ery little of La Tour's
second in command, for he had been away with La Tour on expeditions
much of the time she had spent in Acadia. Edelwald was the only man of
the fortress called by his baptismal name, yet it was spoken with
respect and deference like a title. He was of the family of De Born. In
an age when religion made political ties stronger than the ties of
nature, the La Tours and De Borns had fought side by side through
Huguenot wars. When a later generation of La Tours were struggling for
foothold in the New World, it was not strange that a son of the De
Borns, full of songcraft and spirit inherited from some troubadour
soldier of the twelfth century, should turn his face to the same land.
From his mother Edelwald took Norman and Saxon strains of blood. He had
left France the previous year and made his voyage in the same ship with
Madame La Tour and her mother-in-law, and he was now La Tour's trusted
officer.

Edelwald could take up any stringed instrument, strike melody out of it
and sing songs he had himself made. But such pastimes were brief in
Acadia. There was other business on the frontier; sailing, hunting,
fighting, persuading or defying men, exploring unyielded depths of
wilderness. The joyous science had long fallen out of practice. But
while the grim and bloody records of our early colonies were being made,
here was an unrecorded poet in Acadia. La Tour held this gift of
Edelwald's in light esteem. He was a man so full of action and of
schemes for establishing power that he touched only the martial side of
the young man's nature, though in that contact was strong comradeship.
Every inmate of the fortress liked Edelwald. He mediated between
commandant and men, and jealousies and bickerings disappeared before
him.

"It would be better," murmured Antonia, breaking the stately silence by
Lady Dorinda's fire, "if Mynheer Van Corlaer journeyed on to Montreal
and returned here before any marriage takes place."

"Think of the labor you will thereby put upon him," exclaimed Marie. "I
speak for Monsieur Corlaer and not for myself," she added; "for by that
delay I should happily keep you until summer. Besides, the priest we
have here with us himself admits that the town of Montreal is little to
look upon. Ville-Marie though it be named by the papists, what is it but
a cluster of huts in the wilderness?"

"I was six months preparing to be wedded to Mynheer Bronck," remembered
Antonia.

"And will Monsieu