132 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Soon they became divided into two camps, the good and bad or the 

 bad and less bad. The one recognized no hiw but their own caprices, 

 and refused to obey the officers placed in charge of them. The others 

 Avere ranged on the side of order, such as they could maintain in such 

 circumstances and in such society. Bloody strifes followed, in which 

 nearly three fourths of the men perished. 



All this time the good father preached obedience and peace. Ee- 

 spected but not obej^ed, and often repulsed, he at least had the consolation 

 that none refused his ministrations in the hour of death. 



When at length the exiles were to be removed, he was very sick, 

 those about him indeed were looking every moment for his death. Thc}^ 

 Avished him to embark, but he besought them to allow him to remain on 

 the island. " I have no long time to live," he is represented as saying, 

 " perhaps only a few hours. I shall die here in the little hut which I 

 have constructed, in Avhich 1 have }) rayed for five years as the anchorets 

 of the desert. The winds and the sands will charge themselves with my 

 burial." 



Sorrowfully they bade him adieu and sailed away. However his 

 hour had not yet come. He recovered very quickly and lived many 

 years as an eremite on the island. He passed his time in prayer, medita- 

 tion, the care of his little garden, and the gathering of shell fish and 

 fruits, which, with his vegetables, formed his fare. Almost every year 

 shipwrecks afforded opportunities for him to exercise his charity. He 

 received visits from the fishermen of Canso, Sezembi*e (Sambro), La Heve 

 and other Acadian ports. He made them visit a way of the cross which 

 he had erected ; he aided them with his prayers and counsels, and 

 received from them the elements for the celebration of the mass. 



When he died and where he was buried is unknown. Eut his spirit 

 is said still to hover over this desolate region. The fishermen allege they 

 have often seen him marching at a slow pace along the borders of Ihe 

 lake or of the shore, or on the bank, as in his lifetime, reciting his 

 rosary ; or often standing or on his knees on the cliffs, examining the 

 sea tos>ed with tempest, watching and praying for the unfortunate 

 mariners in danger of perishing. 



Again they have seen him suspended, as in an ecstasy, in space, de- 

 lineated against the azure sky, or upon the shadow of the dark heaped-up 

 clouds or in the fog ; sometimes his hood removed and his hands lifted to 

 heaven as at the altar, or, again, his head covered, with his beads in one 

 hand and the right stretched out as if to bless, to succour and to absolve. 

 Again they have seen him in his dark robe of aerial drugget, girt 

 with the girdle of the seraphic St. Francis, appear upon the bars and 

 around the isle, gliding through the air as the resurrection bodies appear 

 and disappear, or as in an ast^umption to the infinite presence. By such 

 sights their spirits are revived and their hearts strengthened. 



