Two months passed away, and beneath the bright August sun the still
waters of the St. Lawrence were reflecting the clear and well-defined
image of its lofty and thickly wooded banks, when Isidore again stood
on that well-remembered knoll, conversing eagerly with his humble
Canadian friend. The contrast between the two men was even more
striking than on the last occasion of their meeting there. Boulanger
seemed if possible more hale and hearty than ever, and there was in his
whole manner and deportment a vivacity and joyousness even greater than
that which commonly characterised him. Still he seemed to check
himself as much as it was in his nature to do, and paused more than
once in his warmly expressed greetings as he surveyed the pitiable
condition of his visitor, which was indeed more deplorable and wretched
than when the hospitable woodsman and his wife had done their best to
fit him out for his expedition to Louisburg.
"Alas!" said the Canadian, "we have already heard that it was all of no
use and that the place has fallen, but as yet few particulars have
reached us here, as you may suppose. Indeed I too have been away from
here almost all the time, and have only just come back. But we must do
what we can to recruit you a little, and then perhaps monsieur will
tell us all about it." So once more Isidore found himself seated
within the walls of the forester's dwelling, and as the meal went on
did his best to satisfy his host's inquiries as to what had befallen
him since their last meeting.
"I came too late to witness the beginning of the siege," said he, "for
the fleet arrived there on the 2nd of June. They thought to take the
place by surprise, but our brave General Drucour was not the man to let
them do that, and he had already taken every precaution that skill and
daring could devise to strengthen the defences in every direction."
"It was a pretty strong place even without that," said Boulanger. "I
was down at Louisburg myself last year and know it well, with its great
harbour that would hold all the British navy together, and the two
great tongues of land sheltering it from the south-western and
north-western gales, and Goat Island in the middle with its long reef
of rocks."
"Just so," continued Isidore. "Well, there had been such a fog for the
first week, and the sea broke on the beach so heavily, that even those
bold English, with that fellow Wolfe to lead them, could not effect a
landing until the 8th, and then they met with a pretty warm reception.
It was of no use, however; our fellows were gradually driven back, and
the siege began in good earnest. Every yard of ground was contested,
but by degrees our outlying batteries were first silenced, then taken,
and it was whilst this was going on that I reached the place. Besides
our regular troops there were three or four hundred Canadians and some
Indians; and being a soldier with some experience, I got the command of
a company of irregulars. So matters went on, until at length the Goat
Island batteries were silenced; but on the 9th of last month----"
"The 9th!" cried Boulanger. "Ah, I recollect that day well enough.
I'll tell you about that presently; go on, I pray you."
"Well, on that night we made a tremendous sortie, and took the enemy by
surprise. They were commanded by a British Lord--Dundonald was his
name--but if the poor fellow was taken unawares he paid dearly for it,
for he was killed, together with a great number of his men. Yet they
were soon reinforced, and came on so gallantly that we were repulsed,
losing many men and some prisoners. I, too, was hit, but luckily it
was only a graze."
"What! You were in the sortie then?" exclaimed Boulanger, not a little
excited by the narrative.
"Yes, and our brave general was pleased to say I had done good service
in bringing off some of our men who were nearly surrounded. He offered
at once to give me a company of regulars, and asked my name. But I
told him plainly that I was under a cloud and could not accept his
offer; still he insisted on giving me a few words in writing, which he
said might some day be of use to me.
"The rest of my sad story is soon told," Isidore went on to say.
"Three of our great ships had already been set on fire in the harbour,
and the enemy kept up such a cannonade upon them that it was impossible
to save them; but the town being, as you know, three or four miles from
the spot where the landing was made, the siege was not yet at an end.
Ten or twelve days after the sortie, however, Wolfe had pushed on his
attack almost up to the walls. Then the citadel was burnt, and on the
day after that the barracks, and at last three great breaches were made
in the defences of the place itself. The day following two more of our
line of battle ships were captured and burnt by some of their captains,
who made a sudden attack on them in the very harbour itself. All hope
of further resistance was now at an end, and on the 26th the
unfortunate Drucour was obliged to surrender."
"Yes, we have heard that," said Boulanger; "but General Montcalm has
already done something to make up for that, though Louisburg has been
such a triumph for those terrible English."
"It must indeed be something of importance to make up for what we have
lost there," replied Isidore. "My old habits on the staff led to my
knowing better than most people the extent of our misfortune. The
English took and destroyed eleven of our great ships, and made nearly
six thousand of our men prisoners, to say nothing of capturing 250 guns
and fifteen thousand stand of arms, and, what is worst of all, they can
boast of taking nearly a dozen of our colours."
"But how did you escape?" inquired the forester anxiously.
"Well, that is of little consequence," answered Isidore, "though that
was strange enough after all. I told you that we had some Indians
fighting on our side, and very well they fought too, though I do not
care to have to do with those rascals. Fortunately there were none on
the English side--I say fortunately, for I have always found there is
more anxiety connected with watching against a handful of them than
against any number of regulars; one never knows what cunning wiles and
surprises they may be devising. Strange to say, the chief of our
Indians, a fellow named White Eagle, seemed to have taken a mighty
liking to me, and stuck close to me wherever I went. I fancy most of
his tribe managed to escape at the last; but after the capitulation,
when I found myself with a number of our Canadian volunteers lodged in
a shattered block-house awaiting the decision of our captors, whom
should I find seated quietly by my side but my friend the red skin."
"Eh?" exclaimed Boulanger with marked surprise. "What tribe did he
belong to?"
"Oh, he was an Algonquin," replied Isidore. "I asked him how he came
there when most of his people had got safe away? He only grunted the
usual 'ugh'; but when most of the prisoners had fallen asleep, tired
out with their long and weary work, he said to me quietly, 'When the
sun sets, the pale face can escape and go back to Quebec.' Not a word
more could I get out of him till night had come on. Then he touched my
arm and pointed to the window frame, close to which we lay. The window
itself had been blown out, indeed the place was riddled with shot
holes, and the roof had been half blown off, so that what little light
the moon did give shone right down upon us. Wondering what was to come
next I watched him attentively, and saw him stealthily tie the end of a
long wampum belt to the stump of one of the iron window stanchions.
'Slip down and drop; it is but a couple of lengths more to the ground,'
said he. Without a word I crept to the window, and in another minute
had slid down. The drop, however, was longer than I had counted on,
and I fell rather heavily. 'Who goes there?' shouted a sentry on the
wall, a little way off. Of course I lay as still as death, and
fortunately the shadow of a buttress fell exactly across the spot where
I had fallen. The sentry challenged again and fired, but as he did so
the Indian dropped lightly down at my side, seized me by the arm and
hurried me away. I suppose there was an alarm, but if they did miss me
from amongst the prisoners, they probably did not think it worth while
to give chase. Accustomed as we were to the ins and outs of the place,
my friend and I managed easily to evade the sentries, and in a quarter
of an hour more we were clear of them, and in the open country beyond
the town. We did not slacken our pace, however, and in a couple of
hours we reached an Indian encampment, where I recognised many of the
red skins I had seen during the siege. At daybreak we moved off, and I
returned with the tribe to the neighbourhood of Quebec. At parting the
chief presented me with a new wampum belt, which he drew from beneath
his vest, saying, 'Keep this in token that White Eagle has discharged
his trust.'"
"What!" cried Boulanger, in great excitement. "Is that the belt which
you now have on?"
"Yes," said Isidore, untying and showing it to him; "and I shall
certainly keep it in recollection of my most extraordinary escape."
The forester gave one look at it, and uttered the word, "Amoahmeh!"
"Who--what?" said Isidore. "By the by, I have been going to ask you
more than once what has become of that poor Indian girl."
"Nay, you ought to know better than I, to judge from this wampum belt,"
replied Boulanger.
"Why so? What has become of her?"
"Well," answered the Canadian, "if you had asked me a few minutes ago I
should have spoken out pretty strongly about her, but I suspect she is
not so bad after all."
"Bad! What do you mean?"
"Why, you see, monsieur," replied Boulanger, "you had scarcely left us
a couple of days when she bolted without a word, not even saying as
much as 'thank ye,' or 'good-bye.' I did feel vexed, I confess, for I
was quite sure she had joined a tribe of Indians that had been loafing
about here for some time. I had more than once noticed her at work
over a wampum belt, as if she had a hankering after her old life.
'What's bred in the bone is sure to come out in the flesh,' I said to
Bibi, and 'you can't make a silk purse out of a pig's ear.' However,
as she seems to have had some hand in your escape, I'll not say a word
against her. But what does monsieur intend to do now?"
Isidore did not answer him, and Boulanger was making some remarks as to
the need in which his guest stood of a long rest after so much fatigue
and anxiety, when Bibi suddenly held up her hand, saying softly, "Hush,
I declare he has dropped off."
There was no mistake about that--the seat which the young soldier
occupied, and which very possibly did duty as a bed by night, made by
day a particularly comfortable couch, covered as it was with a fine
soft buffalo-robe of huge dimensions. More than once towards the
conclusion of his story Isidore had nodded, but had roused himself with
a spasmodic start. At last, utterly overcome by prolonged fatigue, he
had sunk down gradually and fallen fast asleep.
"Poor gentleman," said Boulanger, in a whisper, "I don't wonder at it,
and I would not wake him for the world after all he has had to go
through."
So the little curtain was drawn as noiselessly as possible to keep out
the rays of the now setting sun, and creeping away stealthily on
tiptoe, the kind-hearted and hospitable couple left their visitor to
his dreams.
The sun had not only set, but had risen again when Isidore was aroused
from his sleep by the noisy gambols of Boulanger's little ones beneath
the window. Refreshed by his long rest, he was soon fortifying himself
still further by a hearty breakfast, at which the conversation of the
previous day was at once resumed.
"I am quite ashamed of having talked of nothing but myself yesterday,"
said Isidore, "instead of listening to others. You were saying
something about our having had successes to set against the fall of
Louisburg, and I did hear a report that Montcalm had repulsed the
English on Lake George, but of course I have heard no particulars.
What does it all amount to?"
"I fancy I can tell you about as much as any one," answered Boulanger;
"I happened to be there."
"You!" exclaimed Isidore, with some surprise.
"Yes. You must know that very shortly after you left us, and whilst I
was fretting about Miss Amoahmeh's unceremonious departure, I found our
folks at Quebec preparing to send up reinforcements to General Montcalm
at Ticonderoga, where a great attack was expected."
"I thought so," said his guest; "indeed I heard even before leaving
France that Pitt's plans comprised not only the attack on Louisburg,
but simultaneous operations on the lakes, and also in the west, on the
Ohio."
"Well, it is all up with them on Lake George, at all events," continued
the forester. "I found they wanted guides at Quebec for the
detachments going up country, and being unsettled and just in the
humour for it, I offered my services, and so it came about that I
reached Ticonderoga at the beginning of last month. It was on the 4th,
just as Montcalm's scouts reported the embarkation of the English at
the southern end of Lake George, on the way to attack us. You know
that country, monsieur?"
"Of course; I was at Fort William Henry, you know. Ticonderoga, I
recollect, lies just at the southern extremity of Lake Champlain, just
where the northern end of the comparatively small Lake George almost
joins it. What was the English force?"
"Ah, you gentlemen on the staff are always asking what's the enemy's
strength. Well, I heard one of our officers say that General
Abercromby had with him nine or ten thousand New England militia, and
about six thousand English regulars. They had more than a thousand
boats and barges, and I'm told that there never was a grander sight
than to see them all coming up the lake on the 5th of July, with music
playing and streamers flying, just for all the world like a holiday
procession."
"They could not add to the beauty of that lovely lake," said Isidore,
interrupting him. "Well do I remember it with its myriads of
enchanting little islands mirrored in its clear smooth waters, and
glowing all bright and lovely in the setting sun."
"A good many of those poor fellows only saw the sun set once or twice
more," continued the Canadian. "They landed on the following day a few
miles from Fort Ticonderoga, and marched forward at once, our small
force of men stationed there retiring before them, and by some blunder
losing their way in the thick woods lying between that spot and the
fort. As it happened, they fell in that afternoon with a body of the
English under a milord Howe--as brave an officer as ever fought they
say--who was killed by one of the first shots fired; but his men got
the better of ours, and we lost a few killed and some prisoners. Their
general, however, seems not to have been good for much, and fell back;
but on the day after that he sent part of his army forward under
another brave fellow, Colonel Bradstreet."
"I know," said Isidore; "the same who gallantly forced a passage up the
Onondaga quite at the outset of the war. Well, go on."
"On the 8th they reached a place named Carillon, close to Ticonderoga,
and began their attack on the fort. Some of the provincial militia
came on first, but soon gave way, for our general, as you can guess,
monsieur, had not only strengthened the fort with a formidable rampart
some eight feet high, but had studded the approach to it with an abatis
of prodigious trunks and branches of trees, which not only seemed, but
actually proved impenetrable. On came the regulars as briskly and
bravely as our men could have done, but it was only to be shot down in
scores and hundreds by our sharpshooters sheltered behind the
earthworks, who picked them off as they crossed the open and tried in
vain to struggle through the abatis. Three times the attack was
renewed by fresh troops, and the English fought splendidly; but even
the Highlanders, though they climbed like wild cats, could only here
and there get a few men through the tangled defences outside of us. At
last their General Abercromby seemed to despair of success, and instead
of trying some other point to the right or left, where I believe we
were not half so well protected, he ordered a retreat. From that
moment it was all up with them; their general's loss of heart seemed to
affect even the brave fellows he commanded. When on the following
day--the very 9th of July, monsieur, on which you were making your
sortie at Louisburg--he gave the order to fall back towards the place
where they had landed, a panic seized them. They fancied, I suppose,
that all was lost, and there was a regular stampede for the lake, into
which they might perhaps have rushed like a herd of bisons over a
precipice, if that same Colonel Bradstreet had not made a stand against
them and restored something like order. However, there they embarked
as fast as they could, and went back to Fort William Henry, leaving
nearly two thousand killed and wounded behind them, which was pretty
well, considering that the troops our general had did not number more
than about three thousand altogether."
"A great and glorious day for us indeed," exclaimed Isidore; "and from
what you say of the nature of the conflict, I should hope it did not
cost us very dear."
"Less than four hundred men in all," replied the Canadian; "so if we
have lost Louisburg we beat them at Ticonderoga. And if they are proud
of their General Wolfe, let them send him to fight Montcalm and we
shall see who is the best man."
It may easily be imagined that Isidore had listened to this narrative
with the deepest interest, and indeed at times with no little
excitement. No sooner was it concluded than he started up, exclaiming,
"I cannot stay here brooding over my misfortunes whilst such things are
going on around me--it would kill me. No, I will not sit idle with my
hands folded whilst others are shedding their blood for France. I have
made up my mind to go to the army on the lakes. I should hardly be
recognised now," he added, somewhat bitterly, "and if I were, what
matters it? One can but die once, and I have little to live for save
one thing, that seems every hour to become more utterly hopeless."
"Monsieur is right," cried Boulanger. "I also feel that there are
times when every good Frenchman should be up and doing. We will start
to-morrow."
"We!" rejoined Isidore, surprised. "You surely do not mean to leave
your home again so soon?"
"As for that," replied the forester, "I had thought of it already. It
is my chief business to be moving about for one thing or another, and
the more I stick to that the sooner I shall be able to call this little
place my own for good and all. So there's an end of it."
Isidore could not but think that the honest Canadian's attachment to
him had something to do with this determination, and he would fain have
persuaded him to reconsider his resolve, but it was to no purpose. The
rest of the day was accordingly spent in making preparations for their
departure, and on the following morning they set out on their journey.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to Chapter II]
[Illustration: Headpiece to Chapter III]