michel knows it by heart. I only remember that the hymn gives us hope to have a saviour but I always wondered - a saviour to save us from what?”

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‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertide’, otherwise known in French as ‘Chrétiens Prenez Courage’. ‘Jesous Ahatonia’ was originally written in the Huron language by Jesuit missionary/ martyr, Jean de Brébeuf.

233 Thinking that the missionary wanted to give them an idea of the tortures of hell, the natives decided to pour boiling water over him. They wanted to really know what he believed, for he described heaven to them as the castles and palaces of Europe. They decided they did not want this kind of heaven.

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“The original peoples go to great ends to torture their captured enemies because they want to discover the hope within the victim, or at least, to discover how strong that hope is. The hymn must mean we have a Saviour to save us from being punished by God. We have great hope against the accusations of our enemies, do you not think?” the young fourteen-year-old said casually, “and we are all born as enemies of God.” “Why, indeed we need that, or we would go off thinking we were forever guilty!” replied Charles Emmanuel. “Guilt and fear must be the way the Accuser of God gets his power, like the canticle, ‘Jesous Ahatonia’ says.”

“I do not know of a day in my life when I have not done something that displeases God. Yet I am loved by God far more than I ever hoped to imagine,” Hephzibah sighed.

Charles Emmanuel helped her into the carriage and kissed her hand. “The time is drawing near for some kind of settlement. Your father will find a way to return you to him,” he recklessly promised her.

“But I do not want him to settle in an unjust way. The price must be fair,” she said from the carriage seat. She was happy that Charles Emmanuel was married. Now he treated her like a sister.

The holiness of the Christ Mass was made evident by the well-prepared choir of singers in the Hotel-Dieu hospice chapel of the Congregation of Our Lady Mary. First there was a song called ‘Venez Divin Messie’ (Come Holy Messiah). It was interpreted with the newly published words from Paris written by the Abbey Pellegrin. Then there was another, with newly written words also by Simon Pellegrin. The melody for ‘Ça Bergers Assemblons-Nous’ was already known for it was sung on the ships. Captain Côté

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admitted he liked the new words better. The older version was not understood anymore.

Marie Louise noticed how proud he was to see his son singing with the Choral Society.

Afterwards, she herself attended the midnight mass party with her step-son, stepdaughter, and husband.

Because they were sent home before the festivities, Hephzibah, Warham and Pépo missed eating the raisin bread, jam and pigeons. They did not get to sample the strong drink. Nothing went home with them in their stomachs. Music went home with them in their heads. With every slippery step it accompanied them to the house.

One evening, when Marie Louise was sewing silk ribbon trim on felt blankets she had made for the children of the colony, she confided something to Hephzibah. “I believe the power of God has been displayed in the faithful service that you are able to show to your enemies in spite of the meager rewards you are allotted. My girl, you have been spared the bitterness that I have felt so many times in my life. I have learned much from you and you have brought delight to my soul.”

“Madame, I will always be indebted to this household for its kindness to me.

There is a tragic sorrow that I must bear, but there is such sweet comfort in the things above, is there not? There is more that is right than is wrong since we have Christ. In the heavens, there are all those who have passed on before us to meet The Saviour; there is The Heavenly Father making all things new here below; there is truth and justice and a fair vengeance.”

Marie Louise agreed. “There, we find the heavenly city where God wipes away all tears. We find here a New Earth that has been purified of all threat to us. Could you teach me again the prayer from your primer?” Marie Louise asked the New Englander.

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“O yes, but you must listen carefully.”

“Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

The lady of the house gave her thread a last knot and looked straight at Hephzibah. She repeated the prayer by heart with a lovely roll of her r’s.

“Now help me wrap these up and we will send them with Pépo and Warham on the sled that leaves the city for the north of the island early in the morning.”

They took the twenty blankets and rolled them into a tube shape after which they wrapped a piece of waterproof canvas around them and tied the roll in the middle.

The next day, late in the afternoon, when the dispatched errand boys returned, Hephzibah was watching for them.

The snow was like a canvas on which to paint the day. With its shine of the palest bluish blue, splashed with graduated tones of yellowish sunlight reflections, it resembled brooches of glistening diamonds. Ice crystal jewels sprinkled the brown or green needles, twigs and cedar clippings.

Pépo’s feet were big enough to fit into a discarded pair of military boots. It should be said, rather, that the space between ankle and knee joint was sufficiently long to not hinder his knee bending in them. He purposely chose the deepest banks of white powder, crusted by wind polished surfaces, in which to plunge his heels. The black leather soles made a cracking sound, then the foot swished through drifts to the ground.

Warham followed in knee-high moccasins and snowshoes trying not to fall into the troughs made by Pépo.

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Hephzibah watched from the window, wiped the sill with her rag, and pulled the two sashes inwards, letting into the smokey room both fresh air and snow dustings. She was anxious to ask the boys how the blankets were received, so she called out to them.

But they were far away and all she could hear was the echo of an axe pounding dull, thud-like through a piece of firewood. It meant her thin voice could not reach their ears.

The fire burned more energetically with the new source of air from the draft.

Tiria, trotted over to the sill where he put his paws on the melted puddle. He then fell from having lost his footing. He barked when Hephie called the boys’ names, which he recognized. They were nearer now. Why had they not taken the dog with them?

“Pépo! Warham! What did they say?” she shouted again as she leaned out, then looked up at the eaves of the roof to make sure an icicle did not decide to fall on her at that moment.

The smaller boy took less time to think of his answer and responded, “They said they had never in all their days received such a gift.”

Pépo interrupted and said, “Madame Chartrand took them out of the wrapper and said she would see that the families in need would each get one. She sends her sincere thanks.”

“Hephie do you know what I saw?” Warham asked excitedly. The wagon stopped at St Martin’s Creek and I saw a white rabbit. None of the others, with us, saw it because it had white fur, not brown fur, like in summer.”

“You should have caught it. There would be a supper for someone. Oh! I wish I could have gone to see the face of Madame Chartrand. Marie Louise will be glad the blankets were well received.”

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Hephzibah closed the window as the boys started walking around the east side of the house and to the back door. They took off their outer clothing, came in, set their tricorns on the wall shelf and warmed themselves in front of the fire.

Marie Louise was at the school, teaching an accounting class to some young women of Verchères who were spending several weeks away from their farmhouses to take lessons. Hephzibah had watched her leave St Pierre Street with a group of uncloistered deaconesses. The Ville Marie women kept the schoolhouse. They also offered themselves for Christian service and maintained self-sufficiency by doing mending for the soldiers and bachelors. When Marie Louise became a widow, some of them had been especially kind to her. Hephzibah often saw them at the bread oven on St. Paul Street, but she did not seem to be of any particular interest to them, which, she concluded, made her feel accepted and comfortable, rather than slighted. Marie Louise would be back soon.

This was the day Captain Côté was to sign his consent for the Berthier plantation, apparently bequeathed to him by a Calvinist lord and a former officer of King Louis XIII. He had set out early to make the trip east in a carriage on sliding runners.

Before too much snow had closed the roads, Marie Louise also had gone to meet the dying man who knew of her situation in the colony. He apparently told M. Chalifour and M. Freté (who lived nearby) that he had been moved with compassion when he heard of her devotion to the sick and the orphans; of her support of Mr. Valade the Swiss pastor; of how she once received the Reformed believers into the room at the paper factory for weekly worship with her first husband, Pierre de Bullion. He had recently heard of her care of the two English captives from Deerfield. When she came to visit

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him, he told Madame Côté that it was unjust for him to become a new Catholic convert because there was no other gospel than Christ Jesus plus nothing added. But it was equally unjust to leave the earth without giving a gift to a devoted woman of such honest heart. He waited to hear her reply in the coming days.

Now the Captain must already be on his way home after speaking again with the old gentleman. François Côté had made several previous visits to the old man and came back with ever increasing peace. This meant to Hephzibah that there was much in those conversations. The man had opened to Captain Côté a new view of the world, seen from a heart which had burned within the old man; a heart that had been seasoned by long exposure to the Scriptures. He told François Côté of the character of the Triune God, the means God uses to reveal himself to humanity, the plan He put in place and employed to save his people and the work and purpose of those people in the world. Captain côté said once, that the old man had told him, “God speaks for God and He is not silent.”

For Marie Louise, who had only met the man as a young bride some thirty years before, her visit to inquire of his plan was the last time she saw him. He died five weeks later. She had left the weakened, thin man, who was alarmingly bloated in the stomach, to his bedside nurse. Nevertheless, he had decreed that very day of her first visit that she was to be shown the estate.

In her report to the household, she said it consisted of four buildings, all made of fieldstones. Together they had seven large stone chimneys. The cook took her to the carriage driver who took her first through the stables and described the routine of each day.

“The pigs - on my left side - are given the last evening’s table scraps,” the small,

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speechifying young servant had begun. “The four cows are milked and the milk is carted off to be stored in the dairy in huge scrubbed jars- alabaster jars- as glossy white as the milk they contain,” she said.

The Montreal matron who was to inherit the property was escorted through the four main buildings that were spread in a long line along the northern bank of the St. Lawrence River. They had windows facing the south to make the rooms as light-filled and warm as possible. Catalpa trees, and three maturing Sylvester pine trees shaded the south side of the house in summer. Fir trees adhered protectively to the rear, passing in height, by double, the brown copper-plated roof. The tops of the bright yellow painted window frames aligned neatly with the top of the doorway, also painted bright yellow.

The handpicked stones had been artfully fitted together by the owner-castellan234 from LaRochelle, province of Aunis, southwest France,235 thus to form his castel of a yellowochre colour, mixed with clay-grey and eggshell tones.

“We keep the cows on this side, with the calving ones in the corner,” said the servant who was called, ‘Jacques’. Marie Louise discovered his name when another young man came in to take out a horse from a stall at the end of the long central corridor.

“There are six doors for this stable! What do you use the donkey for?” Marie Louise asked, trying to bear up a little longer under the smells of the room which combined maple wood burning in the fire pit with animal manure and sour milk on the straw-covered floor. She was glad to have been offered a pair of wooden sabots that kept her high enough off the floor that she did not have to lift up her skirts. She pulled out her scent bag and put it to her nose. Seeing this gesture, the carriage driver decided to lead 234

a castle owner (a castel)

235

Charente-Maritime

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her outside. The air was much fresher but she could see her breath. While outside, he pointed out the servant’s quarters. There were eight female servants, two of whom were married and lived in their own homes on Lord d’Aigue-Vive’s seigneurie and one who was married and lived with her husband and two children in the men’s building.

“Jeanne d’Arc keeps us fed and clothed. She is a Canadian too and not begging, like the new-coming women, to return to luxury and high society. Oh! pardon me, where do you come from Madame?”

“Marie Louise smiled at his naivety and replied, “I was not born in Canada but I am from a humble Cevennoise family. Nevertheless, I have been quite undeservedly given far more education than I have ever had need of, preparing me to live in a country where domestic labour is not unfamiliar to all classes of people.”

“And your husband, is he Canadian?”

“No, I have been twice married and neither of my husbands was born here.”

The man asked several questions about the captain, knowing that he might have to one day serve under him, if the property changed owners.

He showed Marie Louise the inside of the men’s servant quarters and introduced her to Jeanne d’Arc who curtsied but was terribly shy in the presence of a woman wearing a wig, or so the visiting woman concluded. Four men were lodged on the upper floor in the small square building, including the carriage driver, whose responsibility was to drive the lord’s carriage, to insure there were sufficient numbers of well-trimmed candles in all the rooms before each evening, and to care for the clothing of the Lord, daily helping him on with his outer garments and opening the doors for him.

Sometimes a soldier was taken in as a boarder. “We have seen some interesting

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characters,” Jacques confided, “a few drum and fife players, and they have all been well paid in return for their labours.” He emphasized this point, perhaps unsure if the new lord would be stingy or not. The fields were worked by the censitaires who had their own homes on the riverside domain. They each gave a small percentage (1/23 of all produce) to the lord. The land was good, and almost all cleared of stones now being used to construct buildings. Some stones were used to make walls, keeping grazing animals from going into the cultivated fields. “But the trees,” he informed her, even though she already knew, “belong to the King who uses them for shipbuilding and for his own edifices.” So, the visit continued until Marie Louise was able to return with a full report.

This winter day in Montreal, Hephzibah Block sat by the fire and watched the boys eat a piece of salted pork and a plate of beans, baked in molasses. She got up to fill their cups with boiled warm sugar water and nearly walked into Captain Côté who pushed open the front door abruptly.

“Where is Marie Louise?” he curiously asked the group of young people.

“She is still at the school, sir,” answered Hephzibah. “Do you have any news?”

“I will tell you what I know when she returns,” he said. “Just bring me some of those beans. I have not eaten in hours.”

The plates were soon cleaned. Madame Côté arrived from the school and ate as well. She was as curious as the others to know how it had gone for her husband and, from Pépo, how the blankets had been received. They all listened as the new owner of the seigneurie de Perche described his plan. They were to relocate the household in the following autumn. It would take place after the harvest on their own property in Montreal.

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“I will go out from here a few times to make sure all gets done and maybe all of you can go out in May to plant a garden.” Then he smiled. “They are looking forward to having us.”

“I will have to rent the house here to some officer as soon as I can choose from the ones who apply,” the captain said. “I will, of course, keep the factory, but I think Antoine Noreau will have to replace you as accountant, Madame.”

Tears welled up quickly in his wife’s eyes, which only Hephzibah could see because of her lady’s large white bonnet. The others knew, because she sobbed nervously. “This is such a change for me. I am not sure I am prepared.”

The captain turned to Marie Louise and he bowed before her on one knee. He cupped her hands in his. “You may visit the factory and make changes if you see a need.

Go to Antoine tomorrow and begin showing him the manner in which you manage the accounts, the purchases and the shipments.”

“But will the workers be honest and respectful of us or will they see this as an opportunity to become lazy or careless?” asked Marie Louise.

“They will continue to respect you, Madame,” the captain reassured her.

Pépo, Hephzibah and Warham were as curious to know what the future held for them but they remained silently seated by the fire.

“I will not have the duties in the militia that I have now. There are certainly enough new recruits to take over from where I leave off. I will come in twice a month to keep things in order, both at the house and at the factory. You may come with me, Marie - to visit the hospices, if you wish. The school will be out of the question, however. You will have enough children to teach at Berthier. You still have time, before we move, to

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show your lessons to one of the best teachers.”

Marie Louise made a decision. “I will leave what I have with Thérèse for awhile so that she and Charles Emmanuel can do some of the lessons together. She still has some difficulty with the subtraction of large numbers. I will copy out some of the pages and give them to the school. Then they may do with them as they like,” she said a little more hopefully. “Do Charles and Thérèse wish to come with us? The papeterie might interest them if the inn does not take up too much of their time.”

The captain said, “They are still needed in her uncle’s house. I do not know of a way to employ them yet. I have to see more of the property.”

Spring showed itself suddenly in 1706. The heavy overcoats were packed in cedar chips to keep out the mold and insects. They were then placed upstairs in the closet.

The harrowing was done to provide for the crop that would be taken in the fall to the seigneurie. Part of it was left as the annual tax payment to the Sulpicians of the Island of Montreal. Seeds were chosen accordingly and some were saved for the garden at Berthier, although there seemed to be plenty there when Hephzibah began to sort them in the barn, on her first trip to the property.

It was a curious thing to see the children of the servants fighting over who would ask her by what name she was called. She finally addressed a young girl who excitedly took the name, “Ephie” back to the others. One child named Damas, asked if she wanted to see the gong that was used to send off alarm when danger was near. Jeanne d’Arc told Mme. Côté that she had heard that 700 babies a year were born in New France. Before the day was over, Marie Louise had nine gifts to put away, including a little wooden

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octant.236 A boy had hastily made it. He told her he fabricated it because he thought she had never heard of one, that it was used on ships to determine the angle of a star above the horizon - to calculate latitude.

That night, Marie Louise invited Hephzibah to sleep in the house. They discovered a small room for her that had been used for weaving and was now piled with mattresses. A crest titled ‘the Lalloue family’ was on the wall. Under the plaque was the inscription, ‘Sieur de Derivedu, Aunisien’. On the back, it said, ‘a family crest from Port Royal in Acadia, brought from LaRochelle’. On a gold background, the crest displayed a maple leaf, flanked by two gold lily flowers. Below these there was a plain tree with three green, leafy branches.237 The mattresses in the room were old and needed to be restuffed with ripened bullrush heads. Despite this, Hephzibah slept soundly.

The next day, more children appeared in the yard with their mothers to greet Mme. Côté, the new baronness, as they called her. The acquisition of the property did not come with such a title, Marie Louise tried (in vain) to explain to them. After much gallantry and gift-giving the children were offered some of the dried fruits, that they themselves had brought. The mothers were served goat cheese and apple cider.

Warham and Pépo were informed of all that happened that day when Hephzibah returned.

“I counted eight gables in the roof of the large house. The rooms on the upper floor of the house are beautifully decorated with fine furniture from France and with tapestries and carpets. Some of the wife’s family came from Port Royal for I saw a crest on the wall and Jeanne d’Arc explained it to me. The main floor has mostly solid pieces, 236

a ship navigation instrument used for triangulation calculations of distance.

237

an example would be the Jean Gauvin armories from Port Royal Census 1671.

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with thick legs, made here in the Americas. So much tempted me to stay, but I had to return here, of course,” she told them.

“Did you see any ships on the river?” asked Pépo. “Where were they from?”

“You know there are always many ships, Pépo. We saw the one that was built in St-Malo, France but I do not know where the smaller ones were made, most likely in Tadoussac.238 They are used to catch fish and white beluga whales.”

“What did you have to eat?” asked Warham, who informed her that they had eaten nothing but a cold piece of squash since she left.

“I will give you some of this cornbread for supper, then,” she told him and gave him a pat on the arm.

Much of those last days in Montreal was spent in organizing the paper factory for its better operation and efficiency but Hephzibah had time to write to her sisters who, she was surprised, had learned how to use the French language sufficiently to communicate some simple messages to her from their benefactors’ home at Fort St-François. She would soon be just across the river from them. She had believed them to be at Lorette.

Elizabeth wrote, “I am to be taught how to card wool this week. Madame StDenis will show me. Sarah is spinning now as well as helping to weave linen. When Papa comes in the summer to see us, we will have an essemplar239 to show him, one we have made together and without help. Sarah sews her numbers on it upside down so as not to confuse them with the letters of my alphabet. We are making ours just like you made yours, Hephie, because we thought the one you made was so nice. Can you come to see it? We miss you so much. Do you have a good life?”

238

Tadoussac is an established port on the north shore of the St-Lawrence River at the mouth of the Saguenay River.

239

an embroidered piece of ‘sampler’ stitching

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Hephzibah showed her letter to Marie Louise who promised they would try to go to the Fort near Saurel. The captain had to make an important visit there before harvest.

She did not wonder who had taken charge of the two girls. The captain had come back once with the news that they were staying with a family just outside the fort. Although she had seen her father once since the captivity, Hephzibah still had no proper news of them or their situation. She hoped to be at the fort if their father visited. How could she know when he was going?

There were no answers to her questions. Instead, there was a calm hope that, what could possibly happen, would always work in her favour, as long as she continued in prayer and faithfulness to God. “It is such a pleasant thought, is it not, Pépo, to know that the only thing one must fear in life, is fear itself?” she said one day to the boy, who was now as tall as most of the women in Montreal and had caught up to, and equaled, Hephzibah in height.

Pépo stopped drawing water from the barrel that collected rainwater beside the stable and said, “I think I am still afraid of a good number of things. If I were not so afraid of Captain Côté, I would go back to the place where I was born and see if I could find my Mama and Papa, if they are still alive. Maybe they need me. He continued what he was doing and then said, “But I guess they can get along without me.”

“They will want to know what happened to you. It most likely seems to them that you are somewhere using your wits to keep yourself alive. If they are praying for you, then God might take you back to them at just the right time when you are ready to help them in some need,” she said. She finished placing the dried cedar boughs among the assemblage of woven cloth that had recently arrived from France and was still sitting in a

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barrel outside the house. The cedar would keep moths from nesting.

“Hephie, do you really think I might be able to pass as a freeborn man when I get older?”

“I think it takes a purchase agreement for you to be kept a slave, but you need to go back to where you were born, to find all of the information about your condition.”

“And what about you? You are going to be freed sometime when this war is done, are you not? Then where are you going?”

“I am going back to Deerfield to just start all over again. I think there are still some people planning to go back and I am sure we will never be attacked again.

Governor Dudley will put in a more fearsome army and Papa will build us a fine twostory house like before. Ebenezer and his family will come and live with us and Sarah and Elizabeth will help me to...”

Hephzibah suddenly stopped. In a weak whisper, she said to Pépo, sudden doubt filling her mind, “It is not going to happen like that, is it? The expedition from Boston against Port Royal failed, they said at the chapel. It will not be the same in Deerfield without Mama, and I know Papa will miss her terribly. Mama’s sister and my uncle were killed, so she left no relatives, and Papa has no family since Schenectade was burned.

His brothers returned to Holland many years ago.” She hid her face in her lap and cried her warmest, wettest tears ever. Pépo knelt on the ground and put his arms around her shoulders. Then he laid his head on the back of her neck, drying his eyes on her bonnet.

He had never done this to anyone before, although he longed for affection from someone who could keep him from thinking that he was worth nothing. He had felt so moved with compassion for his friend and for the dreams that she had such difficulty forming in her

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mind. It just seemed such a perfect thing to do. Neither knew how long they stayed that way but a good cry always has a sweet end.

Marie Louise discovered them and coaxed them into the house. They smiled at her, then broke into a laugh and brushed away the tears of the unreachable past and the equally unattainable future, remaining in the restfulness of the present. It felt good to be alive.

The early summer is the best time of the year, Hephzibah concluded. It is the time when blossoms give way to lumps of maturing fruit, and the crops take on ‘a form of expectancy” only to look like a reduced imitation of the finished plant. Anyone walking through the small plots of cultivated ground within the walls of the Royal Mountain stockade saw the vegetation as decorations in the midst of the lively bustle of human community. Flowers edged up over the rims of the window boxes and the sound of hammers and saws filled the air as repairing damage from the winter ice storms began.

Laundry was hung everywhere. It seemed that every household had its flag of waving breeches and woven coverlets. Crowds formed near the Côté house to hear the Cryer bring tidings of woe or rejoicing, of legal changes and of comings and goings.

The cabarets and churches were filled with newcomers. Some wore clothing that had not been seen yet in Montreal. Some remarked, in return, how the colonists had adopted the Indian styles, discarding the use of fine silks and laces. They were stumped at words like ‘tulibee’, the Algonquin word for a species of whitefish, and ‘tuckahoe’, the word for an edible fungus sometimes found on the roots of trees. When some men were asked to go make a ‘tumpline’ they had to be told it was a strap used for carrying and is put over the forehead. The load to which it is tied, being dragged behind, is called a

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travoy.

The influx of new people put the papeterie at an advantage. New workers, recruited through the Governor’s office, were engaged as they arrived from ports in France.

Warham spent his day wandering through the factory and talking in his best French to the new workers, asking them where they were from and what it was like to cross the ocean. The almost seven-year-old boy loved every story and before he went to bed in the stable with Pépo, he made up his own stories to tell Hephzibah in the evening, Then he would make up a new series of tales to tell the older boy as he was falling asleep.

“Pépo, do you know that the great ship ‘Celesta’ sank last week in the Mediterranean Sea? The survivors floated all the way to the Nile River where they were eaten by crocodiles!” the storyteller would begin.

Pépo grew accustomed to replying, “Go on, Warham - finish your tale. You are keeping me awake and I have a lot of hard work to do tomorrow but keep talking. I cannot promise I will stay awake until the end.”

The warm days of late summer occasionally brought sudden thunderstorms in the afternoon when the clouds could no longer hold the evaporation from below. The water turned a dark metallic grey with emerald-coloured caps splashing up onto the sides of the ships. One evening, the clouds blew away, leaving a spectacular late evening double rainbow in a clear grey heaven. If this had happened while she was in the house, Hephzibah might not have stopped to look at it. She was instead, beside the river.

“A promise of your presence,” she said to God, “silence that talks to me in colours and makes me want to live close to you.”

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Because of the favourable winds, navigation of sailing vessels on the river was to return the next day. This was the evening before Hephzibah Block was to visit her sisters at Saurel. The Côtés had decided to book a place on one of the small ships that ferried people in and out to the ocean. It would let down from its gunwale a chaloupe for passengers heading to the Saurel Islands. Any luggage had to be received at the King’s Dock the day before departure. So, there she was standing beside the three bags that Marie Louise had prepared.

Warham was with her and they stood in a line of excited people. Most were travelling as far as the coast of Normandy. The rainbow was, for some, a sign of good travelling weather. They admired it and all eyes seemed to keep it in view, even when the head wanted to turn.

The bags were boarded and the two youths walked home together.

Hephzibah asked Marie Louise a question that evening. She was grateful that the Côtés were taking her to visit her family. “Why do you want to serve me? I am your servant?”

The older woman looked up from the leather vest she had been brushing. “I have appropriated the words of St. Paul arranged by Martin Luther: A Christian woman is a perfectly free governess of all, subject to none. A Christian woman is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

Hephzibah laughed and then a tear ran down her cheek as she remembered Gilles who had quoted the same words of the German Reformer. She brushed aside the tear and thanked Marie Louise for being so kind to her in planning the trip to Saurel.

“Would you like to pray with me for the safety of our journey and the success in

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its purpose?” the Christian lady replied.

With bonnets leaning over their quiet hands that rested on the bench before which they knelt, they placed the travel of the next morning into the care of their God who really sees the affairs of his children. Then they waited for good winds.

Neither Hephzibah nor Warham had ever been on a three-masted ocean sailing vessel before. They were both born near inland waterways. It amazed Hephzibah to think of the long days that must be spent in total dependence upon such an untrustworthy habitation and in such unpredictable seas and winds. Nevertheless, it was such a thrill to pass the day under the clearest blue sky that served as background to the ship’s web of ropes and ladders. She wanted to be up on one of the decks for the whole trip so she seated herself and Warham on the cleanest object a girl in a long dress with a white underskirt might find and prepared to watch the birds and the passengers as they circled around her. Monsieur and Madame Côté were speaking with other passengers below deck. Warham was not interested in remaining seated. As soon as the whistle was heard from the boatswain’s blow, he was leaning over the side to watch the anchor being lifted by the turning windlass, a barrel-like object that sat at the forward end of the main deck and was used for hoisting the anchor. They were drifting off down river.

The friends and relatives on shore, stood waving and watching in the distance as the Portuguese ‘flute’la Pomone floated away in the pull of the current like the beautiful Roman nymph for which it had been named. Hephzibah realized she would now have to stand in order to get a glimpse of Ville Marie and the mountain after which the town was named; the Royal Colony of King Louis XIV of France. There it stood, the wooden palisade with its four blockhouses and front gates, which opened onto the Common

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where the animals grazed and the market place held its twice weekly bazaar; where the militia paraded early every morning. Everything to do with the commerce of the waterways took place at the port in front of the city. The fishing industry invited flocks of squawking birds to swoop in on any wasted portions of flesh. It was home to her - a home she shared with a thousand other colonists.

She waved at Pépo who waved back. He then turned to take Tiria back into the city gates, holding the animal tightly as they passed the guard dogs. Then the two were out of sight.

Suddenly the sails flew down from their hoisted beams where they were reefed.

They shook and twisted and the wind caught them one by one with a loud clubbing sound. At first it frightened Hephzibah but she saw with what perfect control the sailors tightened and retracted the ropes, shouting back and forth to let the next man know what was to be done. There were over a hundred members of the crew. The whole vessel, a ‘one and a half decker’ rocked from side to side and up and down, making her lightheaded when she looked to shore. Men pulled the two large sweeps, or oars, projecting from the middle sides of the ship. They moved into midstream. The heavy wooden joints creaked loudly; each one straining to find a comfortable position while sustaining the weight and pressure of some adjacent piece. They were windborne.

Although she was certainly confined aboard this vessel, Hephzibah had not felt so much liberty since she had been captured. She reveled in the movement, thinking of how she was walking on a ship, which was moving on a waterway that flowed over a riverbed and spun on the surface of the ground called ‘Earth’. It made her dizzy to think about it.

Amidst it all, her heart was balancing too. It danced and leapt on the waves and wind of

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an invisible joy inside of her.

She had permission to explore, at will, the ship’s deck to the forefront of the mizzen and there was nowhere that she must be, until they disembarked in a few hours.

In her other excursions, she had been imprisoned by the duties and obligations of her position. Her acquisition of the language was still in its early stages and her heart had been heavy with many unresolved questions. It was different now. Today her heart was light. She had on her best dress and a lace-trimmed bonnet with high starched peaks.

The sun was hot on her already suntanned face. She tried to walk. It was as if she was a toddler. She was putting out her arms to protect a fall. She made herself a goal to reach the center of the schooner and come back again with perfect poise. Warham was already ahead, clinging to the starboard edge of the ship.

They were in the care of a ship’s crew where the law was enforced and the passengers were civil. She had no fears for Warham. He was an intelligent boy who searched out the good causes that others willed for him, and he spoke a respectful French.

As she watched the boy, she began her promenade.

The ship was moving in predictable rhythm until they passed the midstream islands to the south. Then a gale blew into the fore and aft sail on the mizzenmast and the ship lurched forward after which it steadied itself on the next wave, and continued the same tack. This was the only threat to an otherwise graceful flow of movement that carried Hephzibah to midship where she sat with some others on benches that had been brought up from below.

Warham had followed Hephzibah to the front, relaying his way along the edge.

They sat on the bench. One woman with a child Warham’s age spoke to her.

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“Is this your brother?”

“No, Madame, but I do have a brother. Maybe I will see him at the end of the day. I am going to visit my father and two younger sisters who are near the Saurel Islands.”

The lady sat stiffly upright and said, “I will be disembarking in Kebec and changing to an ocean-going ship – I must leave before the end of the season. You have a little different speech, are you one of the New Englanders? How is it that you are not with your sisters? Are you married?”

Hephzibah found such enjoyment in this conversation, but she was a little nervous.

“Come now, do not be afraid. I am not wicked!” the woman said.

The invitation reassured her, so she decided quickly to respond with affection and truthfulness.

“I am sure that I have been wicked ever since the day I was born,” Hephzibah said, intuitively measuring herself by the highest standards.

“Then you must be a miserable person!” the woman replied, surprised by the answer. She had learned to measure herself by the lowest standards. After several minutes she asked curiously, “Where did you say you were going?”

“I am a pilgrim on this earth and I do not feel sure, Madame, that I know just where I am going.” Hephzibah remembered that there was much ahead of her that was not yet visible.

“No, no. Where are you disembarking? I meant.”

Hephzibah had proven to be simple, but full of unusual ideas.

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“But I meant to tell you of somebody I am following. He has the love and power of God, the Father of us all, and my desire is to follow him.”

“Misère!”240the lady exclaimed, not understanding a thing she had heard.

“Misery and dying have been proven to be of less interest to me than the love and power of our Creator, which can bring us back to life,” Hephzibah added.

“He has already made everything. He cannot make it again,” the woman said, thinking by this time that Hephzibah needed some instruction in theology.

Hephzibah suddenly realized that she was remembering something Marie Louise had told her. The people that had spoken of the King of kings to Marie Louise were also on a ship, the ship that brought her to New France to be married to Pierre, the papermaker. Are all ‘People of the Book’ meant to be echoes of the good news on ships, she wondered? ‘Follow me and I will make you Fishers of Men,’ said the Master to his disciples. What are these words in my mouth? Where do they come from? As her heart raced within her, she suddenly realized, “He is alive and he is fishing for this woman’s devotion through me. Jesus is a living person! Jesus, you are so worthy of my heart and mind and lips!” she thought.

She turned her face away from the woman who was now speaking to her son.

“You promised that you would be with us even to the ends of the earth and that we would be your witnesses,” Hephzibah prayed quietly, but excitedly. “Your Spirit is like the wind,” she remembered. “We do not know where he goes or comes from, unless we hold out ourselves, like these sails, to catch him. The Spirit wants to tell this woman something, and he is blowing through me.” She looked up for a second at the tall masts

240

Good grief!

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with the boons across them.

When the woman turned towards her again and asked what she meant, Hephzibah continued to pour out her thoughts. “I want to be near my God,” she said and paused.

“Even though I am wicked, I feel sure that he wants to be near to me and that I am more loved than I have dared to imagine,” she finished.

The woman’s face reacted with such a knowledgeable look. Then her face clouded and she had many questions. “What does he look like? I have never seen God. He is always far away. Why does he hide himself?”

Unable to know what to do with the doubts and questions of another soul, Hephzibah tried to think of some answer from the Scriptures, but it did not come, so she just answered from what lay already in the treasury of her heart.

“He has done many kind things for me and I am very grateful. He is very good.”

Hephzibah was unprepared for the bitter response that followed. She thought that the conversation had been going in a favourable direction.

“Well, if he is there, he has only done evil to me all the days of my wretched life!” was the response that spouted out of the woman’s mouth.

“God did not spare the prophets who spoke of him, either, Madame. He spared his son, by raising him from death to oversee every ruler. I am confident he oversees every evil done to us and measures its impact.

Hephzibah concluded that the good, destined by God for her, was surely back home in France, and that the woman was going in the right direction.

The lady felt uncomfortable listening to replies from one, who, she reminded herself, was younger than her, and a complete stranger. She pulled up her son by his

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elbow and they went away towards the stern. Her son sent a quick goodbye to Warham and they waved to each other.

Hephie lived through this moment of surprise, followed by disappointment, and then she shared the bitter feeling with the poor woman for several seconds in an empathetic glance sent towards her. The people returning to France were not returning happily, in all cases.

The sight of the Côtés, who seemed glad to have found her, broke the glance.

“We must show you the front of our new property,” the captain said, when he was within hearing distance.

“We are about to pass it in a few minutes,” Marie Louise said enthusiastically.

“I believe that is the Perch seigneurie of Monsieur d’Aigue-Vives over there,” the captian said as he squinted towards the reflection of the sun on the water. He took off his tricorn and leaned over the side. At the same time, he hoisted a wiggling Warham onto the gunwale of the boat. He was, by then, squealing with fear, and grabbed both his, and the captain’s, tricorn in his hands. Hephzibah was not sure if it was to save the plumed tricorn or to save Warham that the captain reeled him back in. The seaman laughed heartily, exposing his uneven teeth.

“You need to have someone make a sailor out of you, boy. If I keep you long enough, we will go do some trading on the high seas together.”

“I do not wish to go on the high seas, sir. I will stay at your plantation or go home with Papa, if it pleases you.” Then Warham tried to distract him. “Look, there is a goat, over near the creek. Who is that man going after it? Do you know him, sir?”

“It is a bit far. Parbleu! I do not have the sight I used to have, and this sun gets

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in my eyes. Tréé-dame! We are too far away now,” he said in frustration and placed his plumed hat back onto his head and over the wig’s black ribbon. He was in full uniform: blue greatcoat with wide, laced cuffs and tall black boots. Marie Louise was also dressed splendidly and the couple had a respectable public presence, which for the captain, was of great importance in making him feel secure.

Madame Côté had befriended the faussonier; the keeper of the salt for the ship, and they discussed the number and kind of fish he had salted since he had been hired.

She also passed some of the day with the captain, discussing what they would do when their well would no longer be inside their dwelling, how to integrate Charles Emmanuel and Thérèse into the life of the Perche community, whether it would be wise for Thérèse to leave the inn, and what possessions they would leave behind at the house in Montreal.

They arrived later in the day, in front of Fort St-François. It was quite an ordeal to slow la Pomone sufficiently to let out a sloop and to lower eight passengers into it with their baggage. Hephzibah felt the thrill of the descent to the water in the pit of her stomach. It took away her breath. She let out a little piping sound at the same time as Warham’s shout of glee. If it had not been for the esteemed position of the travelers, the Commodore of the ship might rather have taken them to Nicolet, further ahead where he planned to drop anchor. The smaller boat hit the water with a splash. Two of the gabiers wielded the oars241 and brought them all to shore, then returned to the ship.

After disembarking on the wharf, the travelers transferred their belongings onto a cart with the other bags and entered the fort in a carriage. The captain was directed by an officer to go to the residence of Mr. de Baquet. There was a room or two that could be

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rented and arrangements could be made later for their travel back to Montreal. The captain had already stayed there on his past visits to the fort so he agreed to go see what was available. He came back with news of his success. They settled into their lodgings.

The next day, Captain Côté talked with the men at the blockhouse about the succession passed on to him. “We have it all arranged and you may come and see us there on the other side of Dupas Island. Hephzibah, Marie Louise and Warham went outside the fort and found the home of Guillaume St-Denis and his family. The small farmhouse was on a piece of land next to a large field of barley. Hephie’s two sisters, who had first been taken to Lorette, had spent most of the days of their captivity with the St-Denis household. The two younger Block captives were unaware of the date of their sister’s planned arrival but they were overjoyed to see her. At first, they were shy and hid further in the house when Marie Louise appeared in the doorway. Then they saw Warham and knew that Hephzibah must be there too.

“Oh, yes, come in Madame. When did you arrive?” asked Madame St-Denis, who invited them to come in once she knew the reason for their visit. The travelers entered and the girls and two other children came out to greet them. The two women sat downstairs in the main room and the children went upstairs where Elizabeth and Sarah began immediately chattering in English mixed with French. They hugged their sister as long as they could.

“Hephie, we have waited so long to see you. Why did you not come?” Sarah asked, as she seated herself on the bed.

Elizabeth, who was seven years older than Sarah, interrupted saying, “Hephie lives in Ville Marie. It is far away upriver. She must serve the lady who has

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charge of her, just like we must serve Madame St-Denis, Sarah.”

Sarah had not forgotten what it was like to be closely united in a family. The St-Denis family had two girls, four and three years of age. There was a Papa and a Mama. She was anxious to know if Hephzibah was going to live nearby and if Papa was going to get a piece of land and build a house. Again twelve-year-old Elizabeth had to explain.

“We cannot go live with Papa. He is always at the sawmill and he can not take care of us,” she reminded Sarah.

“But Ebenezer can take us, can he not? He has a wife, you know.”

“She has her own children and they must stay in the camp of her tribe, or Ebenezer will be harmed or sent away,” Hephzibah added to the explanations.

“I think I want to stay here,” said Elizabeth, “and you do too, Sarah!”

The youngest of the St-Denis girls, whose name was Catherine, had a worried look on her face. “You are not going away, are you?” she asked Sarah.

Hephzibah wanted to see the sampler of cross-stitching that Elizabeth had told of in her letter. She changed the subject quickly by standing and sighing. “We do not know what is going to happen to us. Now girls, show me what you have been sewing.”

They pulled their artwork out from a small chest in a corner of the room.

“I did this last word in green because I did not have any brown threads left,” Elizabeth explained to her older sister.

Hephzibah read the names of her brother and Kanonwu and the date of their unusual marriage. She read the date of the massacre and their mother’s name and their aunt and uncle Ingersoll who had died. On it was also a poem that was taught to them by

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their departed mother.

‘Give me a house That never will decay And garments that Never will wear away Give me a friend That never will depart Give me a ruler That can rule my heart.’242 The piece of embroidery was on loosely woven linen material 35 threads on both warp and woof and longer than it was wide - a ‘band sampler’. In fact, it was so narrow that the alphabet that followed the poem took six rows to complete to leave room for a border.

“May I show this to Marie Louise? She will want to see it because I let her also read your letter. It is very nice, Sarah.”

They all went to the first floor in a flutter of skirts that ballooned down the stairs.

“Did you weave the linen, ma chouette?”243 asked Marie Louise, who was examining the work.

“No, Madame Huault weaves the cloth,” Madame St-Denis interjected. She has a big loom. Sometimes she tries to weave a 50-count thread but most of the fine, even weaves come from France and the chestnut-coloured silk threads come from there too.

She lives at the fort. Your friend, Esther Williams is staying with her,” she added, turning to Hephzibah.

So that was where Esther was! Hephzibah concluded.

“I should like you to show me where she lives, if it pleases you, Madame, I

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a poem from a later 1792 sampler from New England

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a young child or, literally, a little night bird.

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would like to take Warham with me to see his sister,” Hephzibah told her, excited about the news.

The woman was surprised to know they were related and she promised to take them to Madame Huault’s house in the evening.

Warham was becoming restless and asked if he could go outside. It was not long before the two women stood and were saying goodbye. At that moment Sarah began to cry. “Do not go, Hephie! Do not go! I will not let them take you!”

“Sarah!” Elizabeth again intervened. It had become apparent to Hephzibah that Elizabeth had assumed the place of a mother to Sarah. They were like mother and daughter in everything they did and said. It seemed odd. Hephzibah did not know what to say when Sarah grabbed her skirt and would not let her go.

Marie Louise quickly understood the situation. When the two women calmed the child down, they made a decision that Hephzibah should stay with the St-Denis family until the Côtés left the Saurel Island Fort to go back to Ville Marie, also known as Montreal. Sarah was relieved and said she would help Hephzibah bring her bag from the fort when they went that evening to Madame Huault’s house.

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Synopsis: chapter nine It is Christmas 1705. Charles Emmanuel and his new wife, Thérèse, prepare a concert with the newly formed music society.

Hephzibah and Charles Emmanuel discuss the difference between saints and the one called ‘Immanuel’.

Pépo and Warham deliver a package of baby blankets made by Hephzibah and Marie Louise, to needy families on the north end of the Island.

The captain receives the deed for his new seigneurie called the seigneurie of Perch (some undetermined place near where the town of Berthier sur Mer is today.)

This is an arrangement that satisfies the dying owner, a Reformed Protestant, who wants to ensure that the land does not go back to the Governor’s office to be decided upon. To ensure the continuation of the assembling of a number of Huguenot believers, he officially, though not privately, repents of being of the Reformed sect and therefore grants the land legally to the Catholic Captain Côté in order that Marie Louise might live there. M. D’Aigues-Vives admired her for her devotion and her support of the Swiss pastor who ministered to believers in Montreal for a time.

Marie Louise has made a visit to the seigneurie and the reader is aware of its layout and the people who live close to, or in, the large manor.

Plans are made for the move and spring 1706 arrives. Hephzibah visits the seigneurie with Marie Louise and she helps plant the garden. She meets some mothers and their children and reunites with Esther Williams.

Before they move to Berthier, the paper factory must be organized to make way for the new management.

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Warham, Hephzibah and Monsieur and Madame Côté go towards Sorel on a small ship with three masts (a flute). Hephzibah meets a woman who is returning to France with a bitter heart. They talk and Hephzibah discovers that the Holy Spirit wants to comfort this woman. In fact, the words He brings forth from Hephzibah’s mouth bring only comfort to her and she discovers the power of the wind that has driven her own new sails.

Hephzibah stays with the St-Denis family near the fort where she sees her two sisters and gets to see the embroidery, they talked about in their letter to her. She is happy to see that Elizabeth has taken good care of Sarah who is seven years her younger.

The hard-working St-Denis family is devoted to the service of hospitality. At the fort, Warham is able to visit his sister, Esther.

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illustration or photo: seigneurial home on the St-Lawrence River -stonemasonry of sable colour and Breton style with two chimneys at each end of the house -dark yellow door and windowsills -evergreen trees on the north side and Catalpas on the south side, twice as high as the house -16 gables of which 8 are facing the river - a creek runs to the river at the east side of the house

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CHAPTER TEN: Post Tenebrus Lux (After Darkness,Light) Pépo put the daler in the pocket of his trousers. It was a Dutch dollar, marked, ‘1649’ and stamped with the sillouhette of a full-figured roaring lion. The coin was worth, ‘eleven grains of trayweight of farling alloy of gold’, the sailor had told him. On the other face someone had engraved the Algonquin word, ‘Tekouerimat.’ But the sailor did not know what it meant. He took his small sack of turnips and collection of knives and hiked off down the Common.

The slave boy returned to the stable, inside the city gate, to finish grooming the horse that Captain Côté had bought before he left for Fort Saurel. The job was done and he returned home to find it cold, since the fire had gone out. Tiria was at his side as soon as he opened the door and he let the dog out. He started the fire. While he was preparing a broth of peas and salted fish, the door opened and Michel Accault and Charles Emmanuel entered with another man Pépo had only seen once before.

“We cannot stay for long Pépo, but we will take something to eat if there is something to be eaten,” Charles Emmanuel said.

“I have not got the peas soft enough,” Pépo said, hoping they would let him eat the food he had just prepared and get something for themselves.

“We will eat them hard. We are as hungry as wolves.”

The men were setting out to do some trapping and now Charles Emmanuel was checking up on Pépo, as his father had requested. They threw some more fish into the pot and drank the milk that had been sitting unused in the dairy. As they sat at the table, Pépo proudly took out the coin he had received at the market to show the men.

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“It is a gold coin and a double tournois,244” said Charles as he took it to look at.

“What is this on the back?” he asked.

“I do not know what it means, but it is an Algonquin word.”

“Here, let me see it again,” the man, named Bruno, said to Charles and reached out to take it for closer examination.

“Tekouerimat, oh... what does that mean again?” “It has a familiar look to it.” He reflected a minute and then, giving it back to Pépo said, “I know! I have seen it at the chapel at Contre Coeur. It signifies: ‘celui qui se souvient des siens’ (he who remembers his own people). I wonder why someone inscribed those words on there?”

“What did you trade for this, Pépo?” Charles Emmanuel asked.

Pépo was not going to tell him but the three men threatened to tie him to the ceiling beams if he did not tell.

Kicking and screaming from the grip of Michel, Pépo confessed to having exchanged the knives that his master had hoped to sell the previous market day but for which he had found no buyer.

“But you have to give the captain the coin when he returns, they finally conceded and, letting him down, they ordered him to clear off the dishes.

The three prepared to sleep in the upper rooms of the house, where they spent the night. They left early the next day. Pépo could not sleep all night. He worried that the men might wake up and tie him to the beam. The morning bell of the Cryer in Place Royal took him routinely to his feet from the bed near the dairy, and he worked at getting the fire back to a useful flame.

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printed on both sides

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He was not unhappy that they had left, but he sighed at how much there was to do.

It was easy for him to let things go for several days without the captain, or Marie Louise or Hephzibah to make sure he did his chores. This morning he heard the cow mooing uncomfortably, reminding him she had not been milked. One of the Sulpicians came over to see what had kept the cow from being relieved. He offered to milk it but Pépo, having the wooden pail already in his hands, said he would do it himself. The day was filled with stable work.

Late in the afternoon, he was spreading newly cut flax out on the floor to dry when the church bell rang to announce that a new ship had come into shore. He decided to go see if there might be news of the Côtés. When he arrived, he spoke to another slave boy who had disembarked with a family from Spain, but the African boy understood only a little French. Then Pépo stood waiting for another opportunity to receive news, but he grew very tired.

“There is a place to sit,” he said to himself, seeing a large canvas sail rolled up on the shore. He sat for a few minutes and before he remembered how he got there, he was rolled up in the edge of the sail and had fallen asleep. If the sail had been rolled in the opposite direction or if it had not become dark, or even if there was a full moon, someone might have seen him before the crew of the newly arrived ship came and dragged him, sail and all to the edge of the dock. The last he heard before the call for curfew and the closing of the gates was someone shouting, “This will have to go first thing in the morning.”

As he lay there in the sail something happened to Pépo that night that made him resume his entire twelve-year-old history into one thought. “I need to leave New

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France.”

He had never thought of hiding in a sail before. The thought was foremost in his excited mind. It was perfect! “Do you not have a blessing for me?” he remembered praying only a year and a half before, when he lay sick and dying. Or would the crew decide to use the sail? He hoped that they were only carrying it as a spare. What would he do on board ship? Stay in the sail? He lay awake all night, this time, devising his plan, and terrified of being discovered. Early in the morning before the sun came up, he tried to roll into the sail so that his body was sufficiently concealed. He needed to be hidden and have a corridor of air to supply his nostrils, but he was soon gasping for air and nearly suffocated. Desperate to find a way to the ship, he decided to attach a fishing net to himself and hide under it while he slowly paddled on a small buoy to starboard of the large vessel.

The Sulpician monk milked the poor cow for many days afterward and inquired of the boy but was not curious enough to do much more. He was like the people of Ville Marie, preoccupied by the reports of a plan by the Compagnie de St-Sulpice to build a canal245 that would extend the St-Pierre River to Lac St-Louis, bypassing the rapids and connecting with Lac des Soissons246 on the west end of the island. The city dwellers took little interest in Pépo’s escape to Quebec.

Meanwhile, near Lac St-Pierre, Hephzibah heard good reports of her father.

“He is a hard worker and he sometimes comes around with a confiture247 for the girls,” Madame St-Denis told her. She hoped he would come around while Hephzibah

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the Lachine Canal, which was to become an industrial hub for all of Canada during the 19th century

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presently called, Lac des Deux Montagnes

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a candy or little cake

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was there, but he never came. “He is usually with a soldier or accompanied by a priest when he comes,” she was told. “He lives in the presbytère - the priest’s apartments.”

She also learned from Monsieur St-Denis that her father had two Dutch friends named Antoine Roos and Bernard Boete, all three of them being listed on the parish roll as ‘captives of New English settlements’248.

Ebenezer had moved to Lorette to pass the winter on the St-Charles River. The settlement of Jesuit converts was further north of the St-Louis Fortress249 on Cap Diamant at Kébec.

The days Hephzibah spent with her sisters, and the St-Denis family, were filled with activity. Several visits to see Esther Williams brought great encouragement and refreshment to Hephzibah, who was glad when she found that Warham would be allowed to stay with her until they returned to Montreal. She did all that she could to help the StDenis family in their harvesting but some of the second week was spent in bed, where Hephzibah, weakened by the sudden change of weather, became ill with a fever and a sore throat. She was nursed back to health by Sara and Elizabeth and sufficiently recovered before it was time to return to Montreal.

A cart was again loaded to take their baggage to the riverbank. The Captain hired a carriage and Warham and the French couple drove out of the fort while Hephzibah went with the St-Denis family from their farm. At the shore, Sarah clung to Hephzibah until her knees were in the cold river water.

The passengers for Montreal boarded the schooner and were soon passing

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from registers at the Pointe à Callières Museum of Archeology Now dominating Cap Diamant is Quebec City’s Château Frontenac, built at the end of the 19th century by the american architect, Bruce Price, and the Canadian entrepreneur, William Van Horne. The hotel was named to honour the Governor of New France from 1672 – 1698, Louis de Buade, the Compte de Frontenac.

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between the anchored boats and sailing up river. The weather was too cold to stay on deck this time, so Hephzibah sat below and talked with Marie Louise about what they had learned in Saurel. There were new recipes to try and a remedy for colic to give to the Christian sisters at the hospice. A curious woman at the inn, who had been in Tadoussac, showed Marie Louise her collection of insects, mounted for display on pieces of silver birch bark. The captain had spent his time organizing a massive planting of Burdock shoots in a cleared part of the land that lay fallow outside Fort St-François. He explained to the inhabitants that Burdock prevented the growth of trees on land that was already cleared. He was getting to know his future neighbours across the St-Laurent. Hephzibah told Marie Louise of the care her sisters had given her when she was sick and how difficult it was for her to leave them again, but how she had reasoned with Sarah and gained her trust.

They arrived safely to the shores of Montreal. When the carriage deposited the last of the baggage at the door of the small cottage, Captain Côté came out of the stable and made an exasperated announcement to his wife.

“The boy is gone. The neighbour says he has been gone several days.”

“Maybe he is with Charles Emmanuel,” she replied and began her own search of the house and stable for clues that might indicate motives for Pépo’s sudden departure.

Nothing had been packed. There was nothing missing (except the box of knives which no one noticed.) When Monsieur Côté returned from his questioning of neighbours and the city guards, he concluded that the boy had been stolen. At the market, Thérèse informed them that Charles Emanuel had returned from checking his traps and discovered everything almost as he had left it. He had no helpful information, except that maybe the

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boy had a gold coin, exchanged for the knives.

“We are sorry to lose him,” Captain Coté reported at the Governor’s office, “but I will not trouble you to find the boy if you say there are few clues as to who might have taken him. He is of less usefulness to me now that I am moving down river but if you ever find the scoundrel who took him, that will be one public whipping I will be glad to police.”

Hephzibah thought of the boy constantly. She worried over his safety and puzzled over what could have happened to him. The neighbours had seen him until the third Lord’s Day after the Côtés left. Then, he just disappeared.

“He left the place like he had ascended directly into the sky,” one of the deaconesses on St-Paul’s Street commented. The Sulpician said he had come one morning after hearing the cow lowing ‘loudly enough to wake up all the city’. “Worse than a rooster,” he said. But Pépo never returned.

Moving day came in October. The Côtés were to go by waterway and the others were to follow on the Chemin du Roi, with a group of travelers destined for Portneuf.

There would soon be snow. The fall leaves were being burned. Then the ashes were sprinkled into the gardens in preparation for next spring’s planting. As soon as the availability of assistance from the military community was possible, the packing began.

The animals and the dog went first on a cart, pulled by the newly purchased horse. There were three sheep, a cow that was tied to the back, the chickens and geese in cages and the pig heavily set in the very center of an ox cart. Behind these, with household furniture in them, several borrowed carts carried what was not to be left for the tenant, nor had been given to Charles Emmanuel and Thérèse, who were to come by galliotte on the thawed

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river, in the spring. Des flingues (muskets) were charged and ready to fire in case any marauders decided to take advantage of the convoy. The four days of travel seemed long to Hephzibah because of the cold winds and rain that assaulted them. They stayed in tents along the way. A tired and dirty troup of humans and animals arrived at the Perche manor house when the ordeal was over.

Madame and Monsieur des Bergères accompanied the Côtés in the barque travelling to the new Côté domain by water. The weather, although cold, was nevertheless sunny when they made the trip, providing them with splendid views of the autumn foliage.

It was so exciting to be moved and to have a different view from an upper window that faced the river. There was much work to do, however, to make everyone feel at home and Hephzibah stayed awake at night looking at the stars, sometimes wondering where Pépo was and if he were looking up at the same sky.

Although the Bergères couple had come downriver to the Berthier region out of curiosity and to help, their age and frailty made it necessary for Hephzibah to be given full charge of serving them and making them comfortable, which mercifully saved her from doing any of the heavier work of setting up the beds. After a visit of two days, the Bergères returned by water around the north end of Montréal Island to their home on Ile Bizard where they would pass the winter.

Hephzibah, herself was given a room on the south side of the house. It was to be shared with her new friend Marie she discovered, who along with Hephzibah would live now with the Côtés instead of with the Chalifours. The two ‘bonnes’250 were given the

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female domestic servants

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responsibility of housecleaning and service, particularly in the large receiving room of the house, a room that could hold up to sixty people.

Hephzibah would like to have had Marie there the first night but it was not until the third night that she arrived.

“Which bed do you want to take, Marie? I do not feel constrained to stay in this one, if you would rather have it,” she asked the older girl.

“This is going to be my side of the room,” Marie decided, after she assured Hephzibah that she was letting her keep the bed by the window.

“What do you think the cook wants us to do? She has not seemed to need me much at all,” Hephie asked Marie.

It took a few days to get settled into a routine, but a new sense of the largeness of a manor way of life began to appeal to the two girls who had always lived in cottages. A heavy snow fell for a number of days. It was the deepest accumulation for that time of the year that anyone could remember. Jeanne d’Arc’s children were ecstatic and played outside every day creating the most unusual fortresses.

Marie Louise took on nobility that she had never displayed before. It was mixed with a sort of ladylike helplessness, which permitted her to retire to her room when the decisions were too hard to confront or she wanted to leave a matter for the captain to resolve when he was present. Hephzibah thought she was looking a lot more relaxed now that the paper factory was being administered by one of her best workers and her place in the hospices was assigned to other devoted women.

A day came, in the second week of the month, when their Lady of the House received an announcement from the captain. They were to supply a festive culinary dish

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for the Dinner of the Order of Good Cheer of Montreal to be held at the, now completed, Chateau de Ramezay.

Begun in Port Royal251, on the east coast, the custom had made its way inland to become a favourite pastime among the Canadians. The formation of Orders of Good Cheer had helped the colonists’ ancestors through the difficulties of winter by keeping them from discouragement, leading to loss of appetite. The custom had long since been modified to become a monthly rather than a weekly event. It was still carried on through the winter, and tradition dictated that all guests supply a dish, which they paraded into the dining room after a trumpeted announcement.

“But where will we stay?” Marie Louise asked the Captain at the evening meal served in the dining room of the manor. “In the garrison barracks? You have already leased the cottage to the new factory workers.”

“We have been asked to stay in the Governor’s apartments,” he said. Madame de Vaudreuil is in Montreal and wishes to accommodate us,” came the unexpected reply.

“Oh, I am delighted. I will only take one of the girls if we go. It would be too much to take them both,” Marie Louise was quick to decide. Later she told him her choice would be Hephzibah.

They left several days later in a carriage undergirded with bands of smooth iron that had been retrieved from the side of a retired ship. They made a perfect set of sleigh runners. It would be a fast trip back to Ville Marie and they could stay at Inns along the way for two nights. As the horses moved out of their canter and into a steady trot through the woods, Hephzibah asked the captain to tell her of the ‘Order of Good Cheer’. She

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Port Royal, originally settled by le Sieur de Monts and Samuel de Champlain on the Ste-Croix Island, then moved to the Annapolis River, in Nova Scotia. It was founded in 1604.

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might be asked to help serve at the dinner and she wanted to be prepared to do so without being clumsy.

“Well, I was never a member before. This is an honour bestowed on the privileged, you see, although it was once a common affair. As I know of it, there are at least ten different platters, but then I guess it depends on the number of guests.”

As it turned out, the male guests were twenty in number, and more than half were with their spouses. Hephzibah walked in and took in the layout of the rooms. The mirrors and doors were of exquisite design and the highly polished woodwork embellished the surfaces of the walls. Over fifty people were gathered in the elegant room when the small orchestra began to play a round in a minor key. Someone later said that a German organist named Johann Pachelbel had composed the piece. It was layed as a simple ‘canon,’252with a two-bar bass pattern and a melody with 28 variations. It brought tears to the eyes, thought Hephzibah, who was in the room, filling the wine glasses. She was under the supervision of the maître d’hôte253 and was enjoying herself immensely. God held her chin high. She thanked him for having this opportunity to do well without reproach, as she had seen Gilles do.

She went in and out of the kitchen and amused herself by trying to name the guests as they arrived. When she saw Madame deVaudreuil she remembered the Road to Emmaus painting that was supposedly in their residence in Quebec. “It would not be discourteous, I suppose, to mention that it was a gift given to my father? No, that would never do,” she decided.

It was not so much the people that she observed, but rather the conversations, 252

a ‘round’

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master of ceremonies

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heard that evening, which affected her the most afterwards. Some were speaking of a poem written by an Englishman named John Milton, called Paradise Lost254. Interested in the title, Hephie hung over them to hear more. They said it was contained in twelve volumes, he had written it in spite of his blindness, and that it had been published seven years prior but the rest she could not understand.

Mademoiselle255 Block would have heard some startling news that was going to profoundly affect her personally, but she was out of the room for a few minutes. She was enjoying the party too much to pay attention to every conversation. She also found it entertaining to observe the gowns and hair accessories of the women and the displacements of the men who actively greeted their neighbours and associates, sometimes bowing to kiss the hand of a lady or rushing to apply their gentleman’s courtesy to someone in need of assistance. Everyone was eventually seated for the meal at long tables. These were people she had only seen in carriages or at the church but had never been in their company for more than a few passing moments. Some had come from the plantations.

Early in the evening, before the platters of food were brought in, Captain Côté was quickly engaged to respond to an inquiry. A fellow officer was accusing him of loving the English. He pointed out Hephzibah who was moving between the tables.

“Look at the girl you have there. You treat her as a daughter,” he scoffed. Then he whispered closely in the captain’s ear, “The Huguenots have a hold on you also,” he added. “I read your report of the Vergougnouse traitor. Where will it end? Are you going to dance with the Turks?”

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http://www.paradiselost.org/novel.html.

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Miss Block

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The captain was not going to be belittled. He turned red and formed a reply.

“The Turks dance well, my friend,” he said seriously. “I was once held captive with dervishes256 you know.” He continued to address the accusations.

“If I come at odds with the Turks, who put their prophet above Christ Jesus, what should I do? My enemy, whom I have seen face to face, says to me, ‘Die! And we will prove you wrong when you say you have the better prophet.’ Shall I not work for the good of my enemies and, like Christ, die in the bosom of a greater One who rescues and defends me? If we are not gone to Christ, to whom do we go, upon departure from this earth? If we go to Him, what have I to lose by feeding my enemies? To want the very worst for them is but hatred of their Maker, my Maker. I should want my enemy to embrace the truth and I to love that, more than the truth itself.”

“Ah François Côté, you have become a nobleman,” the officer said, mockingly impressed, “but, pretending to be sensitive, your conscience has become weak! Are you sure your posture should not be one of holy wrath against the treachery of idolatry that the Turks propose?”

“But what man can stand if he has the wrath of God in him?” the captain asked as he let Hephzibah refill his glass. He noticed her presence, and asked her a question to break the tension and give the soldier some time to respond.

“Hephie, this man accuses me of loving my enemies! What do you propose I do with him?”

Hephzibah thought for a moment and said, “Sir, you must do justice to him and preach grace to him.”

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an ascetic group of Sufi muslims

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The soldier looked pensive, took a dish from her and told her she had spoken well.

Then he returned to the captain’s question about demonstrations of the wrath of God. “He may wish us to pronounce his final word on this earth. The word, “No!” the officer insisted. “…and if the Mufti wants to say, ‘No!’ back? Do you not allow me to let my enemy think wrongly, if he but let me think correctly, and I save us both? Let God not remove the sentence he has pronounced on all, who come not to the Saviour, but let me shed my blood for my enemy’s injustice to me. It is the noble thing to do when I have been given an everlasting life, and he, if God says so, everlasting death.”

“Ah! You have captured the real meaning of martyrdom, Captain - to uphold the enemy as the better, even to one’s departure into paradise, rather than to wish his demise while you escape to paradise.”

“What testimony would you leave?” the captain challenged him.

“I would leave a legacy of fierce loyalty to good combat,” he insisted.

Hephzibah wondered if Gilles’ death had affected the captain so that he would say such honourable things. She had not yet formed an opinion of the other man.

The Côtés had brought a platter of sturgeon, accompanied by slices of jellied turnips. Hephzibah handed the platter, which she had decorated with the turnips, to the captain. Everyone who was a new member of the Order was allowed to go first. The trumpet sounded, the dish was announced, and all applauded as the semi-retired Royal Marine militia officer paraded into the dining room from the kitchen. Then came dish after dish. There were peas, black, yellow and green beans, squash of differing sizes, radishes, cabbage, corn on the cob and lettuce. Among the meats were foul, such as

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chicken, partridge and gulls with hard cooked eggs from the same. There was rabbit, stewed in wine sauce, and beavers roasted whole with peppers from the south. Caribou and elk were served cooked, but cold and rolled in slices with blueberries or high bush cranberries. From the sea and the rivers came eels, crab and lobster and a plate full of steaming hot mussels, served with stone ground barley bread. Mead, which was fermented with maple sugar in place of honey, was served to drink.

The officer, who had engaged the captain in conversation, sat beside the Côtés.

Therefore, Hephzibah became an unwilling witness to another part of their conversation as she came and served food at the tables.

“You are not asking the right question,” the captain was saying. “Would it not be appropriate instead of asking if I want to be the king, to ask if I want to be God, who is the King of kings?”

“Then the King of France is but a small k king, for there is one who is a capital k king?” The soldier laughed and added, “you mock me!”

“There is one who is the servant of the other and which one do you think is which?” the captain added as if asking a riddle.

“But I am not the King, sir, and I am not God!” the man protested.

“Let me make it simple. Do you want to serve the King?”

“With all my heart, strength and mind and until death,” said the officer, sure to display his utmost monarchical loyalty to the captain. He was, however, still thinking of unmasking him as a traitor. There were, of course, many masks on the faces of those in the room, he believed. He did not feel he had to bow to each man’s bias, nor did he want anyone to defeat his own prejudices.

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Hephzibah had arrived at their place to serve the dessert. They were each given a plate of sliced cucumbers bathed in sweet whipped cream.

“Would you serve God if you knew He was the servant of the King?” asked Captain Côté.

“Checkmate! Now, there you have me! That is where you have me cornered.

Well-done!”

It took some time for Hephzibah to realize that the captain had wanted to point out the greatness of service, how it places one in superior relationship to the served, but maintains the beauty of the gentle spirit, the nobility of the wisest of the wise. Now the Captain was ready to defend, not as a weakness, but as strength, his clemency toward his wife and their ‘ménage’257.

When the meal was nearly done, a man who had arrived, not long before, came up to Madame Côté and spoke to her.

“I think you should know first, Madame. News this evening has just been received that King Louis has given permission for the release of the New England captives. The Governor is going to make an announcement shortly. I have just transferred the decree to him.”

“God’s time is the right time,” Marie Louise said to herself nervously trying to draw some sense out of the information. “I have lost my Pépo. I have regained my Marie. Now I lose my Hephzibah and the young Warham,” she said, as she collected her thoughts. She felt an overwhelming loneliness for her first husband, Pierre, but she went and stood next to the captain and rested her arm on his, waiting for the Governor’s words.

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household

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How should she tell Hephzibah?

Before Hephzibah went out to sleep in the guesthouse in the courtyard of the Governor’s house, Marie Louise stopped her by the door and said she must speak to her.

“Hephzibah, the Governor made an announcement this evening. I do not think you were in the room to hear it. Did anyone tell you what it was?”

“No, Madame, was it important?”

“You are free to go back to your country, my dear.”

“Has there been an exchange of prisoners?”

“Yes.” Then suddenly Marie Louise burst out, “Oh, I am so sorry to lose you, Hephzibah.” She embraced the young servant girl and held her close for a few minutes against her silk gown. They spoke in rather aimless manner, both still stunned by the news. Hephzibah saw the disorientation it caused Marie Louise and felt it necessary to walk her to her room before going out to the guesthouse. Some of the servants had not yet retired to the basement where they slept next to the cooking fire. They bid them goodnight and walked into the corridor.

“You will be expected at Fort St-Louis by the 25th of this month. You and Warham must leave as soon as we get back to the manor,” Marie Louise said, as she leaned on the wall next to the door to her room. They did not realize how loudly they were talking.

“What about Eunice? Will they hear of the ransom at the Kenian’ Kehaka mission?” asked Hephzibah.

“I have not thought of Warham’s sister. I will ask the Governor tomorrow.

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Maybe we can send for Charles Emmanuel to go and get her. There are also some boy captives there.”

Someone put their head out into the hallway and pleaded with them to not make so much noise. They ended their conversation.

“Goodnight, Madame. I will have much to think about tomorrow.”

“Sleep well, Hephzibah, and do not worry. What we knew might come, has arrived. Now we must make plans.”

Hephzibah was relieved that the King of France had granted redemption for the remaining captives. She wondered through the night how they could possibly get to the assembly location in such a short time. Would Papa and Sarah and Elizabeth be ready?

Would Warham be able to go with Esther from Fort St-François. Where were his brother Samuel, and his father, the Reverend Williams, now?

She only managed to sleep for a few hours in the early morning. The other women guests around her woke in their beds. They pulled their dresses on and prepared their hair so as to be ready for breakfast.

The Côtés stayed one extra day to get a response to the message that was sent to the Xavier Mission and to visit with Charles Emmanuel who had come to the market. A messenger returned and reported that he was unsuccessful in convincing the young English captive, now named Kanenstenhawi, to return to her family and her country.

There were some boys from the Stacy family and the Hill family258 who also refused to leave.

“She told us she has a new family,” the messenger reported. Hephzibah wondered

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these family names are still found in the present generation of Kanian’Kehaka peoples.

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if someone had forced her to stay. She wanted to go herself and persuade the girl to leave.

If Pépo were in Montreal, how could she find him and tell him? There still was no news of him. Upon their return, poor Warham would have to be told the news of his sister. Nothing could be done about that.

The carriage that took them out of Montréal pulled up to the Aigues-Vives manor early in the evening and Hephzibah threw off the fur skin that covered her and went directly to Warham, who she found in the kitchen of Madame Jeanne d’Arc. “Warham, we are going home!” she told him bluntly and brushed sudden tears away before he saw them.

She did not tell him about his younger sister. Instead, she waited until he asked about Eunice. The subject was not discussed until the next day, when they were sitting with Marie Louise in the salon.

“I want you to stay until Monday,” Marie Louise explained to them. “The community is holding a Lord’s Day prayer service here at the manor. I have asked the Chalifours and the Fretés to come and to bring any who are willing to worship in the manner of the Reformed faith. The captain has arranged for you to travel by carriage to Quebec. The snow will make it easier to travel because the runners glide so well.

Afterwards, you must travel with Hephzibah’s father from Saurel, but we will get you both that far, at least.”

“When will we get Eunice?” Warham asked casually.

“Eunice is not coming with us, Warham,” Hephie told him. “She could not be persuaded to come.”

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“Well, we can come back in the summer and get her,” he said cheerfully.

Marie Louise spoke to both of them. “I am thankful to God for what He has given me by bringing you into my life. When you can come here again I will…” She could not keep the knot in her throat from choking off the words. “God be with you wherever you end up. We will pray for your safe journey on Sunday.”

Marie, who was not chosen to go, was full of questions that night and the night after. Hephzibah lay on her bed answering them.

“What was Louise-Elizabeth, La Marquise de Vaudreuil, the Governor’s wife259, wearing?” she asked. “Did you have to cook the sturgeon yourself or did someone help you?” “Were any of the Ramezay children at the dinner - was their daughter, Louise, or the little boy, Pierre?260 I think he has the same chin as his father. Did we not make a fine house for them?”

“Marie, I think I have had my fill of questions but I am so glad of your company.

Keep talking. Only I beg of you, let me answer the questions in the morning.”

Hephzibah packed her sack full again just as she had done only a few weeks before. There were her books, the one written by Reverend Mather and the Primers. She had some lace, Marie Louise had made, and some letters. The letters from Samuel were there, having been returned to her from those who read them and also the ones from her sisters. She had an old hat from Pépo. Dear Pépo, where was he? The lessons she had taken with the Recollet were there and the colourful silk and wool ‘grogram’ belt that Gilles had left for her. “God had given one last job to Gilles - to rescue me. Then God chose to wrestle the evil spirits out of the Wendat chief,” she softly said to herself as she 259

from an Acadian family at Fort Jemseg in New Bunswick on the Wolastoqiyik (now called the Saint John) River.

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Louise and her brother, Philippe de Rigaud de Vaudreuil.

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folded the belt.

Marie accepted the grey dress, but then she said, “No, you must wear this when you leave. Look, there is room for your simpler clothes in the bottom of the sack if you take care to put everything else on top.”

Hephzibah was agitated and went to the window to look out at the river.

“Marie, I do not want to leave. I have everything I could want here. I am like Eunice. I have a new family. I will never have another again.”

“You could marry and make as many children as you want, Hephie.”

“Marie Louise thought like that. Marriage does not always mean you can have children. They are a gift from the Lord, a precious reward. I want to know the future so badly but it is hidden from me once more.”

“Hephzibah, you must not be covetous of the things that are hidden,” the adopted girl insisted. I once knew a girl who did not know why a cat was always knocking over the candles at the church. She concluded it was the devil coming to steal souls, but I did not believe her. There is much that is revealed to us. We do not have to fear. Your people have redeemed you. Go, meet your family and make a future for yourselves - one day at a time.”

“Thank you, Marie.”

Hephzibah learned that there were over 95 people assembled in the large room of the manor. Where did they all come from?

Sunday, she learned a great many things about these Reformed believers.

Monsieur Chalifour had lived in New England for several years. Some of the others had been fur traders in Fort Orange to the south. Their children had been baptized in

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congregations by Methodist pastors of New England. Two of Jeanne d’Arc’s children were of this number. One was baptized on August 24th, 1700 and the other on the 12th of September of the same year. Some of the older men had been in the military. It was easier to be a Huguenot or a Calvinist before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, they said to the younger believers. The Montréal clergy frequently had to ‘re-evangelize’ these ones who kept slipping out of their grip.

Hephie looked around as they all opened their songbooks. It was the children who sang out the loudest. They knew the songs by heart. Men started and the women joined in to these “Marrottes” as the Catholics called the psalms composed by Clément Marot. They were lively and when the men and women alternated, there was a lovely exchange of masculine and feminine voices. They made Hephie think of the Y’hudi couple’s rendition of the Ma’oz Tzur.

Monsieur Freté stood up and prayed for the well-being of Hephzibah and Warham. The assembly said ‘Amen’261 and they continued prayers from the heart for those who were sick or the women who were expecting babies. Some even prayed for the King and his court. There was prayer for the Governors and Intendants of the towns of New France and the Governor General. When the meeting ended, the people talked or exchanged books among themselves that they had been reading.

Marie Louise and the captain stayed together while they worked to host the large assembly. It was obvious to the captain that this event greatly pleased his wife and he promised her that they would gather again soon, as the weather permitted.

As it was, the Marine officer was greatly affected by the internal harmony of the

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so may it be

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community. He had seen a lot of anxiously troubled humanity, a lot of meanness and too much self-abuse to bring any judgements on these Calvinist men who were risking their families and their homes by worshiping God in these most true and lively but forbidden liturgies. It was sobering and he felt a certain sadness that he did not have a house full of young children to call his own. When the gathering was over, he decided to make a plea for Hephzibah and Warham to stay, rather than to go back to New England. The thought made his heart rejoice for the gift of a son given to him by his first wife.

“You have nothing to return to, children. Look at what we have here. I will give you rooms and privilege, as if you were my own flesh and blood. You will eat from my table and I will give you in marriage, Hephzibah, to the man of your choosing. I will put you in charge of the boats, Warham, and teach you how to navigate the river.”

Hephzibah looked at the old sailor and knelt beside him, allowing herself to take the gnarled hand that he held out to her, as he leaned forward in his upholstered chair.

“Oh, Monsieur, you have been good to me and to Warham. It is not too unkind of me to wish to leave? I have nothing to go to but a lonely father who has lost everything.

I have sisters and a brother; the only children of my mother. I cannot abandon my father and my sisters, sir. They will be waiting for me. I am sure it must be the same for Warham.”

“Yes, I was only wishing to keep you for myself. You should go to your own people and tell them we have done them harm in the name of our Crown. I was so proud of what we had done. It was a day of great victory for us, you know.”

Hephzibah wanted to get angry at him. There were tears of protest welling up in her eyes. She withdrew her hand, but he took it back in his. She noticed his hand with

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two fingers missing.

“When you look at your ten fingers, Hephzibah, remember this old miller’s son turned sea wolf. Then he kissed her hand. God be with you.”

She rose and looked up into Marie Louise’s eyes. She had come to stand by her husband’s chair. They were also filled with tears.

“Madame,” she said, “You will need to powder your face again.” They both laughed and wiped the tears with the lace of their dresses. As she did so, Hephzibah noticed a hard piece of something in her apron. She reached in and found the little flowering cross.

“This is for you, Madame. I want you to have it back.”

“The small dark eyes of the slight French woman lit up, shiny still from the tears.

She smiled, reached out for the small silver necklace and replied, “I think it is time to remove the tear.”

“Now let me get you proper handkerchiefs, ladies,” the captain said and called to one of the servants who went and soon returned with suitable linens.

Beside the fire that evening Warham played with some new games that he had discovered in his room.

“Are your things ready for the morning, Warham?” Marie Louise asked.

“Yes, Madame. It will be very long travelling and I would like to bring this game with me if I may, please.” He stood up and implored with his large green eyes.

“Yes, Warham, you may take it with you,” she said and wished him a good night.

He looked at her curiously, “Are you going to bed?”

“No, I meant you. You should go to bed. You need to be strong for tomorrow.”

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He left and went to the back of the house where he had been given a mattress to sleep on.

The next day was a sunny, warm one. Because he had put the runners on the sleigh, the captain, who had also been up early to inspect packing that was done, stormed into the house.

“The snow has melted!” he called to anyone who would hear. “We are going to have to make some other plans. The runners will have to be taken off the carriage, or maybe we should get out the canoe.”

It was decided that the canoe should be brought out and the freed New Englanders taken to Saurel by water.

“Just be careful not to tip over. You will get a cold surprise,” the captain said to the young men who took the two paddles in their hands and pushed away from the shore.

At the bank of the river, people from the seigneurie waved goodbye.

Warham was excited. He was anxious to set out on this new adventure.

Hephzibah was sullen. She pulled the large woolen cape over her legs and turned to face the river. She decided to wave, but only when it appeared that Marie and Marie Louise had decided it was too cold to stay out any longer. They were stomping their feet to keep warm so they waved to her and returned to the house. Then she waved back.

It was a splendid day. Now the leaves were lying on the ground peaking through melted snow. Reds and golds - oak, birch, maple; greens still persisting among the dead, browned leaves and bright yellow poplar ones. A misty white cloud stubbornly hung over the calm silver-grey water. Some boats were on the river but they were few in number.

Some distance ahead, they stopped. They pulled over to the riverbank where they

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met a group on shore who had also paused to make a fire and get warm. They were transporting a huge bag of corn. There were three men. There was also a boy, who got along quite well with Warham.

Continuing on after another short stop, they arrived at Fort St-François after circling the Saurel islands. They were quite cold, and yet glad to be able to stand and walk and stretch their legs. The snow had not melted as much here on the north facing shore so they stamped through it, up to the fort, in their fur-lined moccasins.

It was common knowledge that the Captives were travelling to Quebec and there were already accommodations arranged at the expense of the Governor deVaudreuil.

Hephzibah met her father in the home of the fort’s clerk. It was a sigh of relief that pulled her into his grip. They looked at each other carefully to see that the other was well. Then they asked what they already knew. “Are you well?”

Mr. Block told his daughters, who were now together with him in the same house, of the travel plans that were being made among the freed captives, some of whom were ready to leave in a hired chaloupe the next day. “It is too dangerous to try to navigate the river by sail now. There are a number of strong men and some able-armed women. We will pull ourselves along quite well, but it is the number of boats needed that we are not sure of. You are sure Eunice is not coming? No others from Montréal? What of the Stacy boy or the young man named, ‘Hill’?

“No, but there are others from the mission and two families from Fort Rolland but I think they left last Friday. The paddling is very hard on the hands and they get very cold,” Hephzibah warned, “be sure to tell everyone to wear warm gloves and breeches.

Are Ebenezer and Kanonwu coming?”

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Mister Block said he did not know if Ebenezer had heard of the end of the Captivity and they would try to go to him at Lorette if they had time at Kebec.

Sarah and Elizabeth slept next to Hephzibah that night and they kept each other warm, since they were in the attic of the clerk’s house.

It was a fleet of five dories and a crew of thirty women, children and men who left the next day. Some of the men would be returning with the borrowed vessels. Sarah and Elizabeth were embraced and kissed by the women of the St-Denis household and Monsieur St-Denis took each one in his strong arms and told them to be good.

Hephzibah was surprised at how much baggage there was, but of course most of the clothing had to be worn for protection from the cold. Old sails were brought to house the travelers along the way but it was hoped that they would receive lodging at the seigneuries along the river. They wrapped scarves across their faces and prepared for the river wind. There was a hymn sung before they left and scripture was read and a prayer said by one of the priests.

It would take eight days to arrive, if weather permitted.

“Papa, what are we going to do when we return to Massachusetts?” Hephzibah asked her father one morning at breakfast before they left Lac St-Pierre.

The forty-eight-year-old man dropped his shoulders and sighed. “I have been meaning to tell you, Hephzibah, I am taking us back to Holland. Now, do not protest! I think it will be best to find my own relatives and to make a new start again.”

“But, Papa! Hephzibah cried out and remembered he had warned her not to protest. “But, Papa!” she said more softly so the others at the other end of the wide bench were not disturbed. “I never thought of going to Holland.”

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She told him of the bitterness of the woman she had met on la Pomone who was returning to France. “You are not going back because you are bitter against God, are you?”

“No, Hephzibah, I am just thinking about you girls. You need a mother and I have some aunts who could take you in.”

“But Papa, you forget how old they are now. Aunt Hille is nearly seventy and Aunt Margaret is nearly eighty! We have never been to Holland and we cannot speak Dutch well enough to go to school.”

“You will learn, Hephie. I will teach you on the way.”

“How will we pay for the voyage, Papa?”

“I will work out a way when we get to Boston.”

“Papa, this is the worst thing you could do to us!” The child captive who was now a young woman, expressed her own thoughts now.

He gave her one of his angry looks that long ago used to make Hephzibah cry, but she withstood it. Her father turned to speak with a an across from him, without saying another word to his daughter for several hours.

This new course of direction came as a total shock to Hephzibah. She consulted her sisters, who she was hoping to get on her side. It was pure manipulation that she devised. She had to change his mind.

“Elizabeth, what would happen if you went back to Fort St François and lived with the St-Denis family until you were able to find a husband? Would you want to live in New France? Would you continue to help Sarah and be a good helper to Madame StDenis? Would you remember your English and study the catechism if we bought the

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books? Oh, Elizabeth, Papa wants to take us to Holland!”

“I do not mind going to live in Boston. Does he not want to stay there or go back to Deerfield? What should we do, Hephzibah?” was the younger girl’s reply.

“We should pray.”

“But we do not know what we need, Hephie.”

“We need mothers and we found mothers. We need shelter and shelter was always open to us. Papa needs a job and he has a job. He has friends. He has a new start. We have found the life we were looking for, do you not see! It was given to us, not by any king or country, but by God.” The two girls said the Lord’s Prayer together. They put their cloaks tightly over them and Hephie pulled out some dried meat that had been given to each of them.

Warham and Sarah were already asleep, being held on two knees by Mr. Block.

The day was a particularly windy one and the remaining leaves were being blown to the ground on the shore. The waves were high but the current was pulling them closer to their destination. Those who paddled stayed warm, but the passengers were agonizing over the cold. It was certainly easier to put up with than walking through the heaps of snow only a few short years ago. Their feet had been so sore at the end of each day and sometimes they were bleeding very badly. Besides, they were afraid at every turn of being extinguished by a musket ball in the head.

Along the River of the Canadians, there was less danger that Indians might pirate them and the snaphances in the boats were loaded, in case of attack or if a deer or muskrat was sighted. They stayed near the shore; as near as they could, to still pick up a current.

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“How much longer is it? Sarah asked again and again.

“Shhh! Go to sleep,” Hephzibah finally told her. The girl slept, but only to wake cold and thirsty, for the younger ones were not allowed to drink too much so as not to have to stop to relieve themselves so often.”

The days were the same after that. They found warm greetings at the places where they stopped and an attic was usually offered to them or sometimes a heated stable.

To avoid the open winds of the eastern side of the huge bluff, they pulled into the small cove at Sillery and walked up the steep incline to Abraham Martin’s field.262 There, they noticed that the snow was much deeper than they had seen in Saurel or at Berthier because they were further north. There was much activity, however, and it was not difficult to find passing teams of horses that offered to take them through the stone gates of the walled city. The Blocks entered at the St-Jean Gate and were driven to the door of the fortress, set on the highest point of the cliff. Mister Block assembled the other travelers and pointed down toward the port in the lower sector of the city, where the Sieur de Champlain had built his Habitat.

“Look, we have made it in time. That one is the ship from Massachusetts. Let us go and find out who is taking us to Boston.”

The parade of released captives crossed the yard outside the fort and took the path down the sharp incline towards the Pointe-aux Roches. The wind was icy as it swept up the bluff and they huddled together once they were down the slope. There they stood on the platform where a semi-circle of large cannons stood as a defense against hostile 262

This field, now a park west of Quebec City’s walls, was where the English won the battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759). This signalled the end of the colonization period under French rule. The culmination of a three-month siege by the British, the battle lasted less than an hour. British commander General James Wolfe successfully broke the advance of French troops. Both generals were mortally wounded during the battle; Wolfe died on the field and Montcalm passed away the next morning. Ville Marie later capitulated when three separate British forces attacked it from the East, West, and South.

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English ships.

If it had been the next day, Mister Block might have asked, ‘Let us see who is taking you to Boston’, instead of ‘who is taking us to Boston’ because the next few days proved to be a turning point in the lives of the members of the Block family. Several incidents caused Mister Block to change his mind about going to Holland, or even leaving New France.

Every week on Thursday, Ebenezer travelled from Lorette Mission down the StCharles River to Saint-Pierre Street to get news and trade or to buy food and supplies. He came two days early this November day to see if his family was coming to the rescue ship. News was circulating that he was looking for his family, so when Mister Block went into the Marine Office, he was directed to the Ursuline chapel where Ebenezer was last seen. He wound his way up the narrow streets, greeting people as he went, but some just glared. The little cluster of buildings that formed the Ursuline Mission Complex came in view. He inquired of his son at the nearest door and was told where he might be found. Ebenezer had some packages to deliver from Lorette, so he was taking them off a horse he had hired for the climb up from the wharf.

Son and father, both jubilant at the sight of the other, grabbed each of the others’ forearms. Then they slapped each other on the back, like seamen. When the unloading was done, they decided it was too cold outside and went into the chapel to talk. It took them several hours to discuss the possible scenarios for their future course of direction.

Ebenezer was not of the opinion that going to Holland would be of any advantage to his wife and children, nor would going to Boston or returning to Deerfield, for that matter.

He was satisfied with the life he had found at Kebec, ‘where the river separates’ and

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Canada, as the name means, had become his ‘village’. He was already a Kana-djan, a ‘settler in the village’.

The Governor was making plans to build a large fortress on the eastern edge of Canada and was going to call it ‘Louisbourg’. “In contemplating the tactics of the British against the northern French fortresses, Ebenezer had analyzed the wars. Father, I think they realize how easy it is to capture the city here, if the seaway is left unprotected. I think personally, that by scaling the bluffs at Sillery and coming right up to the convent here, a brigade could surprise them successfully from behind.”

“Sh!Sh! Do not speak too loudly. I think someone has come in to ring the noon bells.”

It was a nun who was passing through. She made sure the sepulchre of the former Archbishop Laval was not disturbed and that the candles were still lit.

The two men picked up their tricorns, went outside, and returned slowly to the Lower Town, continuing the discussion of what strategies had been used to keep the French from settling the River of Canada and carrying away all its trade goods.

“The Acadian Corsair, Pierre Maissonat, otherwise known by his military nickname, Jean-Baptiste Guyon, was redeemed in exchange for English captives”, Ebenezer told his father.

“Father, these people exercise much anxiety over the possibility of attack. The founder of this hospice, ‘Marie de l’Incarnation’ they call her, did a very good work here, which was prepared for her by God. She does not boast but of a love for our dear Saviour. Her son is in France and would do well to come and see the works God permitted his mother to do. She has associated so well with the lowly. This is how she

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has humbled herself before God; how she loves mercy. I fear he will never attribute any importance to it. Yet, I know God will not forget her and reward the just life she lives.

I will stay with them even if I must die among them and I would be glad of your company, if you would settle in New France also.”

“Your personal dialogue with God, your Friend and Deliverer, son, will help you befriend your worst enemy. You will supply each other’s need. You must let me consult our minister, Reverend Williams. I will not receive any objections from the girls because Hephzibah has convinced them to stay and she herself wishes to remain further up river with the Calvinist lady.

“Father, because I have a God who can be Himself and can say or do things to me that outrage me, I have been able to survive. God is strength in a time of need and, although he is much in my imagination, he is in my every move. I am made and remade in his image and in the image of the new man. We are to be new man, the anointed Christ revealed to us. I see in him the author of true science and invention, so I am filled with great joy and I want to know his mind, even if it differs from mine.”

“You almost convince me to stay, Ebenezer. I will see what our minister says,” he said to his son.

Mister Block was even less sure of his plan to go to Holland, when John Williams met him that afternoon on the deck of the rescue ship.

“I am going back to Deerfield to rebuild. You must come back with me, Maarten!” the minister told his former neighbour and deacon.

“I hope you will find more people of resolute and pious hearts and strong hands to overcome all difficulties. It is such a desolation that we have seen is it not, John?” was

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Mister Block’s reply and they both wondered at it all again as their lost wives and little ones came to mind.

They continued talking late into the evening, employing their carefully researched, theological, presupposition. It kept them searching for some guidance in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, given to the Hebrew nation called through Abraham by God. They could only interpret those thoughts through the mind that brought them the New Testament, which Jesus said, is the better one; the one that tells us to do what love demands. They ‘listened’ to the counsel from the Holy Spirit, who explained the words they read. They also tried to identify the normal requirements of God’s plan for his children, apply them to the specific situation in which they found themselves, and then unveil each other’s and their own hearts as they explored the personal sacrifices involved.

They prayed and resolved to do what was best for their consciences and what was of faith.

The next morning, when those who were on the ship began going back to shore, to seek some offer of kindness from the inhabitants who had taken pity on them and had given them food in the previous days, Hephzibah was summoned from below deck to tell what she knew of Eunice. Reverend Williams was most disturbed at the fact that his youngest surviving child had decided to stay.

“She will be a light amongst them,” he resignedly concluded, knowing that he could merely petition her to come to Deerfield once it was rebuilt. She would find the home she had left and then she would want to stay.

Hephzibah told of her fellowship with the French Christians in Berthier.

Reverend Williams prayed with her and he read from the last chapter of the Bible to

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strengthen them all. Then he asked Hephzibah to repeat the syllables of the name that had been given to his daughter Eunice, so that he could write them down.

“It is Ka-nen-sten-ha-wi,” she told him having heard it repeated several times by the children in the longhouse at the mission.

“I wish to find a way to visit her - to help her keep her English and to remind her of our trustworthy faith, Papa,” Hephzibah implored once more.

John Williams interjected, “I wish to explain to her the life that her Saviour gave her. Our Lord is not simply an historical figure, as many claim. Dreams are an illusion, but she will be taught that dreams are real life and our existence is an illusion. It leads to doubt and unbelief. My poor lamb.”

Hephzibah told her minister that she felt she could help Eunice. Then she remembered the couple she had also promised to help. She turned to him. “May I tell you about a couple living in Varennes, who came from Galipolis?”

She told her minister of the persecution that the French refugees suffered. She wondered if anything could be communicated to their family on the Ohio River. He would do his best, he told her. Hephie said she would give him the information when she could retrieve it from her bag.

“You will find it difficult to stay in this place. The inhabitants of Boston have been writing letters, telling us that we will be seduced by these wolves,” he said to them.

“They are alarmed by the injustices inflicted upon the innocent.” He continued, particularly addressing Mister Block, “It is a wretched land of darkness and slavery, both religious and civil, one man said.” They make appeals such as, “Come back to the land of glorious light and liberty. The French missionaries protect the Savages in order to be

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protected by them. They use them as dogs - dogs for which their misdemeanors are excusable. The French say God hears the prayers of the Frenchman alone, and he alone is answered from heaven.”

John Williams told them, “I was made improper offers by the superior of the Society of Jesus and yet he had no conscience. Many others have a conscience, however, and such clergy deplore the actions of the militia.”

After saying what must be said - from the letters he had received and warnings from his own observations - he then properly encouraged them. “Nevertheless, it is enough for my soul that the great God, who has taken us into covenant relation to himself, has enjoined us to show forth his praises, in living through, before others, the salvation and favours we have been the subjects of. One generation shall praise God’s works to another.”

“The congregation of Boston will be sure to ask you to preach at the Lecture when you get back to Massachusetts,” Mister Block said to console his former neighbour.

“They have published my latest letter and my brother and kinsman, Cotton Mather, has titled the collection of writings, ‘Good Fetched Out of Evil.’263 Reverend Williams said. He has seen to it that my son who was not in Deerfield at the time of the attack was given a scholarship to study at the College.”

Reverend Williams turned to Hephzibah and again reassured her, “I will send your news to Galipolis, at the Ohio River settlement of the French refugees.”

Mister Block distracted him by another thought, “But John Williams, what will become of these poor victims if none of us stays to enlighten them? Is it wrong to eat

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this publication, even while Reverend Williams was still in captivity, sold 1,000 copies in a week to the population of 15,000, living in Boston in 1706.

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with sinners on the seigneuries and mission stations of New France, instead of in towns and villages, as are formed in Massachusetts?”

Reverend Williams was defeated. “We have discovered the wonderful grace of God, wherever we have been. Yet, there are plenty of towns and villages in New England that must be shepherded also. You must stay and I must go back. The merchant at the sawmill, where you work, will vouch for you. He is a Papist, is he not? You can live peaceably, as do the other Calvinists, until you want to remarry or leave an inheritance. Be strong, do not abjure if you must stay. From this we see how precious our salvation is in the sight of God. When we wander far from Him, He yet continues to look upon us with watchful eye, and to stretch forth His hand to bring us to Himself.”

“Is that what you have decided for yourself, Good Neighbour?” Maarten Block asked the gospel servant.

“There is no future for me here. As for me, the French Dauphin forbids me from taking up any office, particularly that of a servant of the gospel and Samuel and Warham have been offered tuition to attend Harvard College. My son, Stephen, has safely escaped back to Massachusetts. We will certainly board ship today. My daughter, Esther, has safely arrived from Saurel.”

It was confirmed in Mister Block’s mind. His wisest plan, was to stay in New France. He had been convinced by the persuasion of his daughters, especially Hephzibah. She wished to return to the community of believers at the Côté manor at Berthier. Also, the intention of his son Ebenezer and his daughter-in-law Kanonwu, to stay at Lorette, influenced him. Lastly, he was persuaded by the will of his own heart.

This was confirmed, when he had to defend the possibilities of staying before Reverend

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Williams, his former pastor. In the end, the pastor gave his blessing, mixed of course, with more than a few warnings.

Samuel and Esther Williams searched the fortress until they found Hephzibah.

She was washing at the riverside - clothing that she intended to send with Warham on the ship. Samuel took her red cold hands in his and thanked her for caring for his brother.

“Samuel, you should really thank Marie Louise Gamonet but I will take the message to her, if you write it down.”

“I am sure I will not find ink and paper unless I go to the Ursuline missionary ladies, but maybe you could tell her yourself. I understand you are going back to live with her.” Then he added, “Pray for us. Why do we not pray now?” They stopped to talk to their Heavenly Father, in the name of his son, Jesus.

“The bruised reed he will not break and the smoking flax he will not quench.264 Do you remember when your father preached on that verse, Samuel? It is true, is it not?”

“Hephzibah, “God’s delight is in you, God be with you!”

“And you too, Samuel. I hope you can graduate with the best Latin. It has served you well here.” They embraced. Esther embraced her also and said her tearful farewells as well.

“The French language is a beautiful tongue and I should like to study the Institutes of the Christian Religion by the man, Jean Calvin,” Samuel said.

“The Frenchman, Gilles Guérin, whose real identity was unmasked in Montréal, was tried and executed last year,” Hephzibah said. “He had spent much time studying Jean Calvin’s writings.”

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Matthew 12.20-21

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“I should like to have gotten to know him better, if his father had not been censored from the church,” Samuel said regretfully.

“It is not well in Europe, is it, Samuel?” she asked.

“I think I would much rather stay here, in the Americas, even though we have many hardships,” Esther replied. “Sergeant John Hawks was slain along with John and Thankful and Martha. Remember John wanted to become a trader with the West Indies Trading Company?”

“He had some grand ideas in his twelve-year-old head, as I guess we do now too,” Hephzibah said.

“I have an idea in my head but I am not sure I am the first to think of it”, Samuel added. “We have a good many taxes, in New England, and the Parliament in London seems to spend our hard-earned money on the wars there and here. I think we need our own government,” Samuel said to his sister and to Hephzibah.

The two girls were not in agreement with him. They saw this as a challenge to God who had given them a government that they must respect and improve. They talked until noon and Hephzibah spent the rest of the day with Warham, wishing that he could stay. They ate together with the other captives on board ship, next to the galley. Many residents of the city were kind to them and provided beer and bread and some fried lard.

Samuel only saw Hephzibah once the next day because she sensed he was going to try to persuade her to come to Boston. She purposely, but sadly, avoided him for those intense moments before the departure.

The British privateer, Samuel Appleton, Esquire, Captain with John Bonner, also Captain in the British navy came to talk with her, again trying to persuade her to come

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aboard for the departure. She asked the Captain Appleton of any news of the people she knew.

“Your mother has been given a proper burial, as have the others who died in the Massacre,” he informed her. He was careful to tell her where the grave was. “We found Jonathan Hoyt buying vegetables here in the city market with his Huron master. We paid the master for him and we were going to take him to the ship, when the Native decided he wanted him back. Thanks be to God, we got Jonathan to the ship before the man caused us any harm.”

Knowing the location of her mother’s grave, she went to ask Samuel and Esther to lay a piece of her handmade lace on it, if they could visit the place again. She reassured Samuel once more that she had read his letters and she would remember his warnings.

They in turn asked her to remember Eunice and to try to see her as often as she could.

They gave Hephzibah letters for her.

On the 25th of October 1706, 57 captives, agreeing to travel back to Boston, were on board ship. One woman decided, at the last minute, that she must obey Deuteronomy 4 and that to stay, would make her an idolater.265 The pastor from Deerfield tried to persuade her to consider the matter carefully, but she had already done so, she said.

The rescue ship pulled up anchor, sailed to the east and then out to the open Atlantic. After several attempts to make its way through an early winter storm, it was nearly shipwrecked off the coast of Maine. It was forced to take refuge there for a week, but set out again and arrived in Boston on the 21st of November.

When the ship was near being lost, Warham, taking advantage of the incline 265

The Bible warns against sensuality (the senses worshiping the creation rather than the Creator). If some object of affection replaces commitment to God, it can create a divided conscience in a Christian. This separation from self is unmanageable wthin oneself.

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provided by the waves, went to slide on the floor in the hold of the ship. The stern was on a wave as tall as four houses, and the bow was in the eddy. He was without fear and full of interest in the game this created. As he pushed a barrel aside, so it would not fall on him, he heard a voice call to him from a net, strung on the beam above. He looked up.

“Pépo! Pépo! How did you get here?” Warham called out when he saw the boy.

“Shhh! I have to get safely back to my Miss Killigrew. Are we going to go down in this storm, Warham?”

“I do not know. Why do you not come down and slide?” he asked Pépo.

“I might get caught and it seems a lot safer to stay here. Besides I feel sick.”

In the days that followed, Warham did not tell anyone of his discovery, but he was missed often and no one knew of his secret visits to where Pépo was finally hiding. He had found a corner in the lower battery beside a tiny room of fabric designed for a ship’s chaplain. Pépo was often hungry, so the boy took him food. Pépo told Warham that he had seen Hephzibah in Quebec before he followed her suggestion to leave for Boston with the captives. He slipped out at night to the anchored ship, hoisting himself up by the cable, he explained to Warham.

The ship arrived in Boston and Pépo was received well by the people of the Boston church. They offered to send him to the school for black children that Reverend Mather funded at his own expense but because of his intention to find his parents, he was finally sent back to ‘Bimshire Island’ after working to earn his fare.

The day after the departure of the redeemed captives, Hephzibah went to the Wendat village of Lorette with her father and two sisters to visit Kanonwu and the children with Ebenezer. They enjoyed the company of the mission people and although

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Hephzibah wanted to meet Theovenhosen who had thrown her in the cold waters of the Chambly Basin, he was not there at that time. “He is a very sensitive man,” she was told and ‘a great leader’ among his people. He was again chosen to be leader of a hunting expedition.

At the end of the week, the girls and Mister Block returned to the Fort at Saurel from the Cove at Sillery. It snowed continually and they could see the shore very poorly.

The St-Denis household was expecting them. They had heard of Mister Block’s decision to remain in New France from the owners of two of the canoes who had returned. They had worried a great deal, and were relieved to see them when they finally arrived. Sarah and Elizabeth were comforted by the return to familiar surroundings and the warm, delicious smells of the St-Denis kitchen. It was only with many promises from their father, and good wishes from their older sister, that they proved themselves able to be left once again to comfort each other in their adoptive family.

A week later, Hephzibah’s father, now a free man who could travel with a simple warrant, accompanied her to the Perche seigneurie. They were received with the utmost affection.

Mister Block was able to borrow a chaloupe from Monsieur St-Denis. All through the journey, the father and daughter made plans to visit the younger girls and to write to each other. Even before they arrived at the door of the manor Hephzibah could hear sounds. They were the sounds of music coming from the men’s quarters. Every person of the household was crowded into the room, where a sailor was playing a wooden pipe-flute.

Jeanne d’Arc came to greet Hephzibah. “Well, what have we here? My girl, have

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you come back as a ghost?” she asked jokingly, but she was obviously delighted. Mr. Block left to go to the main house to make arrangements with the Côtés. “He can stay here with the men until he goes back to Saurel,” she said, after she had heard all the news of the last few weeks.

Marie Louise ran out in her shawl and wooden shoes to see for herself, that Hephzibah had really returned.

“May God be praised! We have hardly had time to grieve your departure and now there is no need. Come! come! Take your luggage up to Marie’s room. There is still a bed for you there.” The bright, dark eyes of the lady were shiny with tears of joy and Hephzibah could not keep from smiling and holding her arm as they walked through the early winter snowdrifts.

Mr. Block stayed for three days and then felt he should return the boat to Monsieur St-Denis. He met some of the French Huguenots who came the next day for the Sunday worship. He also determined to get to know the captain as much as possible.

The confidence that Mister Block needed, in order to leave his daughter at the seigneurie, had to be established before he left and, in his mind, this was no light matter. The conversations between the two men, hardened by many woes, were serious at the start, yet cordial at the end. The captain explained the torment he experienced in his soul after the execution of Gilles, the Huguenot refugee. He wanted to know Maarten Block’s reaction to the execution. Hephie had surely spoken of it. During their ensuing conversation, Hephzibah’s father was able to sincerely encourage the captain to submit to God’s rule in the world.

“So why are you now a disciple of Christ and before you were not?” Maarten

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Block asked Captain Côté.

The captain looked at Mister Block, a perfect stranger, and with a grin that showed all his wayward teeth, he said, “There simply appears to be, in me, a place to receive the Lamb who was slain, in a way there never was before. The Prince of Redemption has come to meet me and I do not know what to do with him but listen and receive him, for I love him so much.”

The captain felt the bondage of guilt break away from him at that moment and it set him free.

Mister Block reassured the sin-sickened man that he could be completely relieved of his past bad conscience and be cleansed of it. “Keep peace with God, humble sir,” he said, “for it is not ‘The Good’ who are in the Father’s kingdom, but those such as you who are made good, by the power of God. Thank you for not being ashamed to associate with the lowly, such as I now am. The evil will not be cut off, but the proud, for otherwise would we all be severed. Were it not for Christ who fills up the gap with his holiness, none would remain attached to the vine. You will be teachable if you will allow the Scriptures to contradict you. So, you must treat God’s people here, and his presence among them, with respect. Let God do the good He intends to do.”

The men turned to discussing the teachings of the Seigneur d’Aigues-Vives. The new plantation owner, M. Côté, had listened intently to what he heard concerning the purposes of God. Mister Block returned to Saurel satisfied and grateful. When he arrived at the château-fort, he was invited to live with Bernard Boete266, one of the Dutchmen he had

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records displayed in the Pointe à Callière museum in Montréal show the Dutch names of 1706 residents

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befriended. He stayed until a provision was made for his own apartment, at an estate to the west of the palisade.

Hephzibah rose quietly one cold morning in December. She sang as she dressed and prayed, just like Jesus had taught his disciples to pray, calling God her ‘Papa’ and Jesus her ‘friend’. “If death has died for you, Jesus, then it has died for me too. Life means being in your realm and there is no difference if I am here or anywhere else, as long as I am in your kingdom, where you rule. You have given my own name a meaning and I understand your language. You speak from the power of weakness and you want me to rejoice.”

She placed the kindling in the grate of the bedroom fireplace, lit it, then took a broom and began sweeping the floor, remembering she had wanted to look for something...

“What are you doing Hephie? It is too early to be cleaning the floor,” said Marie, who was just waking up.

“I lost a coin that I was given at Cap Diamant and I am hoping to find it before I go downstairs,” Hephzibah replied.

Marie, who was watching her, went close to the fireplace and tended the fire while her companion searched.

Down on her knees, with a lit candle in her hand, Hephzibah thought again of the parable of the lost coin.267 She thought of the first mass she attended at the Bonsecours Chapel. Pépo had said that the priest sounded like he always gave the same sermon in Latin and she had thought it sounded like the Parable of the Lost Coin.

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Luke 15.8-10

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It was a long time before she finally found the small metal disk caught standing upright between two floorboards. “There it is! I am having trouble lifting it because it is so far down. There, now I have it! Oh, come and see it by the light of the fire, Marie,” she exclaimed.

When Hephzibah opened her hand, there lay in it a dark yellow coin, a Dutch ‘daler’ marked ‘1649’ and stamped with the silhouette of a full-figured roaring lion.

She thought to herself of Pépo who she had discovered in Quebec and had encouraged to escape on the ship to Boston. He was convinced, from information another slave in the Quebec port gave him, that his father was probably a salt worker on Grand Turk Island.268 Hopeful of being successful in his search, the boy, made plans to leave, aboard the rescue ship. “Pépo is on his way home,” she reassured herself.

Hephzibah did not reveal to Marie where the coin came from. Also, she did not know how she was going to explain to the captain that Pépo wanted to give it to him in return for the knives.

The two young women were looking at one side of the coin as they knelt on the cold hearth in front of the tiny glowing flames.

“Oh! It is stamped with the picture of a lion, Hephzibah. I once saw a real lion brought by ship from Africa in a cage at the animal menagerie in the cellar of a cabaret owner - the cabaret on St-Martin Street in Ville Marie.269 I paid dearly to see it. It was so strong and I waited to hear him roar but the beast yawned and I ran back up the stairs when I saw its teeth. Of course, everyone laughed at me.”

Hephzibah turned the coin over. She was about to tell Marie (who knew nothing 268

an archipelago of islands called the Turks and Caicos Islands today. there was once a temporary zoo installed by a man, named Joe Beef who imported exotic animals. He charged people to see them. He kept them in the cellar of his tavern.

269

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about her relatives) the meaning of the Algonquin word, ‘he who remembers his own people’. But she simply told her instead, “It is worth eleven grains of tray weight of farling alloy of gold.”

“Oh, Hephie! Are you not glad you found it?”

THE END SIT NOMEN DOMINI BENEDICTUM

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Synopsis: chapter ten Charles Emmanuel checks up on Pépo before going trapping with his friends.

Pépo, exhausted and lonely succumbs to the inner longing of his heart to leave New France when an opportunity affords itself for him to stowe away on a ship. He ends up in the city of Quebec.

Hephzibah inquires after her father and hears good reports.

When the Côtés return to Montreal they discover Pépo is gone.

Moving takes place in the first week in October and they are no sooner settled when the invitation comes for the Cotés to return to Montreal for the annual Company of Good Cheer dinner. Hephzibah accompanies them and afterwards is told of the announcement that the captives have been redeemed.

Eunice wants to stay with the Kanien’kahaka people, which sets Hephzibah to probing her own desires.

An assembly of the French Huguenots is held at the manor of the Seigneur d’Aigues-Vives where the Cotés are now living. Hephzibah and Warham are the subject of prayers and goodbyes and are then sent off in a canoe to Sorel. With her bag of souvenirs Hephzibah arrives and is soon in a convoy with her sisters and father and other captives travelling downriver to Quebec.

Hephzibah discovers that her father plans to take the family to Holland. Deeply disappointed, she tries to change his decision.

Samuel and Reverend Williams are at Quebec and get ready to leave with Esther and Warham on the ship of privateers, Captain Appleton and Captain Bonner. Fifty-

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seven captives board for Boston but the Blocks are staying in New France. Mister Block has decided it is the best choice for he and his family to remain in New France. Goodbyes are said.

The ship leaves on October 25th and arrives in Boston November 21st.

The Blocks return to Sorel where the St-Denis family welcome back Sarah and Elizabeth.

Then Hephzibah’s father takes her back to the Coté seigneurie where they also are welcomed. Captain Côté has a serious talk with Mister Block.

Pépo is a stowaway on the ship to Boston and intends to go in search of his parents in the Caribbean.

The story ends with a young woman, in whom the Lord delights (Hephzibah) searching with her lamp for a lost coin. She finds it and with the same joy as one finds in heaven over a single sinner who repents, she tells her friend, Marie, to rejoice with her.

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Epilogue All twenty-one of the teenagers who left Deerfield as captives, survived the ordeal. They were the most resilient, along with some men.

Pierre Maisonnat, a French privateer was released from the Boston prison in exchange for Deerfield hostages.

The brigantine rescue ship named “Hope” arrived in Boston November 21st, 1706 after a first failed attempt because of bad weather.

Eunice Williams married a man named, Arosen, at the Indian village of Kanatake and made her home in the Seigneury of Longueuil where she died much later, known to her neighbours as ‘Madame de Roguère’ or by her Mohawk name. She returned to New England for visits but was never persuaded to leave Canada. Hephzibah and the Block family are a representation only of the author’s research on Dutch and English families in New England and if they bear resemblance to actual historical figures, it is a satisfaction to the author. The author belongs to the Hoyt family ancestral line, which she discovered long after beginning to write on the subject.

Samuel, Stephen and Warham Williams returned and enrolled in the Boston Latin School, later to attend Harvard College and become Puritan ministers in the tradition of their forefathers. Warham graduated with a first degree and became pastor of the church at Waltham (near Boston). Another son, Stephen, began keeping a diary one year after his return to New England. He had spent a year with his captors and was befriended by a native boy his age. Nineteenth century author, Mary P. Wells-Smith, wrote his story in the form of two children’s novels, ‘The Boy Captive in Canada’ and ‘The Boy Captive from Old Deerfield.’ Many other works in English and in French have been written and may be found in the Deerfield Library or on the internet.

Esther Williams returned and lived, for a while, with her grandparents, the Stoddards. John Williams returned and helped rebuild the town of Deerfield where he died June 12, 1729, greatly loved and lamented of all the townspeople. A rainbow appeared the morning of December 28th 1706, the day he returned to rebuild the town.

He remarried in September1707 to Abigail Bissell, a widow from Connecticut and a first cousin of his deceased wife, Eunice.

Continuing to feel more and more threatened by the French and their Amerinidian allies, the New Englanders, who were sixteen times more numerous than their French neighbours, had orders from Queen Anne of England to avenge the attacks on places such as Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where one hundred English died in an attack. Fur traders in Albany opposed the attacks on Canada but they were in the minority.

This is only a story out of many untold stories of young captives of the French and Indian wars, of the Canadian black slaves from the Caribbean, many of whom went to live in England with their owners, of the hundreds of indigenous clans and tribes and of the French Huguenots like Marie Louise and Gilles.

In New France, an older generation of Canadian Huguenots continued to survive without having to abjure and become catholic. Before the King of France cancelled the human rights declarations of religion for Reformed Catholics, communities of Christians of the Reformed faith had formed in Canada. The same percentage of Reformed

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believers as could be counted in France settled in Canada. About 2000 of the 15,000 French immigrants who came to settle New France were of the Reformed religion in spite of later laws against such immigration.

In one of several attempts to conquer the French, militia from Boston attacked Port Royal, in May 1707. This could have been the direct result of a sermon, preached in Boston on March 6th, 1707, to the Governor and his assembly by John Williams, entitled ‘God in the Camp; or the Only Way for a People to Engage the Presence of God With Their Armies.’

The English had a hold on much of the trade to the West and the King of France, unable to pay his war debts, was allowing his colony of New France to be neglected. The King of France, it appears, saw the colonies of New France as a lost cause and left them to their own commanders. Tens of thousands of French were living in a vast territory but hundreds of thousands of English-speaking people were concentrated on the Atlantic coast.

Fort Louisbourg, on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, was built by the Canadians in the 1730’s and then taken by American militia from Boston in 1745. On the12th and 13th of September, 1759 at the Plains of Abraham (a meadow, now part of the city of Quebec) the French lost to the English who scaled the hills below Sillery and made a surprise appearance near the gates of Fort Saint Louis. The French gave themselves up with little resistance, having been under siege for three months. On the 10th of February, 1763, in the Treaty of Paris, the King of France gave Canada to the King of England, who was also head of the Anglican Church. Protestant services and ceremonies were held in the parish churches and people were free to marry across the two religions. Newly recruited French priests and missionaries were no longer seen coming on the ships to Canada. A large exodus of French aristocrats returned to France. The French language in Quebec today contains idioms and vowels that evolved in France but remain in Canada in their old forms. Thus, there is a difference in dialect between the two French-speaking groups.

Some writings, included in the French missionaries’ ‘Relations’ (journals), tell of the various tribes of indigenous peoples like the Bear tribe of Chagnan. The efforts of missionaries to Christianize these natives were in many ways successful. Those who did receive the news of the grace of God in Jesus Christ passed it onto many generations of indigenous peoples. These nevertheless had also to receive (with the message) the messengers, notably the alcohol traders and the smallpox carriers, the fur traders, the musket - carrying soldiers and a clergy that took Europe to them, sometimes before the gospel. Many baptized, native women died trying to maintain their marriages to the European men who already had European wives. Their “Métis” children were led and governed by those like European-born Charles-Emmanuel and Michel Accault.

One need only make a trip to Quebec to find in the convents and seminaries, the museums and parks, and in the people themselves hints of all the unwritten tales of which this is only one.

The ways of God are elevated. They are past finding out. We all fail before arriving at his glory, but his delight (Hephzibah) is in some of us from every tribe and every nation from whom he shines his light and by whom there is sometimes a taste of salty truth; by whom God’s Spirit blows for an instant in our sails, and we remember, in our hearts, that God is good and he rewards those who seek him.

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