The King's Warrant Part 14

"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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tailpiece to Chapter II]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Headpiece to Chapter III]

CHAPTER III.

The capture of Louisburg was at once followed up by a descent upon the French settlements on the Acadian coast by Sir Charles Hardy, with half a dozen ships of the line and some frigates, carrying with them a small land force under the command of Wolfe. This was intended partly as a measure of retaliation and partly to draw away a portion of the enemy's forces from the theatre of war on the lakes. Miramichi and the villages along the Bay of Chaleurs and at Point Gaspe were partially or wholly destroyed, and although no needless cruelty may have been added to the inevitable horrors involved in such an expedition, the sufferings of the peaceful inhabitants of the devoted districts cannot but excite the deepest commiseration. Their dwellings were burnt, and the stores of provisions laid up for the winter totally destroyed, whilst the people themselves were either killed, taken prisoners, or driven out into the woods, where many perished with cold and hunger.

Some of course managed to escape, and a few betook themselves to other places on the St. Lawrence, or, like Isidore de Beaujardin, ultimately joined the army under Montcalm.

It was in company with some of these fugitives, who had been organised at Quebec, that Isidore and Boulanger at last reached Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, where they found that no operations of any importance had been undertaken since the great repulse of the English at Ticonderoga. Skirmishes indeed occasionally took place along the border, and one expedition under Major Rogers, on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Champlain, kept the French on the alert. Whilst Montcalm was unable for want of a sufficiently numerous army to undertake any great offensive movement, Abercromby, disheartened by his late fruitless attempt on Ticonderoga, lay almost inactive in the neighbourhood of Lake George.

Such a state of things was distasteful enough to Isidore, who had hoped in the excitement of a busy campaign to be able to forget his sorrows, and who fretted continually over the mean and miserable position he was now condemned to occupy. He had begun to think seriously of returning to Quebec in the hope of meeting with his uncle the Baron de Valricour, when an event occurred which put an end, at all events for a time, to any such thoughts. As he was sitting one evening, disconsolately enough, on the parapet of a small outwork, he heard footsteps approaching him, and on looking up he recognised at once the small and well-remembered figure of the Marquis de Montcalm. Almost mechanically he rose and saluted. Montcalm, apparently struck by his appearance, stopped and eyed him curiously; his singularly retentive memory never failed him at such a moment.

"Truly," said he at last, "I could hardly have believed it possible.

Who would have thought of seeing you here, Colonel de Beaujardin--and in such a disguise too!" he added, with a searching and somewhat suspicious glance at Isidore's costume, which had little of the soldier about it.

"I do not call myself Colonel de Beaujardin now," replied Isidore, bitterly, "but Claude Breton, general, at your service."

"Breton--Breton!" exclaimed the marquis, considering for a moment. "It was reported to me, I recollect, that a Canadian called Breton showed great courage and coolness in a little affair of outposts a few days since. Was it you?"

Isidore bowed slightly, but made no other answer.

Montcalm was silent for a minute or so, and fidgeted with his sword-knot, though he kept his eyes intently fixed on his _quondam_ aide-de-camp.

"Monsieur de Beaujardin," said he at length, with his usual rapidity of utterance, "I believe you know as well as any one that I have always held that men seldom lose caste and come down in the world without some fault of their own. I should be sorry indeed to think this is the case with you, but you beyond all other men had at your command everything that could ensure an honourable and even brilliant career. What can have brought you to this?"

"No fault of mine, sir," replied Isidore, proudly. "I have been the victim of circ.u.mstances which it was beyond my power to control."

"Beyond your power! What! with a father in the position of the marquis to a.s.sist you?" rejoined Montcalm. "There is no man whom I would more willingly believe, or more willingly a.s.sist, but----"

"General Montcalm will have the goodness to remember that I have neither sought nor solicited his a.s.sistance," answered Isidore, haughtily.

"I do not forget it, sir," was the reply, "indeed it is that which justifies my doubts. I, at all events, am not changed, and if Monsieur de Beaujardin has nothing to reproach himself with, he may without scruple claim both sympathy and a.s.sistance from me."

Isidore was touched with the generous forbearance evinced by such a gentle answer to his rather defiant speech.

"Sir," said he, "His Majesty has done me the honour to issue a _lettre de cachet_ against me, and not for all the world would I place such a friend as you have been in a false position, by asking at your hands what, as the king's lieutenant here, you have scarcely a right to accord to me."

"I accept the reason, and I honour you for it, de Beaujardin," said Montcalm, grasping his hand. "I grieve to find you in such a position, but I am happily not called upon to act on your information, of which, indeed," he added with a smile, "I will choose to doubt the accuracy.

It is not for me to pry into your family affairs, but if you desire to confide in me, I will a.s.suredly counsel and help you to the best of my power."

Isidore could not repel an offer of friendship so kindly and generously made, and as briefly as possible he narrated the circ.u.mstances that had led to his revisiting Canada. Montcalm listened to him attentively and without interruption.

"You are certainly more sinned against than sinning," said he, when Isidore had concluded, "and if you have in some respects acted hastily, it has been from n.o.ble and generous impulses. I take a real interest in the unfortunate young lady, whose father I well remember as a brave and devoted soldier. To restore you to your former position, or even to appoint you to a company, is plainly impossible at present, but I can give you active employment of a kind which will keep you out of the way of being recognised, and should an opportunity offer, I will not forget you."

Isidore was about to express a warm acknowledgment of this kindly a.s.surance, but Montcalm interrupted him: "Wait until I have really done something for you," said he. "And now listen to me. The campaign here is virtually over. With the force at my command, I can do no more than hold Abercromby in check, and prevent him from detaching any considerable force beyond that sent away by him some time since under Bradstreet for the reduction of Fort Frontenac, which has been only too successfully accomplished. I have just heard that the place is taken and the shipping on Lake Ontario captured or destroyed. What could de Noyan do with a hundred and twenty men? The defence of the fort was hopeless in the absence of reinforcements, the absolute necessity for which de Longueuil seems to have neglected to report, unless indeed the Marquis de Vaudreuil purposely withheld them. I suspect as much, and if so, poor de Noyan will be sacrificed, for the king is not likely to hear the true state of the case."

"A disaster indeed," observed Isidore, who in the interest he felt in Montcalm's communication seemed to fancy himself once more the aide-de-camp and personal friend of his old chief. "We have lost, then, the command of the lake, and what is perhaps worse, our hold on the many tribes of Indians who used to make Frontenac their great place of a.s.sembly for concluding their contracts and alliances."

"You are right," was the reply. "Beaujardin, or Breton, I see you have not lost your head in spite of your misfortunes. Well, all that is past helping now, and what is almost as bad, we shall lose our hold in the West. General Forbes has long since left Philadelphia with some one thousand five hundred British regulars, chiefly Highlanders, and at least five thousand of those New England militia, for an attack on Fort Duquesne. Forbes is not the man to let himself be decoyed into such a snare as Braddock fell into, but he has to cross the Alleghanies and a tract of a hundred leagues or more through a strange and difficulty country, and that is not done in a week, or a month either. This brings me to what I have to say to you. I wish de Lignieres, who is in command at Duquesne to know that I consider the place cannot resist such a force as will be brought against it; he cannot be reinforced, and he will do wisely to dismantle and abandon it, falling back on such points as circ.u.mstances may leave him to think best capable of defence.

Will you take this message? and if so, how soon can you set out?"

"I am ready, and will start in ten minutes," was the prompt reply.

Montcalm smiled. "You are indeed worthy of a better fate than that which has unhappily befallen you. As for a guide----"

"I have with me the Canadian woodsman Boulanger, who took me from Oswego to Quebec two years ago."

"Boulanger! I recollect the man well; a better guide or a more trusty fellow you could not have." Saying this, Montcalm wrote a few lines in pencil on a leaf of his pocket-book and handed it to Isidore. "Now, adieu," said he; "when we meet again I trust I may be able to welcome you, not as Claude Breton, but as my old friend and aide-de-camp Colonel de Beaujardin."

"Farewell, sir," answered Isidore; "it will indeed be a proud and happy day for me should I ever again find myself on the staff of a general whom our country will surely one day hail as the saviour of New France."

"No," rejoined Montcalm gravely, "that is no longer possible. It is now only too evident that, backed by a brave and energetic people, with almost unlimited resources, and a.s.sisted by their colonies in America, Pitt will not rest till our beautiful New France has become a British colony. But the great changes that lie before us will not end there.

Mark me, de Beaujardin, those mad New Englanders with their foolish notions of independence will not long brook being ruled by a government three thousand miles off. The time will come, perhaps, when instead of fighting against France they may welcome her as an ally who will help them to shake off the allegiance they owe to their king, and France, unhappy France, will some day follow their example! I shall not live to see it, but you may. Once more, adieu!"

Boulanger, who was soon found, evinced no small delight at the news which Isidore at once imparted to him, and within the ten minutes which Isidore had named they were already on the way towards Fort Duquesne.

The journey was a long one, a matter of some hundred and fifty leagues indeed; but it was diversified by many a little episode incidental to life in the woods and wilds, and Isidore scarcely knew whether he was most glad or sorry when it came to an end, and he had delivered to M.

de Lignieres the message entrusted to him. They had come just in time.

General Forbes, warned by Braddock's disaster in 1755, had halted at Raystown, nearly a hundred miles from the fort, in order to advance upon it by a new route, and thus avoid the gorge which had been the scene of the former catastrophe. The Highlanders, however, pushed on, and desirous perhaps of achieving the capture of the place before the main body could come up, had posted themselves at a short distance from the fort and challenged a combat in the open ground. This challenge de Lignieres had accepted and had signally defeated them, unsupported as they were. But he knew that the magnitude of the force which was shortly to be brought against him would make resistance unavailing, and after dismantling the defences and destroying whatever could not be carried away, he evacuated the place, leaving the famous Fort Duquesne to fall into the hands of the British, and to be known henceforward by the name of Pittsburg.

It had been Isidore's intention after this event to make his way back to Quebec, and he and Boulanger set out again together for this purpose. Their route, however, lay in a different direction from that taken by de Lignieres and the retreating garrison. They had just lain down to rest on the first evening of their march, when the Canadian's sharp ears detected the approach of footsteps, and before he could arouse his companion, they were surrounded by a small detachment of New England men sent out to scour the woods. Resistance would have been mere folly, and they were at once captured. At first they were in hopes that they might pa.s.s unnoticed as common Canadian woodsmen, but, unfortunately for them, they were searched, and the testimonial from General Drucour, which Isidore had carried about with him ever since the taking of Louisburg, settled their fate. They were, without further question, carried off to head-quarters, to be dealt with possibly as spies, but at the best as prisoners of war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tailpiece to Chapter III]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Headpiece to Chapter IV]

CHAPTER IV.