Arundel

by Kenneth Roberts

  I would have wasted no time in falling asleep had not Natanis come into the room and signaled to me to come out. He pointed to the roof of the manor house and on it I saw Cap Huff crouched with a stupendous armful of material. He threw it down to us, and we took it quickly to our quarters.

  When Cap came in he wiped his sweaty face on a corner of the silk comforter in which his spoils were wrapped, and said he had been obliged to work like lightning to get ahead of Morgan’s riflemen.

  “Gosh!” he said angrily. “Those men don’t think of anything but stealing! All I could do was clean out a closet and throw it into this comforter.”

  “What did you get?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have time to look, but it was clothes, and we can trade clothes for anything.”

  We untied the comforter and found a number of garments belonging to the lady of the manor, among them some lace-trimmed inexpressibles, a haircloth bustle, a pair of stays, and two dresses of sprigged muslin. There were three pairs of breeches, but they were for a boy half the size of Phoebe, as were two roundabout jackets and three frilled shirts.

  I expected Cap to burst into profanity that would set fire to the buildings; but the disappointment must have been too great. He rolled the things in the stays, made for a woman the size of a haystack, took them to where Phoebe was lying wrapped in her blanket beside Noah Cluff, and kicked the soles of her feet until she roused up and looked at him, her chopped-off hair sticking out from her head like that of a small boy. Still preserving an outraged silence, Cap hurled his bundle at her, so that it struck her on the chest. Then he swathed himself in the comforter and crawled in between Natanis and me.

  It was late in the morning when I awoke. Cap was gone. The warmth of the room and the ceiling over my head—two unaccustomed luxuries—fuddled me completely. I though I was in Arundel and wiggled my nose for a whiff of Malary’s coffee and bacon. Then it came to me that we were lying outside the walls of Quebec; that within those walls was Mary Mallinson, waiting to be taken from her captors and back to her own people.

  We had wheat cakes and freshly killed pork from Phoebe, who told us proudly she could make good use of the garments Cap had given her. All she needed now, she added, with a sidelong glance at me, was some sort of fur garment, so she could clothe herself decently and play the spy in order to find out for me how my friends were progressing in the city.

  Uneasy at her talk, I took Natanis and set off for the city walls, along the ridge at whose extremity lies Quebec.

  If I had come as a farmer, looking for land to cultivate, I would have held this country in esteem; for the fields were smooth and rolling, well situated to attract summer rains and deep snows, which lend fertility to any soil. They fell away on our left into an enormous shallow valley; and at its far rim stood a long, long range of mountains, so there was a spaciousness to our surroundings that I had thought could only be found on the shore of the ocean.

  Yet it was not as a farmer that I looked at it, but as one who had come to wrest it from its owners; so I could see little about it that was good. There was meager cover on those high plains; and I knew the wind and snows from the north would sweep down from the distant mountains and across that broad valley, piercing our poor rags as easily as newly sharpened scalping knives. Also if ever a place defied the devil himself to take it, it was this city of Quebec, built on a towering rock thrust out like a wedge to separate the St. Lawrence and the St. Charles rivers.

  In the distance we could see the long, low line of the walls, with the spires and gables of the upper town rising above it; and between us and the walls three clusters of houses—to the left the suburb of St. Roque; in the center the suburb of St. John; and far over toward the right, the suburb of St. Louis. These suburbs were built around the city gates—St. Roque outside Palace Gate; St. John outside St. John’s Gate; and St. Louis outside St. Louis’s Gate.

  On the extreme right the wall rose up to a high bastion on the peak of Cape Diamond; and because we had seen it from the far side of the river we knew it was perched on top of a perpendicular cliff towering three hundred feet above the St. Lawrence—though to us it seemed to rise from a rolling field. On the extreme left, too, where the wall ended at Palace Gate, we knew the land fell away to the St. Charles River. If, therefore, the wall was unscalable, there was only one method of attack: to go down to the shore of one of the two rivers, towering cliffs on one side and water on the other, and scramble all the way around the damned rock in the hope of finding a passageway from the lower town at the water’s edge to the upper town, high up on the headland.

  When we came closer to the wall we saw it was built of blocks of dirty gray stone. There were ports in it with the muzzles of cannon showing through; nor was there anything but wall to be seen, for its height cut off our sight of everything behind it.

  We went close to the suburb of St. John, made up of neat small houses on rolling ground, with thickets of trees among them. While we debated whether we should go closer, there came a burst of shouts and a violent snarling from a thicket near the western edge of the suburb. We could see men struggling in the thicket. Almost at once a man ran toward the stragglers from trees far to their left, while another man started toward them from behind a hillock far to their right. These were our men, I could see. It came to me suddenly they were pickets, running toward another of our pickets who had been captured.

  Ahead of us, among the houses of the suburb, there was incessant shouting and snarling. As we ran forward, we saw six men hurrying a seventh through the snow toward the wall. At their heels, snarling and slashing at them, was Jacataqua’s yellow-faced dog, while closing in on them and being struck and thrown off again, was Jacataqua herself.

  At this I knew that the captured man must be Jacataqua’s new friend—George Merchant, the Virginia rifleman.

  I stopped, primed my musket, and fired, but the distance was too great for accuracy. Heads showed along the top of the wall, and a faint noise of cheering came to us. Other riflemen came up, cursing, and wasted shots.

  From the distant group a pistol was fired at the yellow-faced dog. He ran in a circle, biting at his tail. St. John’s Gate swung open before the struggling men. All seven of them scurried through; and as they went, one of them struck Jacataqua and threw her into the snow beside the gate, which swung shut behind them.

  Jacataqua picked herself up, went to the gate and beat against it with her fists, then turned to her dog. When he followed her, holding his rump gingerly, we saw the pistol ball had broken his tail near the base.

  Natanis led me to the tracks of the seven men.

  “Here is something to think about,” he said, touching one footprint with his finger and then another. I failed to get his meaning.

  He laughed. “You forget your lessons! Do you remember how Paul Higgins said to us that Treeworgy, like Hook, walked on the inside of his heels with his toes turned out, taking no grip on the ground?”

  I looked again at the footprints. The marks of the heels were deep at the inner edge; those of the toes were shallow.

  Jacataqua borrowed a knife from a rifleman and sliced off her dog’s tail at the wound, so that he had less than an inch to wag.

  She was quiet, showing no rage, only a little moodiness, such as a girl might show at dropping grease on a new ribbon; but from the way she hefted the knife in her right hand, I knew there was more than moodiness in her heart.

  “Did you see anything familiar about those men?” I asked.

  She said nothing for a time, but watched her dog staring reproachfully at the remnant of his tail, first from one side and then from the other.

  At length she said: “No, but I won’t forget the one with the brown beard and the white blanket coat—the one that shot Anatarso! His face—” She broke off suddenly and pointed her knife at me. “Why, yes! Treeworgy! That was Treeworgy!”

  So Hook was in Quebec!

  We could hear distant shouting, and the beat of a drum, and there was move
ment among those who stood behind the ramparts, watching us. Looking back along the road, we saw a column of troops coming down it.

  Arnold led them, with Oswald, Ogden, Colonel Greene and Major Bigelow. I thought to fall in with Morgan’s men, but Bigelow motioned me in beside him.

  “What happened?” he asked. “We heard they were coming out.”

  “No,” I said, “they caught Merchant, out of Morgan’s company, in a hole and dragged him into the city before you could say Sam Adams.”

  “Well,” he said, “the colonel thinks if they see what we look like they’ll come out to drag all of us in. That’s why he’s parading us.”

  “I wish to God they would!” I said, thinking that if they did I might have a chance to get at Hook. “Maybe they will! They came out for Wolfe.”

  “The French came out for Wolfe,” Bigelow corrected me. “Montcalm happened to go crazy on that particular day, and accidents like that don’t happen twice in succession. Besides, these people are English. They won’t go crazy. I can hear them in there now!”

  He aped an Englishman’s speech, chewing his words in the fore part of his mouth. “What! Go out among a lot of silly rebel tradesmen? Faugh, faugh! Pugh, pugh! Remember Montcalm!” He shook back imaginary lace from his wrist and took a pinch of imaginary snuff, affecting to sneeze horribly. I left him and fell in behind Morgan’s men.

  We were a sorry-looking crew, and fewer than I supposed, what with Captain Hanchet having been left at Point Levis with sixty men to guard our scaling ladders, and those who had been unable to get in the canoes, and the sick who had remained on the other side to regain their health.

  When we deployed before the walls the folk on them set up a cheer and waved their hats. It may have been, as some thought, a friendly cheer; but to me it seemed ironical, as if they held our pretensions lightly. My suspicion was confirmed when, after our exchange of cheers, they let off a thirty-six pounder at us. I think they forgot to aim in their excitement, for the balls went every which way. Our men made contemptuous jeering noises by thrusting out their tongues and forcing air around them. Also they pursued the cannon balls through the snow, and brought them back to show to the garrison in derision. Some of the riflemen moved in closer to pick off a few lobster-backs, but the range was too long. From where we were we could see the icy patches on the walls we hoped to scale, and the deep stone trench below them like an open, icy grave—a most displeasing sight.

  When it became apparent that the British were content to remain behind their ramparts, jeering at us and playing with their thirty-six pounder, Colonel Arnold sent Ogden forward to the gate under a flag of truce, with a demand that the city surrender. The garrison may have thought the white flag was a French flag; or they may merely have been British, great believers in their own nobility in war, but not so noble in actual practice, as we discovered on every occasion when we met them. At all events, they let off their thirty-six pounder at Ogden and his white flag when he was halfway to the gate, missing him, though not by a sufficient margin for comfort. He marched serenely back to us, but I suspect he had a shrinking feeling in his rear during the march, from the thought of receiving a thirty-six pound ball in that quarter.

  So we went back again to Caldwell’s manor house; and, knowing him to be the commander of the militia who had fired on our flag of truce, we slaughtered his cattle with clear consciences, which we would have done no matter who he was.

  XXIX

  WE LACKED many things in those first days before Quebec: breeches, shoes, razors, soap, shirts, blankets, hats, money, stockings, muskets, needles, thread, bayonets, pipes, tobacco… . No beggars, in short, could have had less than we.

  Yet we might have endured our destitution without much trouble but for two things: we lacked men to set up a proper blockade of the roads going into Quebec, and powder to make a fight in case a force should come out from the city and take us front and rear. When our powder was measured there was enough to provide each man with four rounds; and four rounds is barely enough to smell up the barrel of a musket, let alone raise a dust on folk who are after your life.

  Therefore the colonel, learning General Montgomery had captured Montreal and would soon march down river to join him, made up his mind to drop back out of danger and wait for Montgomery’s arrival; then return to Quebec again with enough men to blockade the roads and cut off the city’s provisions, and enough powder to blow holes in everybody.

  When I heard the army was to fall back, I went hunting Cap Huff; for I hadn’t seen him since he was disappointed in his personal looting of Major Caldwell’s manor house.

  Remembering his dislike of the French, and his determination to take home one of their queues as a souvenir, I was uneasy about him. It may be Cap was rude and uncouth, as some folk have ever believed and said, and seldom a beautification of the politer side of social life. Yet I found him restful because what he said never caused me to feel the need of thinking. The fact is that whatever he was, he was my friend. I need say no more to any man who has had a friend. One who has no friends could never understand my disquiet at this time, no matter how much I might say.

  I asked here and there concerning him; but no man, it seemed, had seen or heard of him for days. I sent Natanis, Hobomok, and Jacataqua to find him if they could—Natanis along the road that skirts the St. Lawrence, to the little town of Sillery; Hobomok along the main road to Montreal, running out through the town of St. Foy’s; Jacataqua toward the settlements along the St. Charles River. While they hunted I sat worrying and cursing Cap for an irresponsible fool; for it had been decided that early on the following morning the army would move back through St. Foy’s to Pointe-aux-Trembles, some twenty-four miles up the St. Lawrence; and God only knew what would become of Cap if he were left alone.

  Hobomok came back in the afternoon, declaring nobody in St. Foy’s had seen hide or hair of him; and toward dusk Jacataqua returned from the banks of the St. Charles with similar tidings. But when Natanis came in, a little after nightfall, he had news. He had gone out along the bluff of the St. Lawrence toward Sillery, passing the tree-surrounded summer homes of wealthy Quebec folk, and had found scuffed footprints wavering toward one of them. The footprints, big as bear-tracks, led to a side porch, where there was a broken window. He entered the house and found himself in a kitchen, in which were many empty brandy bottles, and a feather mattress on the floor, and on the white wall the print of an enormous hand, where its owner had leaned against the wall to raise the trap door which, in all Canadian kitchens, conceals the staircase to the cellar. This print, Natanis said, must have been made by the hand of Cap Huff.

  Cap had gone staggering off through the trees, bumping into them and failing down, as Natanis could see from the tracks in the snow; so Natanis trailed him. The tracks led to another summer house, where there were more empty bottles, and on the kitchen floor a bed made out of pillows.

  I think,” Natanis said in conclusion, “that even still your friend cannot go far without falling down in the snow. If we go at once to Sillery, we may find him before he does himself a hurt.”

  We set off, the four of us, as soon as we could roll our packs. The night was dark and the snow deep; and I was glad we were groping for the roads of Canada rather than those of New England. They have a custom in Canada, because of the violent snows, of marking the roads on each side with upright pines, so that even though snow falls each day, which it often does, there are always lines of pine trees to guide the traveler on his way. It is the law, too, that after a storm each Canadian must go out with a horse and one of the squat sleighs they call carioles and drive along that portion of the road that lies before his property. Thus the roads are always partly broken.

  Natanis showed us the first house where signs of Cap’s occupancy had been discovered. The second house, he said, was half a cross beyond—half the distance between two of the crosses that the papist French plant along their roads, as thick as fence posts in Maine, each cross surmounted with all manner of
implements: shears, scaling ladders, hammers and tongs; frog-spears, bottles and roosters.

  We came up to this second house to hear a tumult within, shouts and thumps and laughter, and then a bawling voice, familiarly hoarse, shouting the words of a song I came to know better, later:

  “Vive la Canadienne,

  Vole, mon cœur, vole;

  Vive la Canadienne

  Et ses jolis yeux doux!

  Et ses jolis yeux doux, doux, doux,

  Et ses jolis yeux doux!”

  I opened the door and walked into a dark little hall and thence into a snug candle-lit kitchen with strips of colored paper pasted around the windows to keep out the bitter wind and the snow powder. There were Cap and an old, old Frenchman with a queue so long he could sit on the end of it, and a younger Frenchman and his brown-faced wife. There were three brown-faced girls, two about the age of Jacataqua and the other the size of a mosquito, and a brown-faced boy not more than five years old with a pipe between his teeth and a rope end braided into his queue to give it substance, all of them sitting before a pot-bellied iron stove red-hot around the neck.

  The boy with the pipe was perched on one of Cap’s knees, and the small girl on the other. When Cap saw my face at the door he leaped to his feet, spilling his young friends on the floor.

  “Ho!” Cap bawled. “It’s about time you got around! Hey, Zhulie! Hey, Lizette! Friend! Friend! Amee! Amee!”

  He bellowed in a way to deafen everybody, as was his habit when he hoped to make himself understood by persons of alien speech. His French friends stared silently and timorously at the four of us: me with my rough clothes, and Natanis and Hobomok, and Jacataqua with her hand twisted in the scruff of Anatarso’s neck. We must have had a look of wildness that would have quieted a gathering of New York gaolbirds, let alone a peaceable French family.