"You must then go directly to the house and eat some supper," said
Antonia, speaking her first thought but reserving her second: "Our
people will take to the fields when they see the poor little creature by
daylight, and as for the swan, it is worse than a drove of Mynheer's
Indians."

"I am not eating to-night, I am riding," answered Le Rossignol, bold in
mystery while the moon made half uncertain the draggled state of
Shubenacadie's feathers. She placed her hands on his back and pressed
him downward, as if his plumage foamed up from an over-full
packing-case. Shubenacadie waddled a step or two reluctantly, and
squatted, spreading his wings and curving his head around to look at
her. The dwarf sat upon him as upon a throne, stroking his neck with her
right hand while she talked. She seemed a part of the river's whisper,
or of that world of summer night insects which shrilled around.

"I have come to tell you about the death of D'Aulnay de Charnisay," said
this pigmy.

"We have long had that news," responded Antonia, "and worse which
followed it."

Madame Van Corlaer despised Charles La Tour for repossessing himself of
all he had lost and becoming the first power in Acadia by marrying
D'Aulnay's widow.

"No ear," declared the dwarf, "hath ever heard how D'Aulnay de Charnisay
died."

"He was stuck in a bog," said Antonia.

"He was stuck in no bog," said Le Rossignol, "for I alone was beside him
at the time. And I ride from Port Royal to tell thee the whole of it and
free my mind, lest I be obliged to fling it in my new lady's face the
next time she speaks of his happy memory. Widows who take second
husbands have no sense about the first one."

Antonia slightly coughed. It is not pleasant to have your class
disapproved of, even by a dwarf. And she did still secretly respect her
first husband's prophecy. Had it not been fulfilled on the friend she
best loved, if not on the husband she took?

"Mynheer Van Corlaer will soon be home from New Amsterdam, whither he
made a voyage to confer with the governor," said Antonia. "Let me take
you to the house, where we can talk at our ease."

"I talk most at my ease on Shubenacadie's back," answered Le Rossignol,
holding her swan's head and rubbing her cheek against his bill. "You
will not keep me a moment at Fort Orange. I fell out of patience with
every place while we lived so long in poverty at that stockade at the
head of Fundy Bay."

"Did you live there long?" inqui