noon
There the small habitant and the driver took up the picnic-baskets , and led the way through pathless growths of underbrush to a stream , so swift that it is said never to freeze , so deeply sprung that the summer never drinks it dry . A screen of water-growths bordered it ; and when this was passed , a wide open space revealed itself , with the ruin of the château in the midst . The pathos of long neglect lay upon the scene ; for here were evidences of gardens and bowery aisles in other times , and now , for many a year , desolation and the slow return of the wilderness . The mountain rising behind the château grounds showed the dying flush of the deciduous leaves among the dark green of the pines that clothed it to the crest ; a cry of innumerable crickets filled the ear of the dreaming noon . The ruin itself is not of impressive size , and it is a château by grace of the popular fancy rather than through any right of its own ; for it was , in truth , never more than the hunting-lodge of the king 's Intendant , Bigot , a man whose sins claim for him a lordly consideration in the history of Quebec , He was the last Intendant before the British conquest , and in that time of general distress he grew rich by oppression of the citizens , and by peculation from the soldiers . He built this pleasure-house here in the woods , and hither he rode out from Quebec to enjoy himself in the chase and the carouses that succeed the chase . Here , too , it is said , dwelt in secret the Huron girl who loved him , and who survives in the memory of the peasants as the murdered _ sauragesse _ ; and , indeed , there is as much proof that she was murdered as that she ever lived .