1632-33.] WINTER AT THE MISSION-HOUSE. 19 



or translated the Pater Noster into blundering AK 

 gonquin. The water in the cask beside the fii'e 

 froze nightly, and the ice was broken every morn- 

 ing with hatchets. The blankets of the two priests 

 were fringed with the icicles of their congealed 

 breath, and the frost lay in a thick coating on the 

 lozenge-shaped glass of their cells. ^ 



By day, Le Jeune and his companion practised 

 with snow-shoes, mth all the mishaps which at- 

 tend beginners, — the trippings, the falls, and head- 

 long dives into the soft drifts, amid the laughter of 

 the Indians. Their seclusion was by no means a 

 solitude. Bands of Montagnais, with their sledges 

 and dogs, often passed the mission-house on theii 

 way to hunt the moose. They once invited De 

 None to go with them ; and he, scarcely less eager 

 than Le Jeune to learn their language, readily con- 

 sented. In two or three weeks he appeared, sick, 

 famished, and half dead with exhaustion. " Not 

 ten priests in a hundred," writes Le Jeune to his 

 Superior, " could bear this winter life with the sav- 

 ages." But what of that? It was not for them to 

 falter. They were but instruments in the hands of 

 God, to be used, broken, and thrown aside, if such 

 should be His will.^ 



An Indian made Le Jeune a present of two small 



1 Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 14, 15. 



2 " Voila, mon Reuerend Fere, vn eschantillon de ce qu'il faut souf- 

 frir courant apres les Sauuages. ... II faut prendre sa vie, et tout ce 

 qu'on a, et le letter a I'abandon, pour alnsl dire, se contentant d'vne crolx 

 blen grosse et bien pesante pour toute richesse. II est bien vraj que 

 Dieu ne se laisse point vainere, et que plus on qultte, plus on trouue : 

 plus on perd, plus on gaigne : mals Dleu se cache par fois, et alors le 

 Calice est bien amer." — Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 19. 



