As I sat now looking down into the village I wondered if Yvonne would have a welcome for me. As I remembered, she had ever shown goodwill toward me, so far as consisted with maidenly reserve. She had seemed ever ready for tales of my adventure, and even for my verses. As I thought of it there dawned now upon my heart a glimmering hope that there had been in that last unforgotten look of hers more warmth of meaning than maid Yvonne had been willing to confess. This thought went to my heart and I sprang up in a kind of sudden intoxication, to go straightway down into the village. As I did so I caught the flutter of a white frock among the trees of the De Lamourie orchard. Thereupon my breath came with a quickness that was troublesome, and to quiet it I paused, looking out across the marshes and the tide toward Blomidon. Then for the first time I observed a great bank of cloud that had arisen behind the Cape. It was black and menacing, ragged and fiery along its advancing crest. Its shadow lay already upon the marshes and the tide. It crept smoothly upon the village. And at this moment, from the skirts of a maple grove on the summit of the hill behind me, came a great and bell-like voice, crying: “Woe, woe to Acadie the Fair, for the hour of her desolation cometh!” Chapter II Grûl’s Warning “These ten years,” I exclaimed to myself angrily (for I love not to have a dream rudely broken), “has Grûl been prophesying woe; and I see not that aught comes of it save greater strength to his lungs.” I turned my back upon the valley and watched the singular figure that drew near. It was a shrewd and mysterious madman whom all Acadie had known for the past ten years as “Grûl.” Whether that was his real name or a pseudonym of his own adoption no one knew. Whence he had come no one knew. Wherefore he stayed in Acadie, and so faithfully prophesied evil to our fair land, no one knew. The reason of his madness—and the method which sometimes seemed to lurk beneath it—no one could confidently guess. At least, such ignorance in regard to this fantastic fool seemed general throughout the country. But there lay here and there a suspicion that the Black Abbé, the indomitable La Garne, Bigot’s tool and the people’s dread, knew more of Grûl’s madness than other folk might dream. It was whispered that La Garne, who seemingly feared no man else, feared Grûl. It was certain that whenever any scheme of the Black Abbé’s came to naught Grûl’s hand would appear somewhere in the wreck of it.