"What happened?" cried Corinne breathlessly.
"Why, nothing but a series of gross blunders. We got across all safe, and landed unopposed. The Seminary scholars were over first, and marched off up the hill before the rest came. We got separated in that way, and almost at once one felt that a sort of panic had got hold of the people. The burghers who were so anxious to come now got frightened, and were most difficult to get into order.
Dumas and the regulars did their utmost; but it was plain that the people were scared out of their lives lest the English should suddenly appear and attack them. After a long time we got into a sort of order, and began the march, when all of a sudden there were a crash and a blaze, and everything was thrown into confusion. They yelled out that the English were upon them, and headed for the boats."
"O Colin--the men who were so keen to fight!" cried Corinne; whilst the midshipmen doubled themselves up with laughter, exclaiming beneath their breath:
"O gallant burghers of Quebec!"
"It was disgraceful!" cried Colin hotly; "and more disgraceful still was it that the fire came from our own side--from the Seminary scholars, who had gone in advance; a thing they had no business to do. But this was not the worst--at least it was not the end of the bungling; for if you will believe me, the same thing happened three distinct times. Twice more after we had got the men formed up again, and were leading them up the hill behind the English guns, did those wretched Seminary scholars mistake them for the enemy and fire into their ranks. The last time they killed a score or more, and wounded quite a large number of others. That was too much. The men turned tail and fled helter-skelter back to the boats, and there was no getting them back after that. The scholars, too, when they heard what they had done, were seized with panic, and joined the rout.
"I never saw such a scene in my life as the opposite sh.o.r.e presented just as the dawn was breaking and the first gun boomed out, and we knew that we ought to have been marching in compact order along the crest of the hill to fall upon the gunners from behind. Well, if this is how Quebec manages her affairs, she deserves to have her houses battered in. We shall soon have the answer from the English batteries, and we shall deserve it, too!"
Colin was right. The iron storm began all too soon, and proved to the full as destructive as had been feared. Churches and houses were laid in ruins, and disastrous fires broke out, consuming others. The unhappy occupants of the Lower Town fled from the smoking ruins, some to take refuge with friends in the Upper Town, which was considerably less exposed; others to fly into the open country beyond, where they trusted to be safe from the English invader. As the military authorities had proclaimed, this destruction did not materially affect the position of the belligerents--the English could not get much nearer their object by sh.e.l.ling the town--but it did much to dishearten the citizens, and produced a strong moral effect of depression, and murmurs even arose in isolated quarters that it would be better to surrender than to be destroyed.
Moreover, disquieting reports came from other places. The camp of Montcalm extended, as has been said, from the river St. Charles to the Falls of Montmorency. That great gorge was considered protection enough, and it was believed that no enemy would be rash enough to try to cross the river higher up; indeed, it was popularly supposed that there was no ford. Nevertheless it soon became known that Wolfe had effected a landing upon the farther sh.o.r.e of the Montmorency; that he was fortifying a camp there, and had found and was now holding a ford in the river above, whence, if he chose, he could cross and fall upon the camp at Beauport.
There had been some argument at first as to the advisability of dislodging him before he had made himself strong enough to resist attack. The Intendant had given his voice in favour of the attack; but for once the Governor and the General had been of one mind, and had decided against it.
"Let him stay where he is," said Montcalm, after he had surveyed the position; "he can do us little harm there. If we dislodge him, he may find a footing elsewhere, and prove much more dangerous and troublesome. If he tries to get across to us, we shall have a welcome ready!"
So, though parties of Canadians and Indians hara.s.sed the English in their camp, and were met and routed by the gallant Rangers, who always accompanied the English forces, the soldiers remained in their intrenchments, and took little notice of the rival camp.
Sometimes under flags of truce messages pa.s.sed between the hostile camps.
"You will no doubt batter and demolish a great part of the town,"
wrote Montcalm on one occasion, "but you will never get inside it!"
"I will have Quebec," wrote back Wolfe, "if I stay here till the winter. I have come from England to win it. I do not go back till my task is done."
Some smiled at that message; but Madame Drucour received it with a little shivering sigh.
"Ah," she exclaimed, "I have seen Monsieur Wolfe; I can hear him speak the words! Somehow it seems to me that he is a man who will never go back from his resolve. If he has made up his mind to take Quebec, Quebec will be taken!"
Book 6: Without Quebec.
Chapter 1: In Sight Of His Goal.
Wolfe stood rapt in thought beside the batteries upon Point Levi.
From his own camp at the Montmorency falls he had come over in a boat to visit Brigadier Moncton"s camp, opposite the city of Quebec; and now he stood surveying the town--and the havoc wrought upon its buildings by his cannon--with a gla.s.s at his eye, a look of great thoughtfulness and care stamped upon his thin face.
Near at hand, ready to answer if addressed, was Brigadier Moncton, a brave and capable officer; and a little farther off, also watching the General and the scene spread out before him, stood a little group of three, who had come across with Wolfe in the boat, and who were, in fact, none other than our old friends, Fritz Neville, Julian Dautray, and Humphrey Angell.
It had been an immense joy to these three men to meet together in the camp of Wolfe round about Quebec. Julian had accompanied the expedition from England, Fritz had joined Admiral Durell"s contingent whilst it was waiting for junction with the fleet from England, and Humphrey had come to join them in the transport ships from New York, bringing news of friends in Philadelphia, where he had pa.s.sed a portion of the time of waiting.
Now these three comrades, so long parted, and now brought together by the chances of war, were almost inseparable. Wolfe had appointed them posts about his own person, having taken for Fritz almost the same warm liking that he had from the first felt towards Julian and Humphrey, and which, in the case of Julian, had ripened into a deep and ardent friendship.
Whilst the young General was making his survey, rapt in thoughts which as yet he kept to himself, the three comrades spoke together of the war and the outlook.
"It will be a hard nut to crack, this city of Quebec," said Humphrey; "they were all saying that in Philadelphia as I left. Yet all men say that Quebec is the key of Canada. If that falls into our hands, we shall be masters of the country."
"And if our General has set his mind upon it, he will accomplish it," said Julian briefly.
"He is a wonderful man," said Fritz, with a look of admiration directed towards the tall, slim figure of the soldier; "would that his body were as strong as his spirit! Sometimes when I look at him I fear that the blade is too keen for the scabbard. That ardent spirit will wear out the frail body."
"That is the danger," said Julian gravely; "but it is wonderful what he can compel that frail body to go through. He will rise from an almost sleepless night of pain and exhaustion, and do the work of a man in sound health, infusing life and energy and enthusiasm into everyone with whom he comes in contact! Truly the King"s words about him contained a great truth."
"What words?" asked Fritz.
"Why, you know that this Wolfe of ours is but a young man, gallant enough, but far younger and less known than many another of half his capacity. You know, too, that the Duke of Newcastle, to whose blundering we owe half our misfortunes in the west, was never known to make a wise selection of men for posts of command, and was shocked and alarmed when he heard that Pitt had appointed a comparatively young and untried man for the command of such an expedition as this. He once said testily to the King that Pitt"s new general was mad.
""Mad is he?" quoth His Majesty, with a laugh; "then I hope he will bite some more of my generals!""
Fritz laughed at the sally.
"In truth we could have done with some more of that sort of madness amongst the leaders of those border wars which have ended so disastrously for us. But in very truth the tide did turn, as the Abbe Messonnier had foretold, when Pitt"s hand was placed upon the helm of England"s government. So much has been accomplished already that I myself do not believe we shall turn our backs upon these scenes before Quebec is ours."
"That is what they say in Philadelphia," cried Humphrey--"that Quebec must and shall fall. If General Amherst can but capture Ticonderoga and Crown Point, he will march to our a.s.sistance by land. Then the French will be caught between two armies, and the nut will be cracked indeed! Did I tell you that our kinsman Benjamin Ashley has declared that, directly Quebec falls, he will come and visit the great city of which so much has been spoken, to see for himself the great work? If he does this, he will bring his wife and Susanna with him. You cannot think how keenly alive the Philadelphians are becoming to the glory it will be to rid Canada of French rule, and found an English-speaking colony there. The Quakers still stand aloof, and talk gloomily of the sin of warfare; but the rest of the people heed them no whit. They have furnished and equipped a gallant band to join General Amherst, and they are kindling with a great enthusiasm in the cause. Even our old friend Ebenezer Jenkyns has been talking great swelling words of warlike import. He would have joined the militia, he says, had not his father forbidden him."
"It is well they have awoke at last," said Fritz, a little grimly; "but it would have been better had they done so before their border was harried, and their brothers and countrymen done to death by the bands of Indian marauders."
At which saying Humphrey"s face grew dark; for there was stamped upon his brain one scene the memory of which would never be effaced, though it should be a thousandfold avenged.
"I would that Charles could have lived to see the day when the English should enter the city of Quebec!"
He spoke beneath his breath; but Fritz heard him, and answered with thoughtful gravity:
"Perhaps it were not true kindness to wish him back. His death blow was struck when his wife and children perished. The days which remained to him were days of sorrow and pain. The light of his life, the desire of his eyes, had been taken away. He lived but for an act of vengeance, and when that was accomplished, I believe he would have faded out of life had it not been that his own life was extinguished at the same time as that of his foe."
Humphrey made a silent sign of a.s.sent. He could not speak much even yet of the tragic fate of his brother, or of the events which had led to it. Fritz turned the subject by speaking of John Stark and the Rangers, asking Humphrey what had been known of them since the breaking-up of the band after the disaster of Ticonderoga.
"I saw Stark," answered Humphrey eagerly. "Have I not told you before? Ah well, we have not much time for talking these busy days.
Yes, I saw Stark; he came to visit his kinsfolk of the inn when I was in Philadelphia. He has gone now with Amherst"s party. He will join Rogers, I suppose; and, doubtless, the Rangers will again do good service, as they do everywhere. He was in half a mind to come north with the expedition for Quebec, but decided that he would be of more use in country every foot of which was familiar to him. But he declared that, if once Ticonderoga were to fall, he would bring us the news faster than any other messenger. How he will come, and by what route, I know not; but this I know, that if there is a victory for English arms yonder in the west, and if John Stark be not killed, the sight of his face amongst us here will be the sign to us that the victory has been won."
"And right welcome will be the sight of his face," cried Fritz, "be his news what it may. John Stark is one of the best and bravest men I know. I have told our General many a tale of him and his prowess.
Wolfe will have a welcome for him if he ever appears here."
Wolfe seemed to have finished his survey. He took the gla.s.s from his eye and looked round him. Moncton was at his side in a moment.
He, in common with all who fought with and under him, had a great admiration for the gallant young General.
"Moncton," said Wolfe, in a voice loud enough for the other three to hear plainly, "I want to get some ships past the city into the upper reach of the river. The French General will not fight. I give him chance after chance against me, but he does not take it. He thinks a waiting game will serve his turn best, and perhaps he is right. But we must leave no stone unturned to hara.s.s and perplex him. I want a footing in the upper reach of the river. I want to get some vessels past the town."
Moncton drew his lips together in a silent whistle.
"Will not the town batteries sink them like logs as they pa.s.s?" he asked.
"They will, if they see them. They have left the river free of vessels; they trust entirely to their guns. But our sailors have done bolder deeds before this than the pa.s.sing of some batteries upon a dark night. If you were to cover their advance by a furious cannonade upon the town, do you not think we could slip a few past those frowning batteries, and make a new basis of operations for ourselves in the upper reach of the river, above the town?"