So back came Oncle Jazon with his pleasing
report, much disappointed that he had not been able to stir up
some sort of trouble.
It was Helm's turn to laugh.
"What did I tell you?" he cried, in a jolly mood, slapping
Beverley on the shoulder. "I knew mighty well that it was all a
big story with nothing in it. What on earth would the English be
thinking about to march an army away off down here only to capture
a rotten stockade and a lot of gabbling parly-voos?"
Beverley, while he did not feel quite as confident as his chief,
was not sorry that things looked a little brighter than he had
feared they would turn out to be. Secretly, and without
acknowledging it to himself, he was delighted with the life he was
living. The Arcadian atmosphere of Vincennes clothed him in its
mists and dreams. No matter what way the weather blew its breath,
cold or warm, cloudy or fair, rain or snow, the peace in his soul
changed not. His nature seemed to hold all of its sterner and
fiercer traits in abeyance while he domiciled himself absolutely
within his narrow and monotonous environment. Since the dance at
the river house a new content, like a soft and diffused sweetness,
had crept through his blood with a vague, tingling sense of joy.
He began to like walking about rather aimlessly in the town's
narrow streets, with the mud-daubed cabins on either hand.
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