Postlude. A Tide-Creek 273




LADY OF FORT ST. JOHN.




PRELUDE.

AT THE HEAD OF THE BAY OF FUNDY.


The Atlantic rushed across a mile or two of misty beach, boring into all
its channels in the neck of Acadia. Twilight and fog blurred the
landscape, but the eye could trace a long swell of earth rising
gradually from the bay, through marshes, to a summit with a small
stockade on its southern slope. Sentinels pacing within the stockade
felt the weird influence of that bald land. The guarded spot seemed an
island in a sea of vapor and spring night was bringing darkness upon it.

The stockade inclosed a single building of rough logs clumsily put
together, and chinked with the hard red soil. An unhewn wall divided
the house into two rooms, and in one room were gathered less than a
dozen men-at-arms. Their officer lay in one of the cupboard-like bunks,
with his hands clasped under his head. Some of the men were already
asleep; others sat by the hearth, rubbing their weapons or spreading