Sitting there in the golden sunshine, the blue sky above him, the blue waters below,--friends whom he loved around him, mirth in every eye, gaiety on every tongue,--how could Le Gardeur but smile as the music of the boatmen brought back a hundred sweet associations? Nay, he laughed, and to the inexpressible delight of Amélie and Pierre, who watched every change in his demeanor, united in the chorus of the glorious boat-song. A few hours of this pleasant voyaging brought the little fleet of canoes under the high bank, which from its summit slopes away in a wide domain of forests, park, and cultivated fields, in the midst of which stood the high-pointed and many-gabled Manor House of Tilly. Upon a promontory--as if placed there for both a land and sea mark, to save souls as well as bodies--rose the belfry of the Chapel of St. Michael, overlooking a cluster of white, old-fashioned cottages, which formed the village of St. Michael de Tilly. Upon the sandy beach a crowd of women, children, and old men had gathered, who were cheering and clapping their hands at the unexpected return of the lady of the Manor with all their friends and relatives. The fears of the villagers had been greatly excited for some days past by exaggerated reports of the presence of Iroquois on the upper waters of the Chaudière. They not unnaturally conjectured, moreover, that the general call for men on the King's corvée, to fortify the city, portended an invasion by the English, who, it was rumored, were to come up in ships from below, as in the days of Sir William Phipps with his army of New Englanders, the story of whose defeat under the walls of Quebec was still freshly remembered in the traditions of the Colony. “Never fear them!” said old Louis, the one-eyed pilot. “It was in my father's days. Many a time have I heard him tell the story--how, in the autumn of the good year 1690, thirty-four great ships of the Bostonians came up from below, and landed an army of ventres bleus of New England on the flats of Beauport. But our stout Governor, Count de Frontenac, came upon them from the woods with his brave soldiers, habitans, and Indians, and drove them pell-mell back to their boats, and stripped the ship of Admiral Phipps of his red flag, which, if you doubt my word,--which no one does,--still hangs over the high altar of the Church of Notre Dame des Victoires. Blessed be our Lady, who saved our country from our enemies,--and will do so again, if we do not by our wickedness lose her favor! But the arbre sec--the dry tree--still stands upon the Point de Levis, where the Boston fleet took refuge before beating their retreat down the river again,--and you know the old prophecy: that while that tree stands, the English shall never prevail against Quebec!” Much comforted by this speech of old Louis the pilot, the villagers of Tilly rushed to the beach to receive their friends.