First published in 1896, this novel blends daring, romance and history into a thrilling adventure that.takes place in the years leading up to the 1755 expulsion of the Acadians.
Jean de Mer, an "Acadian Ranger," is the unofficial seigneur of lands around Minas Basin. After three years' absence he returns to find his son Marc in trouble with a French partisan leader -- the Black Abbé. Taken captive, Marc is to be tried as a spy. Father and son make a quick escape, and wish to expose the priest's treachery. When Marc is wounded, Jean sets out on a perilous canoe journey with a young English woman to rescue her child from the Black Abbé. Roberts brings the tensions between French and English to the very heart of this novel.