“Then go we in, to know his embassy;
Which I could, with ready guess, declare,
Before the Frenchmen speak a word of it.”
—King Henry V
A few succeeding days were passed amid the privations, the uproar, and the
dangers of the siege, which was vigorously pressed by a power, against whose
approaches Munro possessed no competent means of resistance. It appeared as if
Webb, with his army, which lay slumbering on the banks of the Hudson, had
utterly forgotten the strait to which his countrymen were reduced. Montcalm had
filled the woods of the portage with his savages, every yell and whoop from
whom rang through the British encampment, chilling the hearts of men who were
already but too much disposed to magnify the danger.
Not so, however, with the besieged. Animated by the words, and stimulated by
the examples of their leaders, they had found their courage, and maintained
their ancient reputation, with a zeal that did justice to the stern character
of their commander. As if satisfied with the toil of marching through the
wilderness to encounter his enemy, the French general, though of approved
skill, had neglected to seize the adjacent mountains; whence the besieged might
have been exterminated with impunity, and which, in the more modern warfare of
the country, would not have been neglected for a single hour. This sort of
contempt for eminences, or rather dread of the labor of ascending them, might
have been termed the besetting weakness of the warfare of the period. It
originated in the simplicity of the Indian contests, in which, from the nature
of the combats, and the density of the forests, fortresses were rare, and
artillery next to useless. The carelessness engendered by these usages
descended even to the war of the Revolution and lost the States the important
fortress of Ticonderoga opening a way for the army of Burgoyne into what was
then the bosom of the country. We look back at this ignorance, or infatuation,
whichever it may be called, with wonder, knowing that the neglect of an
eminence, whose difficulties, like those of Mount Defiance, have been so
greatly exaggerated, would, at the present time, prove fatal to the reputation
of the engineer who had planned the works at their base, or to that of the
general whose lot it was to defend them.
The tourist, the valetudinarian, or the amateur of the beauties of nature, who,
in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the scenes we have
attempted to describe, in quest of information, health, or pleasure, or floats
steadily toward his object on those artificial waters which have sprung up
under the administration of a statesman[1]
who has dared to stake his political character on the hazardous issue, is not
to suppose that his ancestors traversed those hills, or struggled with the same
currents with equal facility. The transportation of a single heavy gun was
often considered equal to a victory gained; if happily, the difficulties of the
passage had not so far separated it from its necessary concomitant, the
ammunition, as to render it no more than a useless tube of unwieldy iron.
[1]
Evidently the late De Witt Clinton, who died governor of New York in 1828.
The evils of this state of things pressed heavily on the fortunes of the
resolute Scotsman who now defended William Henry. Though his adversary
neglected the hills, he had planted his batteries with judgment on the plain,
and caused them to be served with vigor and skill. Against this assault, the
besieged could only oppose the imperfect and hasty preparations of a fortress
in the wilderness.
It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, and the fourth of his
own service in it, that Major Heyward profited by a parley that had just been
beaten, by repairing to the ramparts of one of the water bastions, to breathe
the cool air from the lake, and to take a survey of the progress of the siege.
He was alone, if the solitary sentinel who paced the mound be excepted; for the
artillerists had hastened also to profit by the temporary suspension of their
arduous duties. The evening was delightfully calm, and the light air from the
limpid water fresh and soothing. It seemed as if, with the termination of the
roar of artillery and the plunging of shot, nature had also seized the moment
to assume her mildest and most captivating form. The sun poured down his
parting glory on the scene, without the oppression of those fierce rays that
belong to the climate and the season. The mountains looked green, and fresh,
and lovely, tempered with the milder light, or softened in shadow, as thin
vapors floated between them and the sun. The numerous islands rested on the
bosom of the Horican, some low and sunken, as if embedded in the waters, and
others appearing to hover about the element, in little hillocks of green
velvet; among which the fishermen of the beleaguering army peacefully rowed
their skiffs, or floated at rest on the glassy mirror in quiet pursuit of their
employment.
The scene was at once animated and still. All that pertained to nature was
sweet, or simply grand; while those parts which depended on the temper and
movements of man were lively and playful.
Two little spotless flags were abroad, the one on a salient angle of the fort,
and the other on the advanced battery of the besiegers; emblems of the truth
which existed, not only to the acts, but it would seem, also, to the enmity of
the combatants.
Behind these again swung, heavily opening and closing in silken folds, the
rival standards of England and France.
A hundred gay and thoughtless young Frenchmen were drawing a net to the pebbly
beach, within dangerous proximity to the sullen but silent cannon of the fort,
while the eastern mountain was sending back the loud shouts and gay merriment
that attended their sport. Some were rushing eagerly to enjoy the aquatic games
of the lake, and others were already toiling their way up the neighboring
hills, with the restless curiosity of their nation. To all these sports and
pursuits, those of the enemy who watched the besieged, and the besieged
themselves, were, however, merely the idle though sympathizing spectators. Here
and there a picket had, indeed, raised a song, or mingled in a dance, which had
drawn the dusky savages around them, from their lairs in the forest. In short,
everything wore rather the appearance of a day of pleasure, than of an hour
stolen from the dangers and toil of a bloody and vindictive warfare.
Duncan had stood in a musing attitude, contemplating this scene a few minutes,
when his eyes were directed to the glacis in front of the sally-port already
mentioned, by the sounds of approaching footsteps. He walked to an angle of the
bastion, and beheld the scout advancing, under the custody of a French officer,
to the body of the fort. The countenance of Hawkeye was haggard and careworn,
and his air dejected, as though he felt the deepest degradation at having
fallen into the power of his enemies. He was without his favorite weapon, and
his arms were even bound behind him with thongs, made of the skin of a deer.
The arrival of flags to cover the messengers of summons, had occurred so often
of late, that when Heyward first threw his careless glance on this group, he
expected to see another of the officers of the enemy, charged with a similar
office but the instant he recognized the tall person and still sturdy though
downcast features of his friend, the woodsman, he started with surprise, and
turned to descend from the bastion into the bosom of the work.
The sounds of other voices, however, caught his attention, and for a moment
caused him to forget his purpose. At the inner angle of the mound he met the
sisters, walking along the parapet, in search, like himself, of air and relief
from confinement. They had not met from that painful moment when he deserted
them on the plain, only to assure their safety. He had parted from them worn
with care, and jaded with fatigue; he now saw them refreshed and blooming,
though timid and anxious. Under such an inducement it will cause no surprise
that the young man lost sight for a time, of other objects in order to address
them. He was, however, anticipated by the voice of the ingenuous and youthful
Alice.
“Ah! thou tyrant! thou recreant knight! he who abandons his damsels in
the very lists,” she cried; “here have we been days, nay, ages,
expecting you at our feet, imploring mercy and forgetfulness of your craven
backsliding, or I should rather say, backrunning—for verily you fled in
the manner that no stricken deer, as our worthy friend the scout would say,
could equal!”
“You know that Alice means our thanks and our blessings,” added the
graver and more thoughtful Cora. “In truth, we have a little wonder why
you should so rigidly absent yourself from a place where the gratitude of the
daughters might receive the support of a parent’s thanks.”
“Your father himself could tell you, that, though absent from your
presence, I have not been altogether forgetful of your safety,” returned
the young man; “the mastery of yonder village of huts,” pointing to
the neighboring entrenched camp, “has been keenly disputed; and he who
holds it is sure to be possessed of this fort, and that which it contains. My
days and nights have all been passed there since we separated, because I
thought that duty called me thither. But,” he added, with an air of
chagrin, which he endeavored, though unsuccessfully, to conceal, “had I
been aware that what I then believed a soldier’s conduct could be so
construed, shame would have been added to the list of reasons.”
“Heyward! Duncan!” exclaimed Alice, bending forward to read his
half-averted countenance, until a lock of her golden hair rested on her flushed
cheek, and nearly concealed the tear that had started to her eye; “did I
think this idle tongue of mine had pained you, I would silence it forever. Cora
can say, if Cora would, how justly we have prized your services, and how
deep—I had almost said, how fervent—is our gratitude.”
“And will Cora attest the truth of this?” cried Duncan, suffering
the cloud to be chased from his countenance by a smile of open pleasure.
“What says our graver sister? Will she find an excuse for the neglect of
the knight in the duty of a soldier?”
Cora made no immediate answer, but turned her face toward the water, as if
looking on the sheet of the Horican. When she did bend her dark eyes on the
young man, they were yet filled with an expression of anguish that at once
drove every thought but that of kind solicitude from his mind.
“You are not well, dearest Miss Munro!” he exclaimed; “we
have trifled while you are in suffering!”
“’Tis nothing,” she answered, refusing his support with
feminine reserve. “That I cannot see the sunny side of the picture of
life, like this artless but ardent enthusiast,” she added, laying her
hand lightly, but affectionately, on the arm of her sister, “is the
penalty of experience, and, perhaps, the misfortune of my nature. See,”
she continued, as if determined to shake off infirmity, in a sense of duty;
“look around you, Major Heyward, and tell me what a prospect is this for
the daughter of a soldier whose greatest happiness is his honor and his
military renown.”
“Neither ought nor shall be tarnished by circumstances over which he has
had no control,” Duncan warmly replied. “But your words recall me
to my own duty. I go now to your gallant father, to hear his determination in
matters of the last moment to the defense. God bless you in every fortune,
noble—Cora—I may and must call you.” She frankly gave him her
hand, though her lip quivered, and her cheeks gradually became of ashly
paleness. “In every fortune, I know you will be an ornament and honor to
your sex. Alice, adieu”—his voice changed from admiration to
tenderness—“adieu, Alice; we shall soon meet again; as conquerors,
I trust, and amid rejoicings!”
Without waiting for an answer from either, the young man threw himself down the
grassy steps of the bastion, and moving rapidly across the parade, he was
quickly in the presence of their father. Munro was pacing his narrow apartment
with a disturbed air and gigantic strides as Duncan entered.
“You have anticipated my wishes, Major Heyward,” he said; “I
was about to request this favor.”
“I am sorry to see, sir, that the messenger I so warmly recommended has
returned in custody of the French! I hope there is no reason to distrust his
fidelity?”
“The fidelity of ‘The Long Rifle’ is well known to me,”
returned Munro, “and is above suspicion; though his usual good fortune
seems, at last, to have failed. Montcalm has got him, and with the accursed
politeness of his nation, he has sent him in with a doleful tale, of
‘knowing how I valued the fellow, he could not think of retaining
him.’ A Jesuitical way that, Major Duncan Heyward, of telling a man of
his misfortunes!”
“But the general and his succor?”
“Did ye look to the south as ye entered, and could ye not see
them?” said the old soldier, laughing bitterly. “Hoot! hoot!
you’re an impatient boy, sir, and cannot give the gentlemen leisure for
their march!”
“They are coming, then? The scout has said as much?”
“When? and by what path? for the dunce has omitted to tell me this. There
is a letter, it would seem, too; and that is the only agreeable part of the
matter. For the customary attentions of your Marquis of Montcalm—I
warrant me, Duncan, that he of Lothian would buy a dozen such
marquisates—but if the news of the letter were bad, the gentility of this
French monsieur would certainly compel him to let us know it.”
“He keeps the letter, then, while he releases the messenger?”
“Ay, that does he, and all for the sake of what you call your
‘bonhommie.’ I would venture, if the truth was known, the
fellow’s grandfather taught the noble science of dancing.”
“But what says the scout? he has eyes and ears, and a tongue. What verbal
report does he make?”
“Oh! sir, he is not wanting in natural organs, and he is free to tell all
that he has seen and heard. The whole amount is this; there is a fort of his
majesty’s on the banks of the Hudson, called Edward, in honor of his
gracious highness of York, you’ll know; and it is well filled with armed
men, as such a work should be.”
“But was there no movement, no signs of any intention to advance to our
relief?”
“There were the morning and evening parades; and when one of the
provincial loons—you’ll know, Duncan, you’re half a Scotsman
yourself—when one of them dropped his powder over his porretch, if it
touched the coals, it just burned!” Then, suddenly changing his bitter,
ironical manner, to one more grave and thoughtful, he continued: “and yet
there might, and must be, something in that letter which it would be well to
know!”
“Our decision should be speedy,” said Duncan, gladly availing
himself of this change of humor, to press the more important objects of their
interview; “I cannot conceal from you, sir, that the camp will not be
much longer tenable; and I am sorry to add, that things appear no better in the
fort; more than half the guns are bursted.”
“And how should it be otherwise? Some were fished from the bottom of the
lake; some have been rusting in woods since the discovery of the country; and
some were never guns at all—mere privateersmen’s playthings! Do you
think, sir, you can have Woolwich Warren in the midst of a wilderness, three
thousand miles from Great Britain?”
“The walls are crumbling about our ears, and provisions begin to fail
us,” continued Heyward, without regarding the new burst of indignation;
“even the men show signs of discontent and alarm.”
“Major Heyward,” said Munro, turning to his youthful associate with
the dignity of his years and superior rank; “I should have served his
majesty for half a century, and earned these gray hairs in vain, were I
ignorant of all you say, and of the pressing nature of our circumstances;
still, there is everything due to the honor of the king’s arms, and
something to ourselves. While there is hope of succor, this fortress will I
defend, though it be to be done with pebbles gathered on the lake shore. It is
a sight of the letter, therefore, that we want, that we may know the intentions
of the man the earl of Loudon has left among us as his substitute.”
“And can I be of service in the matter?”
“Sir, you can; the marquis of Montcalm has, in addition to his other
civilities, invited me to a personal interview between the works and his own
camp; in order, as he says, to impart some additional information. Now, I think
it would not be wise to show any undue solicitude to meet him, and I would
employ you, an officer of rank, as my substitute; for it would but ill comport
with the honor of Scotland to let it be said one of her gentlemen was outdone
in civility by a native of any other country on earth.”
Without assuming the supererogatory task of entering into a discussion of the
comparative merits of national courtesy, Duncan cheerfully assented to supply
the place of the veteran in the approaching interview. A long and confidential
communication now succeeded, during which the young man received some
additional insight into his duty, from the experience and native acuteness of
his commander, and then the former took his leave.
As Duncan could only act as the representative of the commandant of the fort,
the ceremonies which should have accompanied a meeting between the heads of the
adverse forces were, of course, dispensed with. The truce still existed, and
with a roll and beat of the drum, and covered by a little white flag, Duncan
left the sally-port, within ten minutes after his instructions were ended. He
was received by the French officer in advance with the usual formalities, and
immediately accompanied to a distant marquee of the renowned soldier who led
the forces of France.
The general of the enemy received the youthful messenger, surrounded by his
principal officers, and by a swarthy band of the native chiefs, who had
followed him to the field, with the warriors of their several tribes. Heyward
paused short, when, in glancing his eyes rapidly over the dark group of the
latter, he beheld the malignant countenance of Magua, regarding him with the
calm but sullen attention which marked the expression of that subtle savage. A
slight exclamation of surprise even burst from the lips of the young man, but
instantly, recollecting his errand, and the presence in which he stood, he
suppressed every appearance of emotion, and turned to the hostile leader, who
had already advanced a step to receive him.
The marquis of Montcalm was, at the period of which we write, in the flower of
his age, and, it may be added, in the zenith of his fortunes. But even in that
enviable situation, he was affable, and distinguished as much for his attention
to the forms of courtesy, as for that chivalrous courage which, only two short
years afterward, induced him to throw away his life on the plains of Abraham.
Duncan, in turning his eyes from the malign expression of Magua, suffered them
to rest with pleasure on the smiling and polished features, and the noble
military air, of the French general.
“Monsieur,” said the latter, “j’ai beaucoup de plaisir
à—bah!—où est cet interpréte?”
“Je crois, monsieur, qu’il ne sear pas nécessaire,” Heyward
modestly replied; “je parle un peu Français.”
“Ah! j’en suis bien aise,” said Montcalm, taking Duncan
familiarly by the arm, and leading him deep into the marquee, a little out of
earshot; “je déteste ces fripons-là; on ne sait jamais sur quel piè on
est avec eux. Eh, bien! monsieur,” he continued still speaking in French;
“though I should have been proud of receiving your commandant, I am very
happy that he has seen proper to employ an officer so distinguished, and who, I
am sure, is so amiable, as yourself.”
Duncan bowed low, pleased with the compliment, in spite of a most heroic
determination to suffer no artifice to allure him into forgetfulness of the
interest of his prince; and Montcalm, after a pause of a moment, as if to
collect his thoughts, proceeded:
“Your commandant is a brave man, and well qualified to repel my assault.
Mais, monsieur, is it not time to begin to take more counsel of humanity, and
less of your courage? The one as strongly characterizes the hero as the
other.”
“We consider the qualities as inseparable,” returned Duncan,
smiling; “but while we find in the vigor of your excellency every motive
to stimulate the one, we can, as yet, see no particular call for the exercise
of the other.”
Montcalm, in his turn, slightly bowed, but it was with the air of a man too
practised to remember the language of flattery. After musing a moment, he
added:
“It is possible my glasses have deceived me, and that your works resist
our cannon better than I had supposed. You know our force?”
“Our accounts vary,” said Duncan, carelessly; “the highest,
however, has not exceeded twenty thousand men.”
The Frenchman bit his lip, and fastened his eyes keenly on the other as if to
read his thoughts; then, with a readiness peculiar to himself, he continued, as
if assenting to the truth of an enumeration which quite doubled his army:
“It is a poor compliment to the vigilance of us soldiers, monsieur, that,
do what we will, we never can conceal our numbers. If it were to be done at
all, one would believe it might succeed in these woods. Though you think it too
soon to listen to the calls of humanity,” he added, smiling archly,
“I may be permitted to believe that gallantry is not forgotten by one so
young as yourself. The daughters of the commandant, I learn, have passed into
the fort since it was invested?”
“It is true, monsieur; but, so far from weakening our efforts, they set
us an example of courage in their own fortitude. Were nothing but resolution
necessary to repel so accomplished a soldier as M. de Montcalm, I would gladly
trust the defense of William Henry to the elder of those ladies.”
“We have a wise ordinance in our Salique laws, which says, ‘The
crown of France shall never degrade the lance to the distaff’,”
said Montcalm, dryly, and with a little hauteur; but instantly adding, with his
former frank and easy air: “as all the nobler qualities are hereditary, I
can easily credit you; though, as I said before, courage has its limits, and
humanity must not be forgotten. I trust, monsieur, you come authorized to treat
for the surrender of the place?”
“Has your excellency found our defense so feeble as to believe the
measure necessary?”
“I should be sorry to have the defense protracted in such a manner as to
irritate my red friends there,” continued Montcalm, glancing his eyes at
the group of grave and attentive Indians, without attending to the
other’s questions; “I find it difficult, even now, to limit them to
the usages of war.”
Heyward was silent; for a painful recollection of the dangers he had so
recently escaped came over his mind, and recalled the images of those
defenseless beings who had shared in all his sufferings.
“Ces messieurs-là,” said Montcalm, following up the advantage which
he conceived he had gained, “are most formidable when baffled; and it is
unnecessary to tell you with what difficulty they are restrained in their
anger. Eh bien, monsieur! shall we speak of the terms?”
“I fear your excellency has been deceived as to the strength of William
Henry, and the resources of its garrison!”
“I have not sat down before Quebec, but an earthen work, that is defended
by twenty-three hundred gallant men,” was the laconic reply.
“Our mounds are earthen, certainly—nor are they seated on the rocks
of Cape Diamond; but they stand on that shore which proved so destructive to
Dieskau and his army. There is also a powerful force within a few hours’
march of us, which we account upon as a part of our means.”
“Some six or eight thousand men,” returned Montcalm, with much
apparent indifference, “whom their leader wisely judges to be safer in
their works than in the field.”
It was now Heyward’s turn to bite his lip with vexation as the other so
coolly alluded to a force which the young man knew to be overrated. Both mused
a little while in silence, when Montcalm renewed the conversation, in a way
that showed he believed the visit of his guest was solely to propose terms of
capitulation. On the other hand, Heyward began to throw sundry inducements in
the way of the French general, to betray the discoveries he had made through
the intercepted letter. The artifice of neither, however, succeeded; and after
a protracted and fruitless interview, Duncan took his leave, favorably
impressed with an opinion of the courtesy and talents of the enemy’s
captain, but as ignorant of what he came to learn as when he arrived. Montcalm
followed him as far as the entrance of the marquee, renewing his invitations to
the commandant of the fort to give him an immediate meeting in the open ground
between the two armies.
There they separated, and Duncan returned to the advanced post of the French,
accompanied as before; whence he instantly proceeded to the fort, and to the
quarters of his own commander.