The Bastonnais - John Lespérance

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provoking in public officials at times of popular excitement. Still a close inspection showed that the military were busier than usual. Patrol guards issued from the courtyard at more frequent intervals, and the knowing ones observed that they were doubled. It was noticed also that more parts of the city were being guarded than the day before. For instance, fully one hundred men were detached for service along the line of the river where previously there were few or none. Officers, too, were constantly riding to and from the barracks, evidently carrying orders. Passing through the Square, they moved slowly, but in the side streets accelerated their pace.

      The forenoon thus wore away. The sky kept on thickening and lowering until it broke into a snow-storm. A light east wind arose, and the white flakes tossed and whirled, blotting out the lines of the horizon. The heights of Levis melted in the distance, the bed of the river was surmounted by a wall of vapor, and the tall rock of the citadel wavered like a curtain of gauze. What a delicious sense of isolation is produced by an abundant snowfall. It hems you in from all the world. You extend your hand feeling for your neighbor, and you touch nothing but a palpable mist. You raise your face to the heavens, and the soft touch of the flossy drops makes you close your eyes as in a dream. The great crowd in the Square was thus broken into indistinct groups, and its mighty rumor dwindled to a murmur in the heavy atmosphere. But all the same the expectant and anxious multitude was there, and its numbers were continually increasing. Women, wrapped in scarfs or muffled in hoods, now added to its volume. Priests from the neighboring Seminary, in shovel hats, Roman collars, and long black cloaks, quietly edged their way through the masses. And the irrepressible small boy, the very same a hundred years ago as he is to-day, dashed in and out, from the centre of the crowd to its circumference, intent upon seeing and hearing everything, yet blissfully incurious of the dread secret of all this gathering.

      Suddenly there was a movement in the centre of the Square. The concentric circles of people felt it successively till it rippled to the very outskirts of the assemblage. Everybody inquired of his neighbor what had happened.

      "Two men are fighting," said one.

      "A woman has fallen into a fit," said another.

      "Old Boniface is glancing a jig," said a third.

      Whereupon there was a laugh, for Boniface was a mountebank of La Canardiere, famous in the city and all the country side.

      "A Bastonnais prisoner has just been brought in," said a fourth.

      At this a serious interest was manifested. A Bastonnais prisoner meant an American prisoner. The expedition of Arnold was known to have started from Boston. Hence its members were called Bostonese. Bastonnais is a rustic corruption for the French Bostonnais, and the corruption has extended to our day. The whole American invasion is still known among French Canadians as la guerre des Bastonnais. There is always a certain interest attached to national solecisms, and we have retained this one.

      "It is none of any of these things," said a grave old gentleman, who was working his way out of the crowd with a scared look.

      "What is it?" asked several voices at once.

      "One of our own citizens has been arrested."

      "Arrested! arrested!"

      "Well, if he is not arrested, he is at least summoned to the Chateau."

      "Who is it?"

      "M. Belmont."

      "What! the father of our nationality, the first citizen of Quebec? It cannot be."

      "Ah, my friends! let us disperse to our homes. This is a day of ill-omen. Things look as if the sad times of the Conquest were returning. '59 and '75! It seems that we have not suffered enough in these sixteen years."

      And the old gentleman disappeared from the throng.

      What happened was simply this. A tall young man, dressed in a long military coat, had for a time mingled in the crowd, looking at nearly every one as he moved along. When at length he was well in the midst, he seemed suddenly to recognize the object of his search, for he stepped deliberately up to a middle-aged gentleman, and handed him a paper. With a movement of surprise, the gentleman received the missive and looked sharply at the messenger. He glanced at the address, while a perceptible thrill shot over his features. He then hurriedly broke the seal and ran his eye over the brief contents of the letter, after which he crumpled it into his pocket.

      "How long since this paper was despatched?" he asked rather testily of the young messenger.

      "Over an hour ago, sir."

      "And why was it not delivered at once?"

      "Because I could not find you at your residence, and had to seek you in this dense multitude," was the firm, yet respectful reply.

      "Are you an aide de camp of His Excellency?"

      "I have that honor, sir."

      "There is then no time to be lost. Let us go immediately."

      The two men turned and a way was immediately opened for them by the crowd, while a suppressed murmur greeted them as they passed. A frail girl, with azure veil drawn closely over her face, hung heavily on the arm of the elder. When they reached the corner of Fabrique-street, which debouches into the Square at the north-west angle of the Cathedral, these two separated.

      "What does it mean, father?" asked the girl in a timid voice.

      "Nothing, my child. Go home directly and await my return. I will be with you within an hour."

      The girl went up the narrow street, and the two men wended their way in silence to the Chateau St. Louis.

      After this incident the Square gradually emptied until only a few idlers were left.

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      A little before noon Roderick Hardinge stepped down from his quarters into the courtyard of the barracks, booted and spurred. A full-blooded iron-grey charger, instinct with speed and strength in every limb, stood saddled and bridled for him. The man who held him by the head happened to be the soldier whose watch Hardinge had kept the night before.

      "Is that you, Charles?" said the young officer tightening his girth by two buckle holes.

      "Yes, sir," replied the soldier, showing the white of his teeth.

      "And all right this morning?"

      "Yes, thank you, sir."

      Hardinge vaulted into the saddle at one spring. Then lacing the reins in his left hand, he continued:

      "Not been blabbing, Charles?"

      "Oh, no, sir. Mum's my word."

      "That's right. But did you see everything?"

      "I saw the three rockets, sir, if that's what you mean, and knew they were meant for you. But what they were fired for I didn't know till this morning, when I heard the talk in the Square. Folks are pretty wild altogether this morning, sir."

      "So they are, but they will be wilder when they know all. In the meantime keep everything to yourself, Charles, till you hear from me again. Good-bye."

      The soldier touched his cap, and the officer trotted through the archway.

      A moment later he dismounted at the portal of the Chateau, threw the bridle into the hands of a groom in waiting, and entered. The Lieutenant-Governor was in his office, and evidently expected him, for he immediately rose and congratulated him on his punctuality. He then proceeded to business without delay.

      "You are

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