CHAPTER II.

Fit me with such weeds
As may beseem some well-reputed page.

SHAKSPEARE.


The tardy summer of the north burst forth in all its splendor on the
woods and scattered settlements of Acadia, and even the harassed
garrison at St. John's, revived under its inspiriting influence. La Tour
had been compelled to return to France in the autumn, for a
reinforcement and supplies, leaving the fort defended only by a hireling
force, which could scarcely muster fifty men, fit for active service.
They were a mixture of Scotch and French, Protestants and Catholics;
their personal and religious disputes kept them at continual variance;
and the death of an experienced officer, who had been left in command,
produced a relaxation of discipline, which threatened the most serious
consequences. The protracted absence of La Tour became a subject of
bitter complaint; and, as their stores, of every kind, gradually wasted
away, they began to talk loudly of throwing down their arms, and
abandoning their posts. In this posture of affairs, the courage and
firmness of Madame la Tour alone restrained them from open mutiny. With
an air of authority, which no one presumed to question, she assumed the
supreme command, and established a rigid discipline, which the boldest
dared not transgress. She daily witnessed their military exercises,
assigned to every man his post of duty, and voluntarily submitted to the
many privations which circumstances imposed on those beneath her.