Cameron of Lochiel

On the defeat of the English army at this second battle, Lochiel, after tremendous fighting at the head of his Highlanders, was the last to yield a position which he had defended inch by inch. Instead of following the throng of fugitives toward Quebec, he noticed that Dumont's Mill was now evacuated by the French, who were pursuing their enemies with great slaughter. To conceal his route from the enemy, Archie led his men between the mill and the adjoining wood. Just then he heard some one calling his name; and turning, he saw an officer, his arm in a sling, his uniform in tatters, his head wrapped in a bloody cloth, staggering to meet him sword in hand.

"What are you doing, brave Cameron of Lochiel?" cried the unknown. "The mill has been evacuated by our brave soldiers, and is no longer defended by women and children and feeble old men. Return, valorous Cameron, and crown your exploits by burning it down."

It was impossible to mistake the mocking voice of Jules D'Haberville, although his face was unrecognizable for blood and powder.

On hearing these insulting words, Archie felt nothing but tenderest loving pity for the friend of his youth. His heart beat as if to break; a sob labored from his bosom, and again he seemed to hear the witch of the manor crying ominously: "Keep your pity for yourself, Archibald de Lochiel. You will have need of it all on that day when you shall carry in your arms the bleeding body of him you now call your brother!"

Forgetting the critical position in which he was keeping his men, Archie halted his company and went forward to meet Jules. For one moment all the young Frenchman's love for his adopted brother seemed to revive, but, restraining himself sternly, he cried in a bitter voice:

"Defend yourself, M. de Lochiel; you, who love easy triumphs, defend yourself, traitor!"

At this new insult, Archie folded his arms and answered, in a tone of tender reproach:

"Thou, too, my brother Jules, even thou, too, hast thou condemned me unheard?"

At these words a nervous shock seemed to paralyze the little remaining strength of poor Jules. The sword dropped from his hand and he fell forward on his face. Archie sent one of his men to the brook for water, and, without thinking of the danger to which he exposed himself, took his friend in his arms and carried him to the edge of the woods, where some of the wounded Canadians, touched at the sight of an Englishman bestowing so much care on their young officer, made no move to injure him, although they had reloaded their guns at the approach of his men. Archie examined his friend's wounds, and saw that he had fainted from loss of blood. A little cold water in his face soon brought him back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked at Archie, but made no attempt to speak. The latter clasped his hand, which seemed to return a gentle pressure.

"Farewell, Jules," said Archie. "Farewell, my brother. Harsh duty forces me to leave you; but we shall meet again, in better days." And he turned back sorrowfully to his troop.

"Now, my boys," said Lochiel, after throwing a rapid glance over the plain and listening to the confused noises of the distant flight, "now, my boys, no false delicacy, for the battle is hopelessly lost. We must now display the agility of our Highland legs, if we want to take a hand in future battles. Forward now, and do not lose sight of me."

Taking advantage of every inequality of the ground, lending heedful ear to the shouts of the French, who were endeavoring to crowd the English into the St. Charles, Lochiel led his men into Quebec without further loss. This valiant company had already suffered enough. Half its men had been left on the field of battle, and of its officers Lochiel was the sole survivor.

All honor to vanquished heroism! Honor to the English dead, whose bodies were buried in confusion with those of their enemies on the twenty-eighth day of April, 1760! Honor to the soldiers of France, over whose bodies grows green, with every succeeding spring, the turf of the Plains of Abraham! When the last trump shall sound, and these foes shall rise from their last sleep side by side, will they have forgotten their ancient hate, or will they spring once more at each other's throats?

Honor to the vanquished brave! Among the soldiers whose names are bright on the pages of history there is but one who, on the morrow of a glorious triumph, uncovered his head before his captives and cried, "All honor to the vanquished brave!" He knew that his words would last forever, graven on the heart of France. Great soldiers there are many; but niggard Nature takes centuries to frame a hero.

The field of battle after the victory presented a ghastly sight. Men and horses, the wounded and the dead, were frozen into the mire of blood and water, and could be extricated only with pain and difficulty. The wounded of both nations were treated by the Chevalier de Lévis with the same tender care. Most of them were carried to the Convent of the Hospital Nuns. The convent and all its outbuildings were crowded. All the linen, all the clothing of the inmates was torn up for bandages, and the good nuns had nothing left for themselves but the clothes they were wearing upon the day of battle.

Taking refuge after his defeat behind the ramparts of Quebec, General Murray made a vigorous resistance. As they had but twenty guns with which to arm their siege-batteries, the French could do little more than blockade the city and wait for the re-enforcements which never came. The English general requested permission to send an officer three times a week to visit his wounded in the hospital. This request was readily granted by the humane De Lévis. Lochiel knew that his friend must be lying in the hospital, but he could get no news of him. Although consumed with anxiety, he dreaded to put himself in a false position by inquiries too minute. It might have been considered natural that he would wish to visit his wounded countrymen, but with true Scotch caution he let none of his anxiety appear. It was not till the tenth day after the battle, when his regular turn came, that he found himself approaching the hospital under the escort of a French officer.

"I wonder," said Lochiel, "if you would consider it an indiscretion on my part were I to ask for a private interview with the lady superior?"

"I see no indiscretion in it," answered the Frenchman," but I fear I would be exceeding my orders were I to permit it. I am ordered to lead you to your countrymen and nothing more."

"I am sorry," said the Scotchman indifferently. "It is a little disappointing to me; but let us speak no more of it."

The French officer was silent some minutes; he thought to himself that the Scotchman, speaking French like a Parisian, had probably made the acquaintance of some Canadian families shut up in Quebec; that he was perhaps charged with some message from the relations or friends of the superior, and that it would be cruel to refuse his request. Presently he said:

"As I am persuaded that neither you nor the lady superior can be forming any designs against our batteries, I think that perhaps, after all, I might grant your request without exceeding my duty."

Lochiel, who had been staking all his hopes of a reconciliation with the D'Habervilles upon this interview, could scarcely conceal his joy; but he answered quietly:

"Thank you, monsieur, for your courtesy to myself and the good lady. Your batteries, protected by French valor, might feel reasonably secure even if we were conspiring against them."

The corridors of the hospital which he had to traverse before reaching the parlor of the superior were literally thronged with the wounded; but Archie, seeing none of his own men, hastened on. After ringing the bell, he walked restlessly up and down the room. It was the same room in which he and Jules had had so many a dainty lunch in their happy school days; for the good superior was Jules's aunt.

The superior received him with cold politeness, and said:

"I am very sorry to have kept you waiting, sir; please take a seat."

"I fear," said Archie, "that madam does not recognize me."

"A thousand pardons," replied the superior. "You are Mr. Archibald Cameron of Lochiel."

"Once you called me Archie," said the young man.

"The times are changed, sir," replied the nun, "and many things have happened since those days."

Sighing deeply, Lochiel echoed her words:

"The times are indeed changed, and many things have happened since those days. But at least, madam, tell me how is my brother, Jules D'Haberville?"

"He whom you once called your brother, sir, is now, I hope, out of danger."

"Thank God!" answered Lochiel, "now all hope is not utterly dead in my heart! If I were speaking to an ordinary person there would be nothing more for me to do but thank you for your condescension and retire; but I have the honor to address the sister of a brave soldier, the inheritor of a name made illustrious by many heroic deeds; and if madam will permit, if she will forget for a moment the ties which bind me to her family, if she will judge impartially between me and that family, then I might dare attempt, with some hope of success, to justify myself before her."

"Speak, M. de Lochiel," replied the superior, "and I will listen, not as a D'Haberville but as a stranger. It is my duty as a Christian to hear impartially anything that might palliate your barbarous and heartless conduct toward a family that loved you so well."

The sudden flush which covered the young man's face was followed by a pallor so ghastly that the superior thought he was about to faint. He grasped the grating between them with both hands, and leaned his head against it for some moments; then, mastering his emotion, he told his story as the reader already knows it.

Archie went into the most minute details, down to his misgivings when his regiment was ordered to leave for Canada, down to the hereditary hatred of the Montgomerys for the Camerons; and he accused himself of cowardice in not having sacrificed even his honor to the gratitude he owed the D'Habervilles. From the utterance of Montgomery's barbarous order he omitted not the smallest incident. He described the anguish of his despair, his curses, and his vows of vengeance against Montgomery. In painting the emotions which had tortured his soul, Lochiel had small need to add anything in the way of justification. What argument could be more eloquent than the plain story of his despair! Lochiel's judge was one well fitted to understand him, for she it was who in her youth had one day said to her brother Captain D'Haberville: "My brother, you have not the means to worthily sustain the dignity of our house, except with the help of my share of the patrimony. To-morrow I enter a convent. Here is the deed wherein I renounce all claim in your favor."

The good woman had heard Archie's story with ever-increasing emotion. She stretched out her clasped hands to him as he described his anguished imprecations against Montgomery. The tears flowed down her cheeks as he described his remorse and his resignation while, bound to the tree, he awaited a hideous death.

"My dear Archie," exclaimed the holy woman.

"Oh! thank you, thank you a thousand times for those words," cried Lochiel, clasping his hands.

"My dear Archie," exclaimed the superior, "I absolve you with all my heart. You have but done your painful duty in obeying your orders. By any other course you would have destroyed yourself irretrievably without preventing the ruin of our family. Yes, I forgive you freely, but I hope that you will now pardon your enemy."

"He who was my enemy, madam, has gone to solicit pardon from him who will judge us all. He was one of the first to fly from the field of battle which proved so disastrous to our arms. A bullet stretched him upon the ice, wounded to the death. He had not even a stone on which to rest his head. A tomahawk ended his sufferings, and his scalp hangs now at the belt of an Abénaquis warrior. May God pardon him, as I do, with all my heart!"

A divine light beamed softly in the eyes of the nun. Born as revengeful as her brother the seigneur, her religion of love and charity had made her as all charitable as itself. After a moment of rapt meditation, she said:

"With Jules, I doubt not, you will find reconciliation easy. He has been at death's door. During his delirium your name was forever on his lips, sometimes with the fiercest reproaches, but more often with words of love and tenderest endearment. One must know my nephew well, must know the sublime self-abnegation of which his soul is capable, in order to comprehend his love for you. Many a time has he said to me: 'If it were necessary for me to-morrow to sacrifice my life for Archie, I would die with a smile on my lips, for I should be giving him the only worthy proof of my love.' Such love, in a heart so noble as his, is not soon or easily extinguished. He will rejoice to hear your justification from my lips, and you may be sure that I will spare no effort to reunite you. Since recovering from his delirium he has never mentioned your name; and as he is yet too weak to discuss a subject that would excite so much emotion, I must wait till he gets stronger. I shall hope to have good news for you at our next interview. Meanwhile, farewell till I see you again!"

"Pray for me, madam, for I have great need of it," exclaimed Archie.

"That is what I do daily," answered the nun. "They say, perhaps wrongly, that people of the world, and young officers particularly, have more need of prayer than we; but as for you, Archie, you must have greatly changed if you are not one of those who have least need of it," she added, smiling affectionately. "Farewell once more, and God bless you, my son!"

The superior succeeded in satisfying Jules with Archie's explanation. About a fortnight after Archie's first visit, Jules was awaiting him, filled with a nervous anxiety to prove to him that all the old love was yet warm in his heart. It was understood that there should be no allusion to certain events, too painful for either to dwell upon.

Archie was ushered into a little chamber which Jules, as nephew of the lady superior, was occupying in preference to certain officers of higher rank. Jules stretched out his arms and made a vain effort to rise from his armchair. Archie threw himself upon his neck, and for a time neither spoke.

D'Haberville, after controlling his emotion with an effort, was the first to break silence:

"The moments are precious, my dear Archie, and we must endeavor, if possible, to lift the veil which hangs over our future. We are no longer children; we are soldiers fighting under glorious banners, brothers in love but enemies upon the field of battle. I have grown ten years older during my sickness. I am no longer the broken-hearted young fool who rushed upon the enemy's battalions seeking death. No, my dear brother, let us live rather to see better days. Those were your last words when you handed over my bleeding body to the care of my grenadiers.

"You know as well as I the precarious condition of this colony; all depends upon a mere throw of the dice. If France leaves us to our own resources, as it seems but too probable she will do, and if your Government, attaching so grand an importance to the conquest of Canada, send you re-enforcments in the spring, we must raise the siege of Quebec and leave the country to you. In the opposite contingency we recapture Quebec and keep the colony. Now, my dear Archie, I want to know what you will do in the one case or the other."

"In either case," said Lochiel, "as long as the war lasts I can not honorably resign my commission. But when peace comes, I propose to sell the poor remnant of my Highland estate and come and establish myself on this side of the water. My deepest affections are here. I love Canada, I love the simple and upright manners of your good habitants; and after a quiet but busy life, I would rest my head beneath the same sod with you, my brother."

"My position is very different from yours," answered Jules. "You are the master of your actions; I am the slave of circumstance. If we lose Canada, it is probable that most of the Canadian nobility will move to France, where they will find protection and friends. If my family is of this number I can not leave the army. In the contrary case I shall return after some years of service, to live and die with my own people; and, like you, to sleep at last in the land I love so well. Everything leads me to hope, my brother, that after a storm-tossed youth we shall come to see happier days."

The two friends parted after a long and loving talk, the last they were to have while the colony remained New France. When the reader meets them again after some years, the country will have changed both name and masters.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE SHIPWRECK OF THE AUGUSTE

The predictions of the witch of the manor were accomplished. After the surrender of Quebec, the rich D'Habervilles had been but too glad to accept the hospitality of M. d'Egmont's cabin, whose remoteness had saved it from the flames. "The good gentleman" and Uncle Raoul, with the faithful André, had gone at once to work and raised the narrow attic, so as to leave the ground floor to the use of the ladies. To cheer the latter, the men affected a gayety which they were far from feeling; and their songs were often heard, mingled with the rapid strokes of the axe, the grating of the saw, the sharp whistling of the plane. By dint of toil and perseverance, they succeeded in sheltering themselves tolerably from the severity of the season; and had it not been for the anxiety which they suffered in regard to Captain D'Haberville and Jules, the winter would have passed pleasantly enough in their solitude.

Their most difficult problem was that of provisions, for a veritable famine held sway in all the country-side. The little grain which the habitants had harvested was for the most part eaten boiled, in default of mill to grind it. The sole remaining resource lay in fishing and hunting, but M. d'Egmont and his servant were rather old to indulge in such exercises during the severe weather. Uncle Raoul, lame as he was, took charge of the commissariat. He set snares to catch rabbits and partridges, and his fair niece helped him. Blanche made herself a sort of hunting costume; and simply ravishing she looked in her half-savage garb, her petticoat of blue cloth falling half-way below the knee, her scarlet gaiters, her deer-hide moccasins worked with beads and porcupine quills in vivid colors. Lovely, indeed, she looked as she returned to the house on her little snow-shoes, her face delicately flushed, her hands laden with her spoils. During the famine the habitants frequented Trois Saumons Lake in great numbers; they had beaten a hard road over the snow, which enabled Uncle Raoul to visit the lake on a sledge drawn by a huge dog. He always returned with an ample provision of trout and partridge. On such fare they got through the long winter. In the spring a veritable manna of wild pigeons came to the salvation of the colony; they were so innumerable that they could be knocked down with a stick.

When Captain D'Haberville returned to his seigneurie he was utterly ruined, having saved nothing but the family plate. He did not care to come down on his impoverished tenants for their arrearages of rent, but rather hastened to their aid by rebuilding his mill on the Trois Saumons River. In this mill he lived several years with his family, till able to build a new manor house.

A poor lodging, truly – three narrow chambers in a mill – for a family once so wealthy as the D'Habervilles! But they bore their misfortunes cheerfully. Only Captain D'Haberville, toiling with tireless energy, seemed unable to reconcile himself to his losses. His grief gnawed at his heart, and for six years there was never a smile upon his lips. It was not till the manor was rebuilt and the household restored to a certain degree of comfort and prosperity that he regained his native cheerfulness.

It was the 22d of February, 1762, and about nine o'clock in the evening, when an ill-clad stranger entered the mill and begged shelter for the night. As was his custom when not occupied in work, Captain D'Haberville was seated in a corner of the room, his head hanging dejectedly on his breast. The voice of the stranger made him tremble without knowing why. It was some moments before he could answer, but at last he said:

"You are welcome, my friend; you shall have supper and breakfast here, and my miller will give you a bed for the night."

"Thank you," said the stranger, "but I am very tired; give me a glass of brandy."

M. D'Haberville was not disposed to bestow upon a vagabond stranger even one drink of the meager supply of brandy, which he was keeping in case of absolute necessity. He answered that he had none.

"If thou didst know me, D'Haberville," replied the stranger, "thou wouldst certainly not refuse me a drink of brandy, though it were the last drop in thy house."

The first feeling of the captain was one of wrath on hearing himself addressed so familiarly by one who appeared to be a tramp; but there was something in the hoarse voice of the unknown which made him tremble anew, and he checked himself. At this moment Blanche appeared with a light, and every one was stupefied at the appearance of this man, a veritable living specter, who stood with folded arms and gazed upon them sadly. So deathlike was his pallor that one would have thought a vampire had sucked all the blood from his veins. His bones threatened to pierce his skin, which was yellow like that of a mummy; and his dim and sunken eyes were vacant – without speculation, like those of the ghost of Banquo. Everybody was astonished that such a corpse could walk.

After one moment of hesitation, Captain D'Haberville threw himself into the stranger's arms, crying:

"You here, my dear Saint-Luc! The sight of my bitterest enemy could not cause me such dismay. Speak; and tell us that all our relations and friends who took passage in the Auguste are buried in the sea, and that you, the one survivor, are come to bring us the sad tidings!"

The silence of M. Saint-Luc de Lacorne, the grief stamped upon his countenance, confirmed Captain D'Haberville's worst fears.

"Accursed be the tyrant," cried the captain, "who in the bitterness of his hate against the French sent so many good men to their death in an old ship utterly unseaworthy!"

"Instead of cursing your enemies," said M. de Saint-Luc in a hoarse voice, "thank God that you and your family got leave to remain in the colony two years longer. And now, a glass of brandy and a little soup. I have been so nearly starved that my stomach refuses solid food. Let me also take a little rest before telling you a story which will call forth many tears."

In the neighborhood of half an hour, for this man of iron needed but little rest to recover his strength, M. de Saint-Luc began as follows:

"In spite of the English governor's impatience to banish from New France those who had so valiantly defended her, the authorities had placed at our disposal only two ships, which were found utterly insufficient for the great number of French and Canadians who were waiting to sail. I pointed this out to General Murray, and proposed to buy one at my own expense. This he would not hear, but two days later he placed at our disposal the ship Auguste, hastily commissioned for the purpose. By a payment of five hundred Spanish piasters, I obtained from the English captain the exclusive use of his cabin for myself and family.

"I then pointed out to General Murray the danger to which we should be exposed at this stormy season with a captain not familiar with the St. Lawrence. I offered to hire and pay for a pilot myself. His answer was, that we would have the same chance as the rest; but he ended by sending a little vessel to pilot us clear of the river.

"We were all in deep dejection, a prey to the gloomiest forebodings, when we raised anchor on the 15th of October last. Many of us, forced to sell our properties at a ruinous sacrifice, had but a future of poverty to look forward to in the mother country. Speeding at first before a favorable wind, with swelling hearts we saw the cherished and familiar scenes fade out behind us and fall below the horizon.

"I will not detail the many perils we underwent before the great calamity out of which but myself and six others escaped alive. On the 16th we came within an ace of shipwreck on the Isle aux Coudres, after the loss of our main anchor.