ments, or
complaining of hard times. The marketplace was full, and all were glad
at the termination of the terrible war, and hopeful of the happy effect
of peace in bringing plenty back again to the old market.

The people bustled up and down, testing their weak purses against their
strong desires to fill their baskets with the ripe autumnal fruits
and the products of field and garden, river and basse cour, which lay
temptingly exposed in the little carts of the marketmen and women who on
every side extolled the quality and cheapness of their wares.

There were apples from the Cote de Beaupre, small in size but
impregnated with the flavor of honey; pears grown in the old orchards
about Ange Gardien, and grapes worthy of Bacchus, from the Isle of
Orleans, with baskets of the delicious bilberries that cover the wild
hills of the north shore from the first wane of summer until late in the
autumn.

The drain of the war had starved out the butchers' stalls, but Indians
and hunters took their places for the nonce with an abundance of game
of all kinds, which had multiplied exceedingly during the years that
men had taken to killing Bostonnais and English instead of deer and wild
turkeys.

Fish was in especial abundance; the blessing of the old Jesuits still
rested on the waters of New France, and the fish swarmed metaphorically
with money in their mouths.

There were piles of speckled trout fit to be eaten by popes and kings,
taken in the little pure lakes and streams tributary to the Montmorency;
lordly salmon that swarmed in the tidal weirs along the shores of the
St. Lawrence, and huge eels, thick as the arm of the fisher who drew
them up from their rich river-beds.

There were sacks of meal ground in the banal mills of the seigniories
for the people's bread, but the old tinettes of yellow butter, the pride
of the good wives of Beauport and Lauzon, were rarely to be seen,
and commanded unheard-of prices. The hungry children who used to eat
tartines of bread buttered on both sides were now accustomed to the cry
of their frugal mother as she spread it thin as if it were gold-leaf:
"Mes enfants, take care of the butter!"

The Commissaries of the Army, in other words the agents of the Grand
Company, had swept the settlements far and near of their herds, and the
habitans soon discovered that the exposure for sale in the market of
the products of the dairy was speedily followed by a visit from the
purveyors of the army,