ng or
knitting, and perhaps singing a lullaby, as she rocked the cradle,
little recking that ere the morning dawned the hamlet would lie in
ashes, and the tomahawk of the Indian be buried in her babies' hearts;
but such was the case, for after forty-eight hours of fiendish cruelty,
death and desolation reigned for miles along the shores. Where the blue
smoke had curled up among the trees were only the smoking ruins of
hearths and homes, surrounded with sights and suggestions of different
forms of death, which even the chronicler, two hundred years after, is
fain to pass by in shuddering silence.

The crumbling remains of a fortified seigniorial chateau, within sight
of the Rapids of Lachine, a tradition asserts, was in the year 1668 the
home of La Salle, who was one of the most excellent men of his day.
Leaving his fair demesne, which the Sulpicians had conferred upon him,
and the home which to-day is slowly falling to decay among the
apple-orchards along the river side, he too followed his thirst for
adventure into untrodden fields.

There is a well-founded legend that the old chimney attached thereto was
built by Champlain in his trading post of logs. It is of solid masonry,
and is sixty years older than the walls which surround it. The wide
fireplace has a surface of fifty square feet, and is the most
interesting piece of architecture in all Canada. The snowflakes of
almost three hundred winters have fallen into its cavernous depths since
these stones and mortar were laid. When Champlain stood by its hearth,
as its first blaze, lighted by tinder and flint, roared up to the
sky--William Shakespeare was still writing his sublime lines, Queen
Elizabeth had lain but twelve years in her marble tomb, and the Chateau
de Ramezay was not to be built for a hundred years to come. Often in the
two years during which it had for La Salle the sacredness of the home
fireside, its light must have fallen on his handsome young face, and
flowing curls, as he laid out plans for his palisaded village, and
dreamt of the golden lands towards the setting sun. He was a true
patriot, and literally gave his life for the advancement of his country,
being murdered in the Lower Mississippi by one of his own men while
endeavouring to extend its territory.

[Illustration: HOME OF LA SALLE.

COPYRIGHT.]

Posterity is not true to the memory of these great pioneers, for the
elements beat upon the roofless timbers, the north wind sweeps the
heart