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But Beaubassin had not had the experience with Le Loutre that had fallen to the lot of other settlements, and the unwise ones hardened their hearts in their decision. As Le Loutre, with his little party, entered the village, he met Antoine Lecorbeau setting out for Beausejour with a huge cartload of household goods, drawn by a yoke of oxen.
On the following day Lecorbeau brought his wife and family back to the cottage under the willows, and Pierre was reunited to his beloved "petite." Isle au Tantramar was soon deserted, for the families whose homes at Beausejour had just been burnt returned to camp amid the ashes and erected rude temporary shelters.
That night, because Antoine Lecorbeau was a leader among the villagers of Beaubassin, he and his family had shelter in a small but warm stable where some of the officers' horses were quartered. Their goods were stacked and huddled together in the open air, and Pierre and his father cut boughs and spread blankets to cover them from the weather.
On the night when Lecorbeau, Pierre, and the old sergeant were holding the conversation of which I have recorded a fragment, the fleet containing the Massachusetts volunteers were already at Annapolis. A day or two later they were sailing up the restless tide of Fundy. On the first day of June they were sighted from the cloud-topped mountain of Chepody, or "Chapeau Dieu."
As Pierre Lecorbeau drove his ox cart up the slope of Beausejour toward the commandant's cabin, where his father was awaiting him, he halted and looked back while the blowing oxen took breath. His mother, who had stayed to the last, was sitting in the cart on a pile of her treasures.
"I am too lenient to such as you," cried the priest, in a voice grown suddenly high and terrible. "I know you. I have long suspected you. Your heart is with the English. You shall steep your hands in the blood of those accursed, or I will make you and yours as if you had never been!" Antoine Lecorbeau held his countenance unmoved and bowed his head.
The blow had fallen, even that which Lecorbeau had most dreaded. The children crept forth from their corners and looked wonderingly at their sobbing mother. "O, you will certainly be killed," wailed the good woman, thoroughly frightened. "There is little danger of that," rejoined Lecorbeau. "The abbe prefers to strike where there is small likelihood of a return blow.
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