Joshua must have gone down into the mine with the entire keg of black powder, determined to unearth the vanished vein of silver. His rashness had brought the whole mine in on him and opened up an underâground stream to boot.
âThatâs the last of him, I reckon,â Tom said.
âItâs his mine now for sure,â Bill said.
Twenty years later, a pair of local fisherman working a fish weir off of Red Head heard a persistent tap-tap-tap, like a man bangâing a sledge deep in the darkness of the mine. Since then, folks around Red Head Harbour swear that in the woods they can hear a strange repetitive pounding, like the sound of a man banging out a hole for a powder blast.
Is it the ghost of young Joshua hunting for his missing silver lode? The answer to this question remains as elusive as the silver vein that ran away from Bill and Tom and Joshua like a dog in the night.
9
A R OPE FOR
M ADAME
L A T OUR
SAINT JOHN
Shakespeare tells us that all the world is a stage and all the men and women upon it are merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and their cues, and one person can play many parts. Consider then, the life and death of Saint Johnâs Madame La Tour.
Françoise Marie Jacquelin was de-scribed as a beauty by all who knew her. There was something in her eyes, something that burned and would not be beaten. She was, from all accounts, a successful actress, treading the theatârical stages of Paris with a conquerorâs bearing. Still, time creeps and steals from us all. At the age of thirty-two, Françoise became worried. She wasnât being offered the lead roles that she had been accustomed to any longer. In fact, she wasnât being offered any roles at all.
So she looked for another offer. She accepted a marriage proâposal that was brokered by a reputable Parisian agency from a man she had never met. His name was Charles St. Etienne de La Tour. He was a French fur trader and seigneur, the holder of land originally granted to the king of France. The marriage offered security to a woman who was running out of choices. She sailed to meet him at his palisaded wooden stronghold at the mouth of the Saint John River in New Brunswick.
La Tour had grown up in the Maritimes, arriving on the east coast at the age of fourteen, in the company of his father. Back then, as you know, the people of Acadia were tossed like driftwood upon a raging sea, yet La Tour and his father stubbornly remained where they had taken root. La Tour grew up and was appointed to serve as the governor of Acadia by the King of France, Louis xiii. The seigneur built Fort La Tour in 1632, establishing the areaâs first European settlement.
The trouble began when a bureaucratic foul-up and the application of many francs to a few slyly greased palms led to the awarding of a second governorship to La Tourâs archrival, the Sieur DâAulnay Charnisay. DâAulnay ensconced himself within a stronghold similar to La Tourâs directly across the Bay of Fundy, in Port Royal, Nova Scotia. This feud was brewing as Françoise Marie Jacquelin sailed across the Atlantic and braved the roaring Fundy waves as she headed into the mouth of the Saint John River.
She took to the role of matriarch and wife as if she were born to it, becoming an equal partner in La Tourâs trading business and accompanying him on his journeys. It is said that she had a fine eye for pelts and could haggle with the best of them.
When DâAulnay tarnished the La Toursâ reputation in France by declaring that the pair had crossed over to the British, a death sentence was placed upon their heads, should they be caught within French borders. Even so, Madame La Tour journeyed to France in 1642. She appealed to the throne, swearing that both she and her husband had turned down all British advances. In the end the monarchy believed her and the death sentence was overturned.
At one point during the
âThatâs the last of him, I reckon,â Tom said.
âItâs his mine now for sure,â Bill said.
Twenty years later, a pair of local fisherman working a fish weir off of Red Head heard a persistent tap-tap-tap, like a man bangâing a sledge deep in the darkness of the mine. Since then, folks around Red Head Harbour swear that in the woods they can hear a strange repetitive pounding, like the sound of a man banging out a hole for a powder blast.
Is it the ghost of young Joshua hunting for his missing silver lode? The answer to this question remains as elusive as the silver vein that ran away from Bill and Tom and Joshua like a dog in the night.
9
A R OPE FOR
M ADAME
L A T OUR
SAINT JOHN
Shakespeare tells us that all the world is a stage and all the men and women upon it are merely players. They have their exits and their entrances and their cues, and one person can play many parts. Consider then, the life and death of Saint Johnâs Madame La Tour.
Françoise Marie Jacquelin was de-scribed as a beauty by all who knew her. There was something in her eyes, something that burned and would not be beaten. She was, from all accounts, a successful actress, treading the theatârical stages of Paris with a conquerorâs bearing. Still, time creeps and steals from us all. At the age of thirty-two, Françoise became worried. She wasnât being offered the lead roles that she had been accustomed to any longer. In fact, she wasnât being offered any roles at all.
So she looked for another offer. She accepted a marriage proâposal that was brokered by a reputable Parisian agency from a man she had never met. His name was Charles St. Etienne de La Tour. He was a French fur trader and seigneur, the holder of land originally granted to the king of France. The marriage offered security to a woman who was running out of choices. She sailed to meet him at his palisaded wooden stronghold at the mouth of the Saint John River in New Brunswick.
La Tour had grown up in the Maritimes, arriving on the east coast at the age of fourteen, in the company of his father. Back then, as you know, the people of Acadia were tossed like driftwood upon a raging sea, yet La Tour and his father stubbornly remained where they had taken root. La Tour grew up and was appointed to serve as the governor of Acadia by the King of France, Louis xiii. The seigneur built Fort La Tour in 1632, establishing the areaâs first European settlement.
The trouble began when a bureaucratic foul-up and the application of many francs to a few slyly greased palms led to the awarding of a second governorship to La Tourâs archrival, the Sieur DâAulnay Charnisay. DâAulnay ensconced himself within a stronghold similar to La Tourâs directly across the Bay of Fundy, in Port Royal, Nova Scotia. This feud was brewing as Françoise Marie Jacquelin sailed across the Atlantic and braved the roaring Fundy waves as she headed into the mouth of the Saint John River.
She took to the role of matriarch and wife as if she were born to it, becoming an equal partner in La Tourâs trading business and accompanying him on his journeys. It is said that she had a fine eye for pelts and could haggle with the best of them.
When DâAulnay tarnished the La Toursâ reputation in France by declaring that the pair had crossed over to the British, a death sentence was placed upon their heads, should they be caught within French borders. Even so, Madame La Tour journeyed to France in 1642. She appealed to the throne, swearing that both she and her husband had turned down all British advances. In the end the monarchy believed her and the death sentence was overturned.
At one point during the
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