"Nothing is impossible, Jean. All good is possible and all bad. We were smugglers, certainly, for fun at first, and afterwards for profit. Talk of farming, cultivating the soil--that is a slow way of earning one’s living, not to speak of making a fortune. But free trade, smuggling, if you like, going out of a dark night in a little boat, slipping up the river with the tide, landing something on the quays of the St. Charles, slipping down with the ebb, arriving in the early morning to see the coming of the dawn, the lifting of the mist and the first glow of sunrise on the top of Mount Ste. Anne--Jean, it was glorious. I like to think of it. If only those days could come again!" "And dangerous, Monsieur Gamache?" "Dangerous? Certainly. That was the glory of it. But when one is found out one goes to prison, perhaps, or one crosses the mountains to the parish of St. Placide, where the past may be forgotten." "Monsieur Gamache," said Jean, "I can well believe that my father was a smuggler, for people had different ideas about such things in those days, and the adventure of that life must have appealed to him, but as to the profit--that is not quite so credible. He was a poor man when he came to St. Placide, and the farm he created himself, cut all the trees with his own axe, dug the ground with a spade, carried hay and oats on his back up the hills. No, Monsieur, my father did not profit by the trade of which you speak." "That is true, Jean, he did it for fun, for adventure, for the beauty and glory of it, and he would not touch one _sou_ of the profit. But he took the punishment, the exile, just the same. Have I not said that he was a valiant man?" These were strange tales that Jean was hearing that night, beside that weird pool, while the stars came out, and the new moon rose above the circle of the trees and cast a trembling brightness on the water below. The sound of the river filled the air as though trying to drown the voice of Michel Gamache as he told of the lawless exploits of former days, when Toussaint Giroux and he were young and sowing to the wind. It was almost sacrilege in Jean to be hearing of such doings, yet he could not but feel a thrill of pride as he thought of his father, in the hey-day of life, high-spirited, strong and brave, going into danger with a smile on his lips and a brightness in his eye, glorying in adventure for itself alone, and scorning both the reward and the penalty. In his heart Jean was wishing that he had been there and hoping that like opportunities might come again. Evidently Michel Gamache was corrupting the morals of the son as he had formerly corrupted those of the father. Perhaps he was a sorcerer after all, a servant of Satan, the enemy of souls.