The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure

by Robert Neilson Stephens

  CHAPTER X.

  "BY FLOOD AND FIELD."

  The silent officer was indeed Sir Guy Carleton, governor of Canada, whohad eluded the captors of Montreal by disguising himself as a Canadianvoyager and helping six peasants to row him in a small boat with muffledoars to Three Rivers, where he had boarded the vessel for Quebec. He nowordered Dick held below, while the vessel proceeded to a mooring-place.

  The captain of the vessel, on being hailed by a guard-boat from the_Lizard_ frigate, announced the arrival of General Carleton, and, in theensuing exchange of news, spoke of the man just found in the river. Theguard-boat officer replied that the man must be a Virginia rifleman whohad escaped that evening from the _Adamant_, on which vessel thisrifleman and another, both captured in the suburbs of Quebec, had beenplaced with the rebels taken September 24th while attempting a nightattack on Montreal. Dick fulfilled, in his attire, the description ofthe escaped Virginian, and was held on Carleton's vessel when thegovernor landed, the captain being ordered to hold him foridentification by Mr. Brooke Watson, in whose charge the rebel prisonersnow on the _Adamant_ had been put. As the governor intended that the_Adamant_ should sail the next day with its prisoners, he caused Mr.Watson to be summoned from his tavern for the purpose of viewing the newcaptive that night. The governor then hastened to the upper town, toconfer with his lieutenant and with Colonel Maclean, and, in thediscussion of important affairs, forgot about Dick; while Maclean, onhis side, had now other matters for thought than the fugitive spy.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Watson, the same eminent merchant who afterwards becamelord mayor of London, going rather grumpily from inn comforts to thevessel, in the snow-storm, stumbled down the hatchway, and beheld Dickwhile the latter lay unconscious in a hammock, the whole upper side ofhis face concealed by straggling hair. Desirous of getting speedily backto his lodgings, and glad that his quota of prisoners might be restoredto its full number, the honest merchant cast a brief glance at Dick inthe dim light, unhesitatingly pronounced him to be the missing rascal,and stumbled back up the stairs to the deck.

  Thus, through no kindness of intention on the part of his enemies, Dickescaped the fate of a spy, and was assigned to that of a rebel underarms. The next day, having slept well and having had his new woundcared for by a surgeon, who pronounced it trivial, Dick was put aboardthe _Adamant_, handcuffed, by a guard of soldiers that had in themeantime received Mr. Watson's orders concerning him, and thrust into adark apartment, which was already crowded with shackled prisoners, whoserecumbent bodies took up most of the floor. Dick knew not whatdisposition was to be made of him, nor that the _Adamant_, already aboutto set sail with its prisoners and with Governor Carleton's despatches,was bound for England.

  "So the minions of tyranny have dragged you back to the den!" rang out abold, virile voice, from the inner darkness, and presently a stalwart,erect figure strode forth, stepping easily over the legs of thereclining prisoners and planting each foot firmly as it fell. Thespeaker was evidently able, from recent habit, to see fairly well in thedarkness. Coming close to Dick, he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, "Bythe everlasting, 'tis another man! Brother, I took you first for acomrade who broke the tyrant's chain yesterday. They removed him fromthis cage, to doctor him, for the filthy air had made him sick; but hebroke away and plunged into the river, in the snow-storm. Or else theguard who brought our supper is a liar. Have you heard anything of hisfate?"

  "No, sir," said Dick, wondering what personage was this whose style ofspeech was so oratorical, and whose spirit remained so high in thismiserable hole. "I am a newcomer here. I am Richard Wetheral, ofHendricks's company of riflemen, from the county of Cumberland, provinceof Pennsylvania."

  "I welcome you to my acquaintance," replied the other, heartily,thrusting forth his manacled hands and grasping Dick's. "I am ColonelEthan Allen."

  "What! The captor of Ticonderoga?" cried Dick, remembering how in thecamp at Cambridge the news of that bold feat of a May morning had beencelebrated, and how the name of the Green Mountain leader had become anevery-day word in the colonial army.

  "Fortune threw that prize in my way," said the other, with a modesty sounmistakably pretended that the affectation could only amuse, notoffend. "Fortune was not so kind at Montreal, as you may have heard," headded, dismally.

  "I had heard of your--your bad luck at Montreal," said Dick, leaningagainst the oaken wall of the enclosure, "but I little expected thehonor of meeting you in these circumstances."

  "Yet in these circumstances we have been--in this very den,indeed--since ever the army appeared yonder at Point Levi."

  "And where were you before that?" asked Dick, eager to hear the story ofso famous a hero from the hero's own lips.

  "Why," said the colonel, "we were in more places than one, you may besure. After our--bad luck, which was all because I was outrageouslyout-numbered and not concerted with, I surrendered, on the promise ofhonorable terms, and we were led into the town to be interviewed bytheir commandant, General Prescott, God--bless him! When he asked mewhether I was that Colonel Allen who took Ticonderoga, and I told him Iwas the very man, he went into a rage and shook his cane over my headand called me a rebel and several worse names; and when he ordered usput in irons and sent on board the _Gaspee_ schooner, he swore I shouldwear a halter at Tyburn. From the _Gaspee_ I wrote him a letter, tellinghim of the notorious friendship and generosity with which I had treatedthe officers I took at Ticonderoga, but he paid no attention to myletter."

  "You have the satisfaction of knowing," put in Dick, "that GeneralMontgomery has captured Montreal and taken Prescott prisoner."

  "Huzza!" cried Allen, and there were utterances of jubilation from themen on the floor. "So the wheel of transitory events has turned thatway! I hope Prescott will remember the treatment we got on the _Gaspee_.The irons were bad enough, Mr. Wetheral, but the insults wereintolerable. We received the insolence that cowards always show theirbetters when in a position to do so,--for cowards they were on thatvessel, as they proved one day by scattering as if a wild beast wasamongst them, when in a fit of anger I twisted a nail from the bar of myhandcuff with my teeth. They said I was a mad savage, a ferociousanimal,--in their mean souls they couldn't conceive the feelings of aliberty-loving man under restraint. After five or six weeks we weretransferred to an armed vessel lying off Quebec, under Captain McCloud,who was a gentleman and treated us well. The next day we were put onboard the vessel of Captain Littlejohn, a brave and civil officer; heordered my irons taken off and had me sit at his own table. Hissubordinates, too, were friendly to us. And then we were brought on the_Adamant_, and handcuffed again. We are under the charge of a damnedcalico merchant by the name of Brooke Watson, who trades between Londonand Montreal. He is the man who visited New York and Philadelphia,pretending to be friendly to the glorious cause of the colonies, and whoreturned to Montreal and wrote letters to Gage's people in Boston,disclosing what he had learned through his make-believe sympathy. Thisvessel is a floating nest of Tories, who have taken passage on it. Whenwe came aboard, we were treated in the most bitter, reviling spirit, bythe officers, crew, guards, and passengers."

  Dick was by this time able to make out the speaker's features, as wellas the tall, robust figure on which was solidly set the shapely headplaced upright in a natural attitude of pride and defiance. The fulleyes, nose, and mouth showed sociability and sympathy, as well aspugnacity and assertiveness. There was in the man's whole expressionsuch an unconscious look of irrepressibility, his self-vaunting was sospontaneous, he so evidently took his high-flown phrases seriously, thateven his foibles made him the more engaging.

  "I made the devil's own time of it," he went on, with a slight smile ofpleasure at the recollection, "when they first ordered me to this filthypen, after my men had already been forced in. I protested quite civillywith Watson, but he cut my representations short by commanding me tofollow my men. He said the place was good enough for a rebel, and that aman who deserved hanging had no right to talk of honor and humanity, andindulged in
other such talk. A Tory lieutenant who was looking on said Iought to have been hanged for my opposition to the province of New York,in her claim of New Hampshire's lands; and, as if it wasn't enough tocall that rightful opposition a rebellion, he suddenly spat in my face.I ran at him, and knocked him partly down with both fists, handcuffedas I am now. He made for the cabin, where he got under the protection ofsome guards with fixed bayonets, whom Watson ordered to drive me back tothe den, for I had sprung after the lieutenant. I challenged him to comeout and fight, but the tyrant-loving cur stood shaking with fear. Watsonshouted to the guards to get me into the pen, dead or alive, and the lowbrutes surrounded me with their bayonets. I thought I would try flatteryon the rascals, so I said, 'I know you are honest fellows, and are notthe ones to blame; I am only in dispute with a calico merchant, whodoesn't know how to behave towards a gentleman of the militaryestablishment.' But they paid no heed to my words, and so I was at lastdriven into this hole at the point of the bayonet. How we live here, youwill see for yourself, if you remain with us,--as you probably will,for, by the feel of things, the vessel has cast off."

  It was soon plain that the vessel was indeed under way, whence came theinference that Dick's destination was to be that of the other prisoners,which they knew was England. Dick's sensations of mind on contemplatingthis new shift of the wind of circumstance, this utterly unexpectedbreaking away from what had seemed to be his immediate destiny, may beimagined. As he sat on the floor, while the vessel rocked and strained,he thought of the home in Pennsylvania, of the army besieging Boston,of Arnold's troops waiting to attack Quebec, of old Tom, of the girl inthe great house in Palace Street, of all he was being carried from, andthen of the unknown that lay before him. "Over the hills and over themain," sang a voice within him, and with a patient sigh he resignedhimself to the guidance of fortune.

  The den was about twenty-two feet by twenty. The prisoners confinedhere, all handcuffed, were thirty-four in number. There were Allen, andthirty-one of the thirty-eight men who had surrendered with him atMontreal, the Virginia rifleman taken in the suburb of St. John's, andDick Wetheral. Until the day before the end of their voyage,--that is tosay, for more than a month,--they were not allowed to leave their darkpen, which contained no furniture or utensil other than two tubs. Theexperience of prison life that Dick had got in Boston was as nothing tothat which he now endured, although in accommodating himself to thelatter he profited some by the former.

  Besides the close confinement, the irons, and the perpetual darkness,there was the sickening heaving of the vessel, the continual distress ofstomach and adjacent organs, the inevitable fever, and the consequentraging thirst, which each man's daily gill of rum and small allowance offresh water failed to quench. When the prisoners begged for more wateron being served with their regular allowance of salt food, they werejeered and reviled by their keepers, and by the Tories who then lookedin at them. They were irritated half to madness by vermin of the body.Some of the men raged, others merely fretted; others lay most of thewhile in a kind of stupor, at times broken with despairing groans.

  Allen and Dick both kept their wits, and remained of unbroken spirit.Allen sometimes chafed, but always with a healthy anger, and sometimeshe cursed, but more often he declaimed against tyranny, defied theoppressor, and predicted the triumph of liberty. Dick bore the tormentsof this voyage with a fixed dourness, and, as one annoyance grew uponanother, began to see something ludicrous in the very accumulation ofmiseries, so that his face often went from an irrepressible grimace ofinward pain to a peculiar amused smile somewhat akin to that elicitedfrom him on occasions of peril. Moreover, he comforted himself with thethought that, for every dejected moment, fate owed him a moment ofexultation, and that the voyage must end some time.

  One day the prisoners were unexpectedly ordered to go on deck. Theystumbled awkwardly up into the light of the sun, and drank in gladly thefresh air of the ocean. Afar in a certain direction, whither all eyeswere turned, they beheld a faint blot of duller color against thedifferent blues of sky and sea. It was the Land's End of England. Theprisoners, whose faces had become hideously transformed by the growth ofbeards during their imprisonment, gazed curiously at the first outlinesof the land they had never seen, yet once had loved as the home of theirfathers.

  The next day the vessel made Falmouth harbor, sailing in between thelofty promontories, of which one on the west side is crowned byPendennis Castle, one on the east by the castle of St. Mawes. The newsspread from the port of Falmouth that American prisoners were to belanded, rebels of marvellous skill with the rifle, and that the chief ofthem was the taker of Ticonderoga. Consequently, while the prisonerswere shaving and making themselves presentable, for which the means hadat last been given them, great crowds flocked to the wharf, and to thehousetops and high places along the way to Pendennis Castle, in whichthe prisoners were to be confined.

  In due time the prisoners, not less curious, but more self-containedthan the spectators, were put ashore, all in their hunters' garb, forAllen himself, a few days before his attack on Montreal, had laid asidehis usual costume for a Canadian dress,--a short double-breastedfawn-skin jacket, undervest and breeches of sagathy, worsted stockings,shoes, and a red worsted cap. Allen assumed his haughtiest, mostscornful, and most belligerent look, as he stepped firmly on Englishground, followed by Dick, who, while he thrilled at knowing himself onthe soil he had learned from his parents to call home, had yet a new andunaccountable feeling of pride in that he was American.

  The crowd so blocked the way in Falmouth--which place reminded himsomewhat of New England sea-towns he had passed through, though itlacked their look of freshness--that the officers had to draw swords andforce a passage. So the prisoners were led, with guards before andbehind, and between lines of people, many of whom followed on eitherside, for about a mile's distance from the town, towards the lofty roundtower, within walled grounds, that crowned the promontory between seaand harbor. Pendennis Castle rose, a high and gray building of the timeof Henry VIII., within close walls, around which a great space,containing a parade-ground and here and there some small houses, was inturn surrounded by lower walls, from which tree-dotted slopes fell indifferent degrees of steepness to the water almost entirely environingthe peninsula. At the entrance the prisoners were taken in charge byLieutenant Hamilton, the commandant of the castle, and were led throughgrounds and gates, corridors and stairways, to an airy room providedwith bunks and straw.

  Though their irons were not taken off, the prisoners had here an easycaptivity. They arrived almost on the eve of Christmas, and they werenot forgotten in the beneficent feeling that pervaded England duringYule-tide. Breakfast and dinner came for Allen every day, with now andthen a bottle of wine, all from Lieutenant Hamilton's table and withLieutenant Hamilton's compliments. Dick and the other prisoners,themselves well fed, got many a crumb from Allen's board, which wassupplied, by a gentleman in the neighborhood, with suppers also. Theirfirst day or two in the castle having been devoted to a campaign ofextermination against the vermin they had brought from ship, theprisoners soon recovered spirit and health, in their new surroundings.With great pleasure they learned that their former keeper-in-chief, theestimable Watson, had hastened off to London to receive hiscompensation.

  Allen was often sent for by the commandant, with permission to take theair on the parade-ground, where many of the Cornwall gentry came tovisit him. This gentle treatment did no more towards weakening hispatriotism than harsh measures had done. For his discourse with thosewho came to talk with him was most often upon the cause of the fightingcolonies. He declaimed most high-soundingly on the subject, and Dick,who was sometimes allowed to accompany him to the parade-ground, wouldhalf amusedly liken him to some would-be Pitt before the House ofCommons or some oratorical Roman hero in a tragedy. Many of his Englishhearers would dispute with him, but others would nod hearty agreement,for there was in England a numerous party that sympathized with theAmerican revolt. "The conquest of the American colonies is to GreatBritain an
eternal impracticability!" he would thunder, rejoicing inpolysyllables.

  Some of the visitors came to make sport. Thus, one day:

  "What was your former occupation?" asked a sapient gentleman,quizzingly.

  "In my younger days," quoth Allen, ironically, "I studied divinity, butI'm a conjurer by profession."

  "You conjured wrong, then, when you were taken prisoner."

  "I know I mistook a figure that time," said Allen, "but I conjured youout of Ticonderoga."

  The tittering of some ladies, for many such were among the visitors,closed up the inquisitive gentleman's mouth.

  Another time, Allen astonished two benevolent clergymen, who had comeexpecting to see some sort of untutored savage, by discoursing on moralphilosophy, and by arguing, in approved logical mode, against theirdoctrine of Christianity.

  There was in the company, one day, an airy youth who claimed to knowthat Americans could not bear the smell of powder. Allen, taking theassertion as a challenge, offered to convince him on the spot that anAmerican could bear that smell. "I wouldn't put myself on a par withyou," replied the youth. "Then treat the character of the Americans withrespect," demanded Allen. "But you are an Irishman," retorted the younggentleman. "No, sir, I am a full-blooded Yankee," said Allen, and wenton to use his matchless powers of banter against the other, until thelatter made a confused retreat amidst the laughter of the onlookers.

  Another day, a gentleman expressing a desire to do something for him,Allen replied that he would be obliged for a bowl of punch. Thegentleman sent his servant away, who returned presently with punch andoffered it to Allen. The hero of Ticonderoga refused to take the bowlfrom the hand of a servant. The gentleman then handed it himself toAllen, who proposed that the two should drink together. The gentlemansaid he must refuse to drink with a state criminal. Allen thereupon,with a look of superior indifference, raised the bowl and drank thewhole contents at one long draught, and then gave the bowl back to thegentleman. The crowd shouted with laughter, in which Allen, quicklyaffected by this extraordinary tipple, presently joined; and when heaccompanied Dick back to the cell he was in a state of great jubilation.

  There was much conjecture among the prisoners as to their ultimate fate.Allen told his comrades that a Mr. Temple, from America, had whisperedto him that bets were laid in London that he should be hanged. Thisgentleman's information must have been meant as friendly, for it hadbeen accompanied by a guinea secretly bestowed. But, on the other hand,it had been hinted on the parade-ground that certain gentlemen intendedto attempt freeing the prisoners by the habeas corpus act, or havingthem brought to trial before a magistrate.

  "I have a project that should make the government think twice beforestringing any of us up," said Allen one day to Dick. He then obtainedthe commandant's permission to write a letter, which he did, addressingit to the Illustrious Continental Congress, describing his presentstate, and requesting that no retaliation be made upon General Prescottand other English prisoners until it be known how England would treathimself and his companions.

  "But," said Dick, "that letter will surely be opened and sent to theEnglish authorities, if anywhere."

  "That is exactly where I desire it shall go," replied Allen; "and it'sten to one we shall fare the better in consequence."

  The next day the commandant, to whom the letter had been entrusted,jocularly asked Allen if he thought they were fools in England, and toldhim the letter had been sent to Lord North. That its effects were suchas Allen had predicted, was soon shown, but not until after Dick,suddenly presented with an opportunity, had severed his fortunes fromthose of his fellow prisoners in Pendennis Castle.

  Some of Allen's visitors came fifty miles to see him. One afternoon,while he was on the parade-ground, discoursing with several gentlemenand ladies, and accompanied by Dick, a horse took fright just outsidethe outer gateway, at which its rider, who had journeyed far to beholdthe famous prisoner, was about to dismount. The scared animal, after afew wild turns and plunges, galloped madly through the open gateway andstraight for the group surrounding Allen. The people fell back inconfusion, women shrieking, men taken by surprise; visitors, prisoners,and guards huddled into one disorderly mass. The horse threw its rider,and reared before the crowd, with fiery eyes and snorting nostrils.

  Suddenly a man was seen to rush out from the group, seize the horse'sbridle with both hands together, bring the animal to its fore-knees,place both hands on the pommel of the saddle, leap astride the horse,and make it rear again on its hind legs. As if resolved to get the beastunder control at any effort, this volunteer horse-tamer brought its headsharply around to face the gate, towards which it bolted with suchsudden speed that the two guards there stood back in terror. Once out ofthe gate, the animal headed for Falmouth at a furious gallop.

  The panic-stricken crowd on the parade-ground now breathed again,and separated into its three elements,--spectators, guards, andprisoner,--for, lo and behold, there remained now but one of the twoprisoners! On the ground lay the fallen cap of the other, who had lostit in his struggle with the horse, and who, now being borne swiftlytowards Falmouth, was none other than Dick Wetheral.

  There was some question, with Lieutenant Hamilton and his officers, asto whether the prisoner intended to escape or merely to conquer thefrightened horse. Hence some time elapsed before finally the alarm-gunwas fired and a searching party sent out. Meanwhile, Dick Wetheral, whocould never afterward recall at exactly what moment his impulse to stopthe horse had turned into the idea of making a dash for liberty, allowedthe horse to run away with him at its best speed. While rapidlyapproaching Falmouth, he did a thing that he had often heard old Tomdescribe as having been done by certain mountebanks, and which, as hishands were comparatively small, he had practised with success inprison,--he folded each hand lengthwise, and, with some painful scrapingof skin at his thumb-joints, worked off his handcuffs, which he thentossed into a pool of water at the roadside.

  He knew it would not be safe for him to enter the town, and, therefore,as the horse presently calmed of its own accord, Dick dismounted, gavethe animal a smart slap to make it proceed on its way, and hastened downtowards some fishermen's squat houses that lay near the beach on theoutskirts of Falmouth. Noticing several boats drawn up on the sands,Dick knocked at the first door in his way, and brought forth an oldwoman, who, on his asking how he might get some one to row him acrossthe bay, turned out to be half blind, half deaf, and stupidlyindifferent. While he was making his desires clearer to her, he heard anominous boom from the castle.

  He knew this to be the alarm-gun, and looked to see what would be itseffect on the old woman, but her unaltered features proved thegenuineness of her deafness. At last Dick elicited that all theable-bodied men of the hamlet were in the town, at some merrymaking, butthat she could hire a boat to him, which he might row himself, andwhich, as he said he would not soon return that way, he might leave inthe care of a certain fisherman at St. Mawes. Dick paid her out of whatmoney he had kept ever since leaving Arnold's camp, and she thereuponhelped him drag a small boat out into the waves, and steadied it for himwhile he clambered aboard.

  His first attempts at rowing were wild efforts, for this bay of theocean was as different a matter from the smooth Pennsylvania rivers andcreeks, as oars were different from canoe paddles. But difficult artsare soon acquired when they have to be, and by those who will admitnothing to be impossible to themselves that is possible to any other.Dick at last contrived to make some kind of headway, thanks to theserenity of the weather and to the favoring tide. By the time,therefore, when the guards from the castle passed the fishing hamlet, onthe track of the horse, Dick was merely an unrecognizable boatman wellout in the bay.

  The trip to St. Mawes, a small matter to a practised waterman, was toDick one of great persistence and several hours, by reason of hisinexperience, through which he covered twice or thrice the distance tobe traversed. It was dusk when, at last, after many a dubious look atthe castle of St. Mawes that crowned the overlooking hill,
he felt theboat grate violently underneath, sounded with his oar, leaped out intothe water, and dragged the boat up the beach, now aided and now impededby the inrolling and receding waves.

  He was at the end of the single street of a miserable hamlet lying undera hill and fronting the sea. No human creature was abroad to see himland. He therefore, in order to change his appearance as much aspossible from that of an American hunter to that of an English rustic,did away with his belt and leggings, so that his hunting-shirt, being oflinsey-woolsey, looked something like a countryman's frock, while hisstockings, similar to those of English make, were now in view. Heknocked at one of the huts, ascertained the abode of the man in whosecharge he was to leave the boat, found that person in, gave out that hewas returning to his home near Exeter from a journey in search of aplace in service, was regaled with a frugal and fishy supper for aconsideration, and then set out afoot towards Tregoney, saying he had arelation there with whom he would pass the night. It was from the man'sown talk that Dick had learned the name and location of this village,which was eight miles northeastward.

  While Dick was plodding along over those eight miles, with no furtherplan than to get out of the vicinity of Pendennis Castle, it began tosnow. Passing through two villages on the way, he arrived at Tregoney, adecent-looking place, about nine o'clock. He stayed there no longer thanto buy an old hat from an aged poor man whose sons worked in thetin-mines at St. Austel, and from whom Dick, having said that hisformer hat had been blown into the Fal by a gust of wind, obtainedinformation as to the road ahead.

  Learning that there was a good inn at Lostwithiel, sixteen miles farthernortheast, he decided to proceed thither. The snow increasing, and Dickstopping to rest in some sheltered spot in each of three interveningvillages, these sixteen miles were a long business. To a survivor of themarch through Maine, however, the cold and the snow seemed no greatinconvenience.

  When he reached Lostwithiel, though, Dick was so fatigued, with his walkof twenty-four miles and his row across the bay, that he fell asleepalmost as soon as his body was stretched on a bed in one of the inn'sinferior rooms, to which he had been conducted from the kitchen, wherehe had found an inn servant already up, despite the fact that the daysoon to dawn was Sunday. This servant was a stout female, whoseimpressionability to masculine merits made easy Dick's admittance to theinn, which might otherwise have rejected such a guest arriving at suchan hour. It was not yet daylight, but dawn was near enough to enableDick, before closing his eyes, to receive a vague impression of the openspire of St. Bartholomew's Church through the falling snow. It made himthink of Quebec, and he drowsily wondered what, at that moment, might bedoing with old Tom, with Captain Hendricks, Simpson, Steele, and theothers of the army far across seas in Canada.

  What was doing with them at that moment? It was then a little after sixo'clock in the morning at Lostwithiel, two o'clock the same morning atQuebec. The morning was that of December 31, 1775. This is what wasoccurring at Quebec:

  Snow was falling there also, but in a far more violent storm. Wind wasblowing the snow in drifts, and with the snow there was a cutting sleet.The beginning of the night had been moonlit, but at twelve the sky wasovercast, and then came the storm. This snowfall by night was a thingfor which the Americans had been waiting. Montgomery had at last come upfrom Montreal with three hundred men, and joined Arnold at Point auxTrembles, December 1st. The army had started the next day, amid whirlingflakes, for Quebec; had arrived before the city on the 5th, Montgomeryhaving found Arnold's men a fine corps, well disciplined. Later, abreastwork had been thrown up to face the gate of St. Louis; and, bymeans of a battery mounted partly on ice and snow, shells had beenthrown into the town, starting fires in several places. But the heavyguns from Quebec's walls had so dealt with this battery that it had beenremoved. Thenceforth, execution from the American side had been donemainly by mortars and riflemen, placed in the suburb of St. Roque,outside Palace Gate. It had finally been decided to carry the town byescalade, and this was to be attempted during the first snow-storm, suchas that which finally came on this night preceding Sunday, December31st. The plan adopted was that the lower town should be taken first,Arnold leading an attack on its northern end, Montgomery leading one onits southern end; demonstrations being made against the upper town atSt. John's Gate and at the Bastion of Cape Diamond, to distractattention from the attacks below; signal-rockets to be fired in orderthat all four movements should be made at the same time.

  At midnight the men repaired to quarters from the farms anddrinking-houses whereat they had been scattered. At two, they begantheir march, struggling against a biting wind, their faces stung by thesnow horizontally driven, the locks of their guns held under the lappetsof their coats to avoid being wetted by the snow. Old Tom and the otherriflemen were in their usual place in Arnold's division, which was toenter the lower town at its narrow northern end, passing between thepromontory's foot and the frozen St. Charles River. Through the suburband streets of St. Roque, they breasted the snowy darkness; first wentArnold, at the head of a forlorn hope of twenty-five men, one hundredyards before the main body; then Captain Lamb and his artillery company,drawing a field-piece on a sledge; next, a company with ladders andother scaling implements; then, Morgan and his company, heading theriflemen; next, the Lancaster company, led, in Captain Smith's absence,by Steele; then the Cumberland County men, with their own captain, forHendricks, though the command of the guard that morning belonged to him,had got leave to take part in the attack; and last, the New Englandtroops. The division would have first to pass a battery on a wharf,which the field-piece was to attack and the forlorn hope scale withladders, while Morgan should lead the riflemen around the wharf on theice.

  Old Tom plodded not far behind Hendricks, the men straggling onward insingle file. As they approached the houses below Palace Gate, which ledfrom the upper town on their right, there suddenly burst forth a thunderof cannon, which mingled soon with the alarming clang of all the bellsin the city. "They've spied our intentions," muttered old Tom to the manahead, and strode on.

  Presently muskets blazed from the ramparts above. Men began to drop hereand there and to writhe in the snow, but their comrades hurried over oraround them. Hendricks's soldiers could not see far ahead, for thedarkness and the blinding snow; nor could they always make out the pathleft by Arnold, Lamb, and the riflemen in advance. They could seenothing of the foe save the flashes of the muskets from the wallscrowning the ascent at their right.

  Presently they became aware of some kind of stoppage ahead; it was madeby the artillerymen, whose field-piece had stuck hopelessly in asnowdrift. The company with the scaling-ladders made as if to stop also;but Morgan was at their heels, forcing them forward, hastening on hisown company, and swearing terribly in a voice that rivalled the tumultof bells and cannon. So the riflemen, preceded by the ladder-bearers,passed on through the opening made for them by the artillery company.

  They were nearing the first barrier now; the uproar of the unseenenemy's fire was more terrific. And now Hendricks's men saw pass a groupthat was returning as with reluctance and difficulty,--two mensupporting between them a third, who was so badly wounded in the legthat he could not stand unaided. It was Colonel Arnold, upheld by ParsonSpring and Mr. Ogden. "Forward, my brave men!" cried Arnold, in a strongand heartening voice, and the riflemen cheered and passed on.

  They soon saw that Morgan had taken command, and, amid the inevitablecrowding together near the barrier, they found themselves in closecompany with the forlorn hope, headed now by Arnold's secretary, Oswald,and with Lamb and his artillerymen, who had left their field-piece inorder to wield muskets and bayonets.

  Forward rushed Morgan and the advance companies, right through adischarge of grape-shot from the two cannon commanding the defile.Forward, without slackening, upon the battery, some scaling the walls,some firing through the embrasures; pouring over and through, seizingthe captain and thirty of his men as prisoners, driving the rest of theguard away, and taking the enemy's dry muskets t
o use instead of theirown damp ones.

  Then Morgan formed his men as he could, and led them on to take thesecond barrier. The day was about to dawn now, and, although Morgan'smen knew it not, the false attack planned against St. John's Gate hadfailed of being made; the feint against the Bastion of Cape Diamond hadserved its purpose to conceal Montgomery's march along the shore of theSt. Lawrence, but Montgomery, while leading his men from the stockadewhence Dick Wetheral had once been fired upon, towards the blockhousewithin, had fallen in death before a discharge of grape-shot, while histriumphant cry, "Push on, my brave boys, Quebec is ours!" still rang inthe ears of his New Yorkers. Montgomery's men had thereupon retreated,and thus the British force, warned of the very first movements by a tooearly discharge of the signal-rockets, was enabled to concentrateagainst the division now between the first and second northern barriersof the lower town.

  Morgan's advance followed a curving course along the sides of houses, towhere the narrow street was crossed, not far up from its mouth, by thesecond barrier, which was at least twelve feet high. Meanwhile Morganhad despatched Captain Dearborn, with a party, to prevent the enemy'scoming from the upper town through Palace Gate and down the promontory'sSt. Charles side, which was neither as high nor as steep as the St.Lawrence side.

  Behind the barrier now to be taken, was a platform whence cannon pouredgrape-shot, defended by two ranges of musketeers with fixed bayonets.The enemy fired also from the upper windows of houses beyond. TheAmericans speedily upbuilt an elevation to a height approaching that ofthe barrier, men falling all the while beneath the fire from thebarrier, the houses beyond, and the walls far above at the right.Morgan's first lieutenant, Humphreys, climbed this mound to scale thebarrier, but a row of bayonets forced him back.

  Seeing the impregnability of the barrier to his present force, and therapidity with which that force was depleted by the terrible fire, Morganthundered and cursed. Hendricks and Steele were calm, encouraging theirmen to patience, and directing them whither to return the enemy's fire.At last Lieutenant Humphreys fell in the street, dying on the spot.Then Morgan ordered his men to enter a house close to the barrier, andfire from the windows.

  Into the house and up to the second story rushed Hendricks, Steele, TomMacAlister, and many others. Steele ran to the first window and aimedhis gun towards the barrier; but, without firing, he suddenly steppedback with a sharp cry, and held up one of his hands to look at it,entrusting his gun wholly to the other. Where three fingers had been,there were now three crimson stumps. Hendricks and MacAlister tookanother window. As Hendricks was about to shoot, a ball tore its way tohis heart; he lowered his rifle, took on a swift look of pain, staggereda few feet backward, fell with half his body on a bed, and died therealmost instantly. While the hell continued in and about the house, asthe daylight increased, a party of British rushed out from Palace Gate,captured Dearborn and his men, fell upon the rear of Morgan's party, andpresently, when the dauntless Virginian had had his rage out, receivedthe surrender of him and his officers and men. "I wonder," thought oldTom MacAlister, as he marched in the line of prisoners to the greatruined Franciscan monastery, near the Reguliers, "how the lad Dick would'a' fared if he'd been wi' us the braw night past? Weel, weel, maybeit's better he was called away when he was, for, whether he be on theearth or under, it's little he'd 'a' relished finding out 'twas forthis we marched through Maine and hungered and froze in the snaws ofCanada!"

  'Twas for that, had been the planning and the money-spending, thesuffering and the starving, the toils and the bloodshed,--for that, andfor the glory of heroic failure.