“Wake up, Robert, and breathe this air!  After our having been sealed up in a room all night the breeze is heavenly.”

The shutters were thrown back, and the hunter and Tayoga, fully dressed, stood by the windows.  The air, fresh, life-giving, coming over the great forests and the mighty river, was pouring into the room in streams, and Tayoga and Willet were facing it, in order that they might receive it straight upon their foreheads.  Robert joined them, and soon felt as if he had been created anew and stronger.

“I’ll never again sleep in a room closed tight and hard,” said Willet, “not even to protect my life.  I’ve roamed the free woods for so many years that I think another such experience would make me choke to death.”

“I’m not in love with it myself,” said Robert, “but it makes the world outside look all the grander and all the more beautiful.”

At their wish breakfast was served for them by Monsieur Jolivet in the garden, Willet insisting that for the present he could not stay any longer in a house.  Robert from his seat could see the end of the broken barb embedded in the wall, but neither mine host nor any of his assistants had yet noticed it.

Monsieur Jolivet was pleased that they should have such a brilliant day to begin their journey to Quebec, and he was telling them where they could sell their canoe and buy a good boat when Louis de Galisonniere appeared in the garden and presented them the compliments of the morning.  He looked so trim and so gay that he brought with him a cheerful breeze, and the three felt the effect of it, although they wondered at the nature of his errand there.  Robert invited him to join them at breakfast and he accepted their invitation, taking a roll and butter and a cup of coffee after the French custom which even then prevailed.

“I see that you’ve slept well,” he said, “and that the inn of Monsieur Jolivet is as kind to the Bostonnais as it is to the French and the Canadians.”

“Its hospitality to us could be no finer if we came from Paris itself, instead of the Province of New York,” said Robert.  “Our stay in Canada has been short, but most interesting.”

Monsieur Jolivet had gone into the inn, and de Galisonniere said: 

“Montreal is a fine town and I would not depreciate it in the presence of our host, but as I have told you before, our Quebec to which you are going is the true glory of New France.  My knowledge that you’re going there is the reason why I’ve come here this morning.”

“How is that?” asked Robert

“Because I received orders last night to depart in the Frontenac for Quebec, a journey that I undertake with great willingness, since it takes me where I wish to go.  I have also the authority of the commandant to ask your presence as guests for the voyage on board my vessel.  Until we French and you English actually go to war we might as well be friends.”