The Plowshare and the Sword: A Tale of Old Quebec

"It is explained here," he said indifferently. "La tête lui a tourné. Was never an able man," he muttered to himself. "Was ambitious, and thought himself strong enough to stand alone. 'Tis but justice." He looked across coldly, and sharply ordered the messenger to withdraw.

The emissary retired, bowing as he backed out, while La Salle ran his eyes over the remainder of the letter, muttering his comments aloud.

"Gaudriole hanged for murdering a soldier. So, so! Was but a brute. The little Frenchwoman dead of a fit, and her daughter escaped. A weeding-out, in faith. The traitorous Dutch gone beyond capture. The English spy also escaped. The men sent after him returned afoot, and swore that they had been set upon by demons among a range of white mountains. Would have hanged the fools. The Iroquois tribes gone into winter hunting-grounds. The country altogether clear. The Algonquins still friendly. This colony is now settled to France beyond question."

La Salle dropped the letter, and fell into musings. Once he put his hand to his brow, as though he could already feel a mitre pressing there; he fingered his ring, and moved his foot, to frown when his eyes sighted a rough boot instead of the scarlet shoe of his dreams. Then he was awakened by a noisy rattling and a shock.

The crucifix which had hung upon the log wall – more as a sign of profession, as the gauntlet outside the glove-maker's shop, than as a symbol he revered – lay broken upon the floor.

The priest rose, muttering a frightened imprecation, and as he nervously gathered up the shattered symbol his ears became opened to a hurrying of feet over the fresh snow. All the soldiers and settlers appeared to be rushing past afoot, shaking the ground and the walls of his house. It was doubtless this disturbance which had detached the crucifix from its nail. La Salle pulled a beaver cap over his forehead and made for the outer door, and there encountered a messenger who came to inform him that a ship's gun had been heard at sea.

"Bid them fire the beacon," said La Salle.

"It has been done, Excellency. There is not a breath over the water. But the snow pours down."

The priest's official bodyguard awaited him; and when he appeared every man saluted and fell into place, and so accompanied him to the cliff, where a huge fire was making the sky scarlet. This fire was a centre towards which all the settlers were hastening like flies towards a lantern. The coming of a ship from the Old World, with supplies, fresh faces, and news of friends, was a red-letter day in the monotonous calendar of their lives. The white figures hurried through the night like an inferno of chattering ghosts.

"She shall not be in till morning light," quoth a wiseacre. "There are rocks, see you, in the gulf, and her master shall run no risk after escaping the perils of the ocean."

"Will wager to-day's haul of fish that she lies up here before three hours are gone," cried another.

"And I my fishing-net that we shall not see her before day," retorted the confident first speaker.

"That net is mine. Didst not hear the gun?"

"Sounds carry far through the winter air."

"The snow muffles. She is scarce a mile out."

"Ah, that is indeed a fire! The light of it shall reach far out at sea."

The excitable folk laughed loudly whenever a fresh load of wood was flung upon the flames, and carried away by their feelings danced an ambulatory ballet in the red mist, a dance, like the Prosperity of the Arms of France to be given before Richelieu a few months later, not altogether without political significance. These settlers danced to the tune of their song; and their songs were Success to the Ships of France and Destruction to the English. While these revels lasted no one observed a soldier hurrying up behind, with a woman at his side. The woman was Onawa, breathing quickly as though she had been running at the top of her speed.

"Yonder stands his Holiness," said the man, stopping to point out La Salle surrounded by his little band of attendants.

Onawa abandoned her guide and rushed out, maddened and witless with her foolish passion, until she reached the side of the man she loved and was warmed by his dark eyes, which yet flashed angrily upon her, as he turned to shake off the parasite, ejaculating:

"Whom have we here?"

"It is I," she cried wildly in French, having at length acquired some little knowledge of that language. "Let me speak." More she would have said, but her store of the language failed in the time of need.

"Uncover her face," ordered La Salle. "Take her into the firelight that we may see with whom we have to deal."

"Let me speak to you here," prayed the girl, drawing back into the snow-lit gloom; but she was seized and dragged upward close to the dancing ring, and rough hands drew the covering from her face.

"Tête de mort!" exclaimed La Salle, and started back when he recognised the face that had once been handsome set towards him in the wild firelight, fearfully branded, the nostrils slit, the ears cropped, a letter seared upon each cheek. "Cover that horror, and drive her out lest she bewitch us."

"Hear me," the unhappy girl moaned, holding out her hands in an agony of supplication. "Yonder your enemy cover the shore. Many men and a ship held in the ice." She panted forth the syllables in the best French she could muster, throwing out her hands along the eastern shore.

La Salle's expression altered as he turned to his subordinates with the old fighting passion in his eye and heart.

"My men," he said, "this woman is but an Indian, but she is trustworthy, I know. An English vessel has been cast ashore, and the sailors seek to make shelter. What say you? Shall we warm our blood and relieve this tedious time of waiting by venturing out to exterminate the vermin?"

"Should we not first send out a spy?" suggested an old officer.

"It is well thought on. Choose you a man, and bid him take this woman for a guide. Let him stab her if she prove false. Do you gather together our fighters," went on the priest, turning to another, "and bid them make ready to sally out immediately."

"Shall you venture yourself, Excellency?"

"Shall I not!" cried La Salle, his hot blood afire for one more fight and one more triumph. "I fear we shall find but poor sport, but such as it is I shall take my share. Break up yonder circle of madmen, and order them to make ready. Hasten, so that we may have our hunt, and be ready to receive the ship when she sails out of the fog."

"I go not," cried Onawa, furiously resisting the soldiers who would have forced her away. She broke from them, ran to La Salle, and fell upon her knees, panting: "I go with you, that I may fight with you, and die for you."

"The woman has yet to learn a soldier's discipline," said La Salle coldly. "Secure a rope round her, and if she prove obstinate let her feel the end of it."

Onawa flung herself forward to grasp his feet, but two soldiers stepped out and dragged her away.

"Now, my brave comrades! To arms!" shouted the fighting priest.

CHAPTER XXXII

ARMS AND THE MAN

Silas Upcliff groaned bitterly when he heard the Puritan's shout. Being a brave man, his spirit inclined towards lending aid to his compatriots, but being honest also, his sense of duty impelled him to observe the oath which he had made to his niggardly owner. While he was thus halting between two opinions, the three venturers left him upon the shore, the blood tingling in their veins at the prospect of a glorious death.

Penfold led the way and took command, carrying his burden of years as lightly as any man upon that coast. Striking upward from the bay, where the sailors were fighting the ice, he brought his companions to a height of three hundred feet above the sea, where the cliffs were divided by a narrow defile down which in summer coursed a stream.

"I have kept this place in mind," said the old man, when they halted at the extremity of the pass. "Here we shall make our stand."

So contracted was the way that the snow, massed heavily upon the sides, in places nearly touched. Some pines clung to the rock, hanging over the defile, straining at their rope-like roots. At these the old yeoman pointed with the order:

"Fell me two trees so that they shall fall along the pass."

The others scrambled up the cliff and cut at the snaky roots, while Penfold occupied himself below in treading the snow into a firm bed. Soon the tough pines began to crack and sway. First one crashed down, then another, and after that Upcliff came running, short of breath, into the defile, having at length made up his mind that Master Grignion must lose his ship.

"The enemy show black against the snow yonder, a hundred men if there be one," he shouted. "Tell me now, how shall I dispose my men?"

"Return to your ship, Master Skipper, and cut her free with what speed you may," replied Penfold gruffly. "We stand here to hold back the enemy so long as life remains."

"Mayhap they shall not come this way?" suggested Upcliff.

"If they do not, then are ye doubly safe. Before they can pass round you shall be away, for I know of no easy path up yonder wall, and on the south the sea guards us. See you not that they must here advance singly, and that one good fighter may hold them all at bay?"

"They have guns," said Upcliff, cocking his ear to listen to the axes ringing keenly in the bay.

"They shall not use them. The snow must drench their priming."

The skipper made a step back, but halted again.

"I cannot desert you, comrades," he said hoarsely. "My owner is also an Englishman, an alderman of London town, and, close-minded though he be, I wot he would lose his venture and his ship rather than see England shamed. Bid me call my men to the far end of this pass, and there let us stand together until the end."

"See you not that this is our affair?" replied Penfold. "We are fighting for our own hands, having blood of comrades to avenge. Go, for you do but waste your time and ours."

"Away," added Hough, pushing the skipper gently back. "The Lord being on our side, how should we be afraid? They come about us like bees, and are extinct even as the fire among the thorns, for in the name of the Lord shall we destroy them. Go, good master, and while we smite these worshippers of idols do you release your ship."

Thus compelled to observe his oath, Upcliff gave way, though with great unwillingness, and ran to the end of the pass, where his eyes were gladdened by the sight of the Dartmouth riding in the black channel, dressed out in all her canvas. His sailor's heart warmed at the spectacle, but sank again when he contemplated the wide white field which still spread between the deep sea and his ship. He staggered down, blowing like a whale, and snatching an axe from the tired hands of one of his sailors wielded it furiously.

The men in the pass twisted the pine-boughs and snagged the trunks to form a rough chevaux-de-frise. Before an hour had passed they heard footfalls crushing the snow, and then Penfold smiled and rose to his feet. The old man had been resting beneath a tree.

"Comrades," he said, "I lead by the privilege of age. Not more than one can make a stand in this narrow pass. Do you ascend the cliff, one on either side, and as the enemy attempt to climb the barrier cast snow into their faces. The rest you shall leave to me."

"Out on you, old Simon," said Hough strongly. "I am younger than you by many years, and thus shall last the longer."

"You may fill this place after me," said Penfold. "But while I live I rule."

Hough was not satisfied, and the argument was only brought to an end by the sight of a cap lifting above the ridge.

"To your places," whispered Penfold, stepping quickly to the barrier.

The knight was already upon the cliff, sheltering his spare body behind a pine. He awaited the one man who, he felt assured, would not lose the opportunity of a fight, and he did not desire to risk his life until he and that man could meet.

"Captain!" called a French voice startlingly, "a barrier is thrown across the way."

"Over it," ordered the officer.

The man jumped upon the fallen trunk and threw up his hands to grasp the higher branches; but his fingers merely clutched the air, he gave a groan, and fell back, pierced through the heart by Penfold's sword, which had darted from the interlacing branches. A shout went up from the pass, which was now a struggling mass of soldiers.

"Information ever costs a man," said the officer coolly. "Storm the barrier."

Two soldiers rushed out and flung themselves upon the locked trees, jostling each other in the constricted space. A lump of snow hit the foremost between the eyes, he gasped, and would have turned, but a sword-thrust sent him to his doom, and his comrade, blinded in the self-same manner, shared his fate.

"There are men in hiding yonder," rang a voice. "The villains shelter behind the trees."

"Find me a way round," roared an angry voice, and La Salle pushed along the pass. "Are we to be held here by one man behind a fallen tree?"

"There is no way up, Excellency," said an officer, gazing up the face of the rock. "The heretics have well chosen their place."

"Send men round," shouted the priest.

A detachment was sent instantly to find a way over the cliff, while woodmen with axes went out and laid furiously upon the pines. Penfold disabled the first, but another advanced, and after him another, each unwilling to obey, but unable to hang back.

Three dead bodies were dragged out, and La Salle tried the expedient of sending his men in rapid succession against the barrier. The wet snow dashed upon their faces, one by one they dropped before that stinging sword, man after man fell back, but another always stood ready to rush into the gap, to make the attempt, and give way to someone more confident than he. Penfold's dogged old tongue counted off the strokes to the ringing of the ice-axes from the bay. The soldier-settlers came faster, each man more fierce than the last, because their blood was heated by the shame of this defeat. The old man's misty breath came streaming between the branches where his untiring sword flickered in and out.

Two at a time came the Frenchmen, until at length, profiting by a mis-stroke, a couple gained the summit of the barrier. The first to jump down fell a prey to the stout yeoman, but the second reached the ground unharmed. A shout of triumph went up, and the soldiers swarmed the obstacle.

"Excellency, the Indian woman has shown us a way over the cliff," exclaimed a voice beside La Salle. "That way, says she, we shall encounter no opposition."

"I will myself make the trial," La Salle answered. "Do you in the meantime win this pass."

"She says also that we must hasten, because these men are holding the pass while their comrades free the ship from the ice."

Penfold fought on, grim to the end, but his sword had lost its deadliness and his arm was growing numb. His comrades aided him as best they could, but they too were acting upon the defensive, because some of the more daring soldiers had scaled the slippery sides of the pass in a futile endeavour to drag them down. The old man groaned and tottered as the light failed gradually from his eyes.

"Let it be said of me," he gasped, "that I gave them half an hour."

Voices roared in his ears, like the waves of a stormy sea about to close over his head.

"Strike! He is spent. Strike him down."

There followed an onward rush. Over the old man's failing body sped the bitterness of death.

He felt a sword in his side, another in his shoulder, and at the pain he revived like an old lion, and roared and plunged forward, feeling his way with his point, until he found his striker's heart, and then he shouted with all the strength that was left:

"Stand up in my stead, comrade! I have made a good fight, and accounted for the best. They shall run before us yet. To me, comrade! Ha! St. Edward and St. George!"

With that last shout he fell, deep into the red snow, his old body spouting blood, and so died like a valiant man of Berks, with his sword fast held, and his grey head set towards the foe.

Hough hurled back a soldier, who had clambered up the cliff to dislodge him, and would have flung himself down to stop the way, when on a sudden a tall figure slid down the side opposite him, and stood immediately to defy the body of men sweeping through like an inundating wave, wielding his sword with calm, nervous strength, his keen eyes starting from a thin, brown face.

Then Hough's courage gave way, and sinking to his knees, while the enemy rushed through, he cried aloud. Death had no terror for him; but the spectacle of that cold man, whom for an instant he had seen, fighting in the raw light of the dawn, then thrown down and trodden under foot, made him shiver to the heart.

"The Lord encompasses us with the spirits of our friends," he cried, knowing that it was Jesse Woodfield who already lay hacked and bruised and buried in the snow of the defile.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE GRAIN OF MUSTARD SEED

The Acadians swept towards the bay, but their governor was not with them. La Salle had gone alone over the cliffs, along the way which Onawa had revealed, and he went not unseen. The Kentishman followed, searching out each footprint in the snow. Once again the priest was destined to take up the sword, before assuming the mantle of spiritual power. As he passed among the pines the loneliness of the place began to make him fear, and when he stopped with a curse, because he knew not which way to turn, he seemed to behold the sword of his dream flashing like lightning between the mitre and himself. And while halting he heard perplexing shouts, lessening, receding, and growing faint, as his men rushed down upon their foes.

Hearing those shouts Upcliff looked up from the field of ice, and his heart for an instant ceased when he saw that the enemy had gained the pass.

"Now, men of Somerset," he shouted, "let our bird fly right soon, or we shall never sight England again."

"We can do no more than our best, captain," growled the sailor Jacob Sadgrove. "My arms are near dead with work."

"Out!" cried Madeleine, sweeping forward. "Out, and make room for a woman."

She caught up the axe which the grumbler had dropped, and, lifting her brave arms, attacked the barrier of ice with never a thought of fear, until the sailor returned glumly to his work for shame.

"Only a few more yards," the deceiving girl cried, throwing back her flushed face. "Look not behind. To regard work closely is to fear it. Attack boldly, and it is done. See how the ship struggles to be free! Soon we shall fly through the open water, with the wind in our sails. Then shall you rest, and it shall delight you to remember the work."

So she called, laughing and singing at intervals, and running here and there to encourage the toilers, a faithful angel of hope, while the axes rang more strongly and the men cast side-glances towards the foe and swore breathlessly at their impotence.

"Get you aboard, lass," said Upcliff, loosening his cutlass. "Here is work for men. My lads, we shall make a good fight for country and faith, and die, if God will, like true men facing odds. Now we are taken on both sides."

He pointed to the north-west. Out of the gloom of dawn and the fog-wreaths, which ever haunt the Nova Scotian banks, sailed a full-rigged man-of-war beating against the breeze. It was the provision ship making for the settlement now that the helmsman could see to steer between the rocks.

"Nothing but a miracle can serve," quoth the skipper. "And the age of miracles is past."

"Have but faith, and the miracle shall yet be wrought," cried Madeleine, her magnificent confidence strong within her, even in that hour when a less bold spirit would have seen the doors of a heretic's prison reopening. "God shall yet make a way for us to escape. I know we are not doomed. Help me, captain, and you sailors, with your faith. We are never to be taken. We are to escape from our enemies, and God shall give to us the victory."

Upcliff smiled sadly as he gazed at the radiant face of the prophetess, shaking his grizzled head as he muttered:

"May the good Lord bless you, girl. You send us forth strong to fight."

Then again he faced his men and formed them in line; and when they stood ready to receive the enemy, every man his cutlass in hand, the master cried out strongly:

"Let no man surrender. For such the French have a gallows. Lads, we shall, by God's grace, leave a deep mark on yonder little army before the ship comes nigh. See you how slowly she labours down? She can scarce make headway against the tide, and the breeze freshens every minute. Now for a bold stand, a stern struggle, and may the Lord have mercy on us all."

Stout Somerset throats answered him with a cheer. They had exercised their privilege of grumbling over the uncongenial work of cutting a way for their ship through the ice-field while their compatriots fought upon the cliffs; but not a man drew back from the prospect of that hopeless battle.

The Acadians struggled down the long hill, floundering in the soft snow, and, halting upon the flat, drew up in the form of a crescent. There were signs of unwillingness among the settlers, due in part to the reputation gained in those days by Englishmen of never shrinking from a struggle to the death. They were also perturbed by the absence of La Salle, whom they had not seen since Woodfield had been overwhelmed and left for dead in the defile.

While the French thus hesitated, Upcliff and his impetuous men were for advancing to the attack; but Madeleine came before them, and in a strained voice, altogether unlike her usual tones, implored the skipper not to move towards the shore.

"Do not leave the ice," she cried. "I charge you go not beyond the ice."

"The maid has surely lost her wits," muttered Upcliff.

"See the eyes of her!" whispered Jacob Sadgrove to his nearest companion. "Have seen a horse look so, when he knows of somewhat coming, and would speak of it if he might."

A roar broke the morning fog. The ship had fired to encourage her allies. The ball splashed into the black water far from the gallant Dartmouth, which quivered and shook her sails in furious helplessness.

"Swear to me that you will not leave the ice-field," cried Madeleine.

"Ay, if you wish it," said Upcliff; adding bluntly: "May die as well here as yonder. Stand together, lads. They come!"

"Oh, why so long?" prayed Madeleine, bending upon the snow. "It is time for the miracle. I know we are to be saved, but it is terrible to wait. I know that not a hair upon the head of any of these men shall be harmed; but they know it not, and they prepare for death because they cannot see. Oh, God, send us now the miracle!"

"Stand firm!" shouted Upcliff. "Let them make the charge, and we shall smite them as they stumble in the snow."

He spoke, and straightway a mighty report rang along the shore. The ice on which the men planted their resolute feet quivered and heaved. The attackers halted and drew back; the attacked stared at one another in superstitious wonderment. No smoke drifted behind. The guns upon the ship had not spoken. But the echoes of that dry, sharp sound still crashed among the cliffs.

Madeleine rose, and sent her rapturous voice singing into the ears of all: "The miracle! The miracle!"

Already a channel of black water frothed and bubbled between the English sailors and the French settlers, a channel which widened each moment, as the ice-floe which the change of temperature had parted so suddenly from the shore drifted seawards, drawn out by the strong gulf current, bearing the men snatched from death, the little ice-locked ship, and the girl who had trusted so firmly and so well.

They flocked round her, the rough sailors, crying like children, and knelt to kiss her hands.

"To work!" she cried, pointing to the silver strip which held the floe united.

But before the men could again use their axes the strain told. The ice cracked again and the field was divided into two parts. There was a momentary danger lest the brigantine should be crushed between the floes, but this peril was averted by the regularity of the current. The men swung themselves aboard, lifting Madeleine up the ladder of ropes and so upon deck. The enemy already had become grotesque black spots upon the shore.