The first house of St. Jean-Port-Joli was that of a rich _habitant_, a sergeant in Captain D'Haberville's company. Frequently during his vacations had Archie lunched at this house with Jules and his sister. With what a pang he recalled the eager hospitality of these people. On their arrival, Mother Dupont and her daughters used to run to the dairy, the barn, the garden, for eggs, butter, cream, parsley, and chervil, to make them pancakes and herb omelettes. Father Dupont and his sons would hasten to put up the horses and give them a generous measure of oats. While Mother Dupont was preparing the meal, the young people would make a hasty toilet. Then they would get up a dance, and skip merrily to the notes of the violin which screeched beneath the old sergeant's bow. In spite of the remonstrances of Blanche, Jules would turn everything upside down and tease everybody to death. He would snatch the frying-pan from the hands of Mother Dupont, throw his arm around her waist, and compel her, in spite of her struggles, to dance with him; and these good people would shout with laughter till one would think they could never get too much of the racket. All these things Lochiel went over in the bitterness of his soul, and a cold sweat broke out on his brow as he ordered the burning of this hospitable home. Almost all the houses in the first concession of St. Jean-Port-Joli were by this time in ruins, yet there came no order to desist. About sunset, however, coming to the little river Port Joli, a few arpents from the D'Haberville place, Lochiel took it upon himself to halt his company. He climbed the hillside, and there, in sight of the manor, he waited; he waited like a criminal upon the scaffold, hoping against hope that a reprieve may come at the last moment. His heart was big with tender memories as he gazed upon the dwelling where for ten years the exiled orphan had been received as a child of the house. Sorrowfully he looked down on the silent village which had been so full of life when last he saw it. Some pigeons fluttering over the buildings and from time to time alighting on the roofs appeared to be the only living creatures about the manor. Sighing, he repeated the words of Ossian: "'Selma, thy halls are silent. There is no sound in the woods of Morven. The wave tumbles alone in the coast. The silent beam of the sun is on the field.' "_Oh! Oui! Mes amis!_" cried Lochiel, in the language that he loved, "_vos salons sont maintenant, hélas! deserts et silencieux!_ There is no sound upon this hill which so lately was echoing your bright voices. I hear only the ripples lapping upon the sand. One pale ray from the setting sun is all that lights your meadows.