k of my own baby
when I hear him, always the same, always so sorrowful. Poor baby!

"Yes, it is a baby. Across there you might see, but the storm darkens
everything, yonder toward Gaspe, where the little mother
lived--_pauvre mere_. She was only a child, innocent and good and
happy, when he came--the great lord, the _Grand Seigneur_, from
France--came with the Commandant to Quebec and then to Tadousac.

"She loved him, loved him and forgot--forgot her father and
mother--forgot the good name they gave her--forgot the innocence that
made her beautiful--forgot the pure Mother and the good God, for him
and his love. She went to Quebec with him, but the Cure had not
blessed them in the church.

"Then the baby came. That is the baby who cries out there in the
storm. The _Grand Seigneur_ killed the little baby, killed it to save
her from disgrace, killed it without baptism, and it cries and wails
out there, _pauvre enfant_.

"The mother? She is here, too, in the storm. She has been here for
more than two hundred years listening to her baby cry. Poor mother.
The baby calls her and she wanders through the storm to find him. But
she never sees, only hears him cry for her--and God. Till the great
Day of Judgment will the baby cry, and she--_pauvre mere_--will pay
the price of her sin, pay it out of her empty mother heart and hungry
mother arms, that will not be filled. You hear the soft wind from the
shore battle with the great wind from the Gulf? Perhaps it is she,
_pauvre mere_--perhaps.

"The _Grand Seigneur_? He never comes, for he died unrepentant and
unpardoned. The lost do not return to Earth and Hope. He never comes.
Only the mother comes--the mother who weeps and seeks, and hears the
baby cry."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Near the mouth of the St. Lawrence can be heard a sound
like wailing whenever there is a great storm. The people call it Le
Braillard de la Magdeleine and countless tales are told concerning
it.

THE LEGEND OF DESCHAMPS

From Tadousac to the far-off Lake of Saint John the rock-bound
Saguenay rolls through a mystic country, sublime in natural beauty,
and alive with traditions, legends and folk-lore tales. Ghosts of the
past people its shores, phantom canoes float down the river of
mystery; and disembodied spirits troop back to earth at the dreamer's
call; traders, trappers, soldiers, women strong in love and valor,
heroes in the long ago, and saintly missionaries offering up mortal
life that