udal system in the heart of an American forest. Above the main
gate as they approached was a huge shield of wood with a coat of arms
painted upon it, a silver ground with a chevron ermine between three
coronets gules. At either corner a small brass cannon peeped through an
embrasure. As they passed the gate the guard inside closed it and
placed the huge wooden bars into position. A little crowd of men,
women, and children were gathered round the door of the chateau, and a
man appeared to be seated on a high-backed chair upon the threshold.

"You know my father," said the young man with a shrug of his shoulders.
"He will have it that he has never left his Norman castle, and that he
is still the Seigneur de la Noue, the greatest man within a day's ride
of Rouen, and of the richest blood of Normandy. He is now taking his
dues and his yearly oaths from his tenants, and he would not think it
becoming, if the governor himself were to visit him, to pause in the
middle of so august a ceremony. But if it would interest you, you may
step this way and wait until he has finished. You, madame, I will take
at once to my mother, if you will be so kind as to follow me."

The sight was, to the Americans at least, a novel one. A triple row of
men, women, and children were standing round in a semicircle, the men
rough and sunburned, the women homely and clean, with white caps upon
their heads, the children open-mouthed and round-eyed, awed into an
unusual quiet by the reverent bearing of their elders. In the centre,
on his high-backed carved chair, there sat an elderly man very stiff and
erect, with an exceedingly solemn face. He was a fine figure of a man,
tall and broad, with large strong features, clean-shaven and
deeply-lined, a huge beak of a nose, and strong shaggy eyebrows which
arched right up to the great wig, which he wore full and long as it had
been worn in France in his youth. On his wig was placed a white hat
cocked jauntily at one side with a red feather streaming round it, and
he wore a coat of cinnamon-coloured cloth with silver at the neck and
pockets, which was still very handsome, though it bore signs of having
been frayed and mended more than once. This, with black velvet
knee-breeches and high well-polished boots, made a costume such as De
Catinat had never before seen in the wilds of Canada.

As they watched, a rude husbandman walked forwards from the crowd, and
kneeling down upon a square of carpet pla