The good Beaudry we paid to his satisfaction, and left to find lodging in one of the small houses by the water side; while Marc and I took our way up the long street with its white houses standing amid their apple trees. Having gone perhaps four or five furlongs, returning many a respectful salutation from the doorways as we passed, we then turned up the hill by a little lane which was bordered stiffly with the poplar trees of Lombardy, and in short space we came to a pleasant cottage in a garden, under shadow of the tall white church which stood sentinel over the Grand Pre roofs. The cottage had some apple trees behind it, and many late roses blooming in the garden. It was the home of the good Cure, Father Fafard, most faithful and most gentle of priests. With Father Fafard we lodged that night, and for some days thereafter. The Cure's round face grew unwontedly stern and anxious as we told him our adventures, and rehearsed the doings of the Black Abbe. He got up from time to time and paced the room, muttering once--"Alas that such a man should discredit our holy office! What wrath may he not bring down upon this land!"--and more to a like purport. My own house in Grand Pre, where Marc had inhabited of late, and where I was wont to pay my flitting visits, I judged well to put off my hands for the present, foreseeing that troublous times were nigh. I transferred it in Father Fafard's presence to a trusty villager by name Marquette, whom I could count upon to transfer it back to me as soon as the skies should clear again. I knew that if, by any fortune of war, English troops should come to be quartered in Grand Pre, they would be careful for the property of the villagers; but the house and goods of an enemy under arms, such would belike fare ill. I collected, also, certain moneys due me in the village, for I knew that the people were prosperous, and I did not know how long their prosperity might continue. This done, Marc and I set out for my own estate beside the yellow Canard. There I had rents to gather in, but no house to put off my hands. At the time when Acadie was ceded to England, a generation back, the house of the de Mers had been handed over to one of the most prosperous of our habitants, and with that same family it had ever since remained, yielding indeed a preposterously scant rental, but untroubled by the patient conqueror. My immediate destination was the Forge, where I expected to find Babin awaiting me with news and messages. At the Forge, too, I would receive payment from my tenants, and settle certain points which, as I had heard, were at dispute amongst them.