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The expedition to Hochelaga had been accomplished in twenty-two days. On returning to his anchorage before Quebec, Cartier found that his companions whom he had left there had not been idle. The ships, it will be remembered, lay moored close to the shore at the mouth of the little river Lairet, a branch of the St Charles.
A warm, soft wind blew gently down the little valley of the Lairet, which wound and rippled over its glossy brown pebbles, murmuring a quiet song down in its hollow bed. Tufts of spiry grass clung to its steep banks, and a few wild flowers peeped out of nooks among the sere fallen leaves that lay upon the still greensward on each shore of the little rivulet.
The Emerillon was left at anchor out in the St Lawrence, in readiness for the continuance of the journey, but the two larger vessels were moored at the point where a rivulet, the Lairet, runs into the St Charles. It was on the left bank of the Lairet that Cartier's fort was presently constructed for his winter occupancy.
This "little river coming from a lake in the interior," is evidently the river St. Charles, called Ste. Croix by Cartier. Champlain's conjectures about the place where Jacques Cartier wintered, are certainly correct. It was near this spot also that the Jesuits erected their convent of Notre Dame des Anges in 1626, namely, at two hundred feet from the shore, where the river Lairet joins the St.
"That is to be the nest of as happy a pair of lovers as ever went to housekeeping; and I promised to keep soberly by your side as I am doing," said he, mischievously twitching a stray lock of her dark hair, "and talk with you on the pretty banks of the Lairet about the old mansion." "Yes, Pierre, that was your promise, if I would walk this way with you. Where shall we begin?"
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