18 PAUL LE JEUNE. [1632-33. 



he made his addresses. On this, he turned his 

 steps towprds the mission-house, and, being unfitted 

 by his French education for supporting himself by 

 hunting, begged food and shelter from the priests. 

 Le Jeune gratefully accepted him as a gift vouch- 

 safed by Heaven to his prayers, persuaded a lackey 

 at the fort to give him a cast-off suit of clothes, 

 promised him maintenance, and installed him as 

 his teacher. 



Seated on wooden stools by the rough table 

 in the refectory, the priest and the Indian pursued 

 their studies. " How thankful I am," writes Le 

 Jeune, " to those who gave me tobacco last year ! 

 At every difficulty I give my master a piece of it, 

 to make him more attentive." ^ 



Meanwhile, winter closed in with a severity rare 

 even in Canada. The St. Lawrence and the St. 

 Charles were hard frozen ; rivers, forests, and 

 rocks were mantled alike in dazzling sheets of 

 snow. The humble mission-house of Notre-Dame 

 des Anges was half buried in the drifts, which, 

 heaped up in front where a path had been dug 

 through them, rose two feet above the low eaves. 

 The priests, sitting at night before the blazing 

 logs of their wide-throated chimney, heard the 

 trees in the neighboring forest cracking with frost, 

 with a sound like the report of a pistol. Le 

 Jeune's ink froze, and his fingers were benumbed, 

 as he toiled at his declensions and conjugations, 



1 Relation, 1633, 7. He continues : " le ne s^aurois assez rendre 

 graces a Nostre Seigneur de cet heureux rencontre. . . . Que Dieu 

 soit beny pour vn iamais, sa prouidence est adorable, et sa bont6 n'a point 

 de limites " 



