CHAPTER VI

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

IN July the hay was maturing, and by the middle of August it was
only a question of awaiting a few dry days to cut and-store it. But
after many weeks of fine weather the frequent shifts of wind which
are usual in Quebec once more ruled the skies.

Every morning the men scanned the heavens and took counsel together.
"The wind is backing to the sou'east. Bad luck! Beyond question it
will rain again," said Edwige Legare with a gloomy face. Or it was
old Chapdelaine who followed the movement of the white clouds that
rose above the tree-tops, sailed in glad procession across the
clearing, and disappeared behind the dark spires on the other side.

"If the nor'west holds till to-morrow we shall begin," he announces.
But next day the wind had backed afresh, and the cheerful clouds of
yesterday, now torn and shapeless, straggling in disorderly rout,
seemed to be fleeing like the wreckage of a broken army.

Madame Chapdelaine foretold inevitable misfortune. "Mark my words,
we shall not have good hay-making weather. They say that down by the
end of the lake some people of the same parish have gone to law with
one another. Of a certainty the good God does not like that sort of
thing!"