The Road to Paris Part 11

When they got back to camp, they learned that fresh news had come from Montgomery,--that Montreal had capitulated to him on the 12th, but that Governor Carleton had contrived to elude him and was supposed to have fled down the river, bound for Quebec. Orders were now given to be in readiness to march, it having been decided to retire up the river to Point aux Trembles, to await Montgomery at greater distance from the enemy. d.i.c.k's heart fell at thought of going, even for a short time and a score of miles, further from Quebec. Before he had time to brood over the matter, he was summoned to wait on Captain Hendricks, whom he found sitting with Colonel Arnold and Captain Morgan at a table in the chief room of a stone farmhouse. Hendricks returned his salute with a friendly look, Morgan with an approving one, and Arnold with a pleasant but piercing gaze and the words: "How would you like to go into Quebec, and learn the exact strength of each battery there and of each force of men in the garrison?"

When d.i.c.k grasped the full sense of this question, which he was delayed in doing by his mental notice of the present harmony between Arnold and Morgan after an open quarrel over the short allowance of flour to the riflemen, he waited a moment for breath, then answered:

"I should be delighted, sir!"

"It is necessary," Arnold went on, "that we have information more reliable than the reports we are getting from the inhabitants, for no two of these reports agree. There is a method just now by which a shrewd man may easily enter the city, without arousing suspicion there. This method requires that our man shall play a part. I am told you have ability in that direction."

d.i.c.k recalled his Boston escapes, and bowed.

"Here," said Arnold, handing d.i.c.k a sealed missive from the table, "is a letter from General Carleton, who is now somewhere up the river, to Colonel Maclean in Quebec. The messenger who carried it has fallen into our hands. It was so carelessly sealed that we were able to open and refasten it without seeming to have broken the wax. You are to personate the messenger, carry the letter to Colonel Maclean, get the information we want, and send it in a way I shall tell you of,--for you will probably be kept in the city, and any failure in your own attempt to get away might keep your information from reaching us. After that, you may escape when you best can. You understand, your report to me is not to be put to the risk that your body will doubtless undergo in getting back from the enemy."

"I understand."

"As General Carleton's message doesn't contain any description of the bearer, but merely tells Maclean to enroll him into service, you may a.s.sume what character you please. The messenger was a Tory hunter, from the province of New York, dressed much like you. So it may be well to pretend that character, wearing your own clothes. Captain Hendricks tells me you know enough of Montreal and the intervening country, from description, to answer knowingly if you should be questioned about it.

Sit yonder, and read this letter from General Montgomery to me, and this copy of General Carleton's message to Colonel Maclean. They will let you know how matters were at Montreal, and with General Carleton, when the messenger left."

d.i.c.k glanced down at the papers pushed towards him, and resumed heed of Arnold's instructions, which continued while the speaker now and then jotted down a word or two on a piece of paper:

"You will leave the camp with this pa.s.s, on the side farthest from the town, so it may appear you are going to reconnoitre up the river; for your destination must of course be a secret, lest some informant of the enemy's might follow and expose you. You will go around the camp by land, and reach the city after dark. The letter you carry will get you admittance without delay. Once within the walls, obtain the information as you are best able to. Put it in writing, and take it to a woman called Mere Frappeur, who keeps a wine shop in the upper town, near the Palace Gate. She is an Irish woman, the widow of a French fish-monger, and she has a boat in which she sometimes goes fis.h.i.+ng herself. When you meet her, if no one else is about, whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,'--do you know the tune?"

d.i.c.k, who had heard Tom fiddle it a thousand times, softly whistled the opening part. Arnold nodded, and went on:

"If you look at her in such a manner as to show that the tune is a signal, she will soon come to an understanding with you. You will ask her, in my name, to take your written message, in her boat, at night, close to the sh.o.r.e immediately on this side of the British stockade near the foot of Cape Diamond. There she will whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,'

and will be answered with the same tune by a man whom I shall have in waiting there each night, from to-morrow. She will give him the message and afterwards report to you. When you are sure the information is safe in that man's hands, you may escape and report to me, when you find opportunity or create it. I have made some notes here, that you will fix in mind before you start; but destroy that paper and my pa.s.s, as soon as you are clear of the camp, so that you will carry no papers to Quebec other than General Carleton's letter."

d.i.c.k took the sheet handed to him, and read the words: "Strength of each battery,--number men in each force,--Mere Frappeur,--wine shop near Palace Gate,--Molly, my Treasure,--boat,--each night,--sh.o.r.e this side stockade near foot Cape Diamond." While the three officers discussed in low tones at one end of the table, d.i.c.k sat at the other end, and memorized every circ.u.mstance mentioned in the letters of Montgomery and Carleton. He then rose, and, being noticed by Colonel Arnold, returned those two letters, and took his leave, retaining the pa.s.s, Arnold's brief notes, and the genuine letter from Carleton to Maclean. He was followed from the room by the kindly smile of Captain Hendricks.

It was now almost nightfall. d.i.c.k returned to his quarters, in a barn loft, put from his pockets and attire whatever might betray him, and saw with satisfaction that his clothes, now mended by old Tom and replenished from the stock of a dead comrade, no longer bore striking evidence of his march through Maine. He a.s.sured himself for the thousandth time that the miniature was still in its hiding-place; made a hasty supper with his mess on the barn floor below; called MacAlister aside and told of his coming absence on reconnoitring duty; shook the old fellow's hand, and was gone.

"Guid luck, and a merry meeting in this waurld or some ither!" was old Tom's farewell.

d.i.c.k tore up his pa.s.s as soon as it had been honored at last by the outermost picket; for in his zeal to respect his commander's every wish he was determined to make so wide a detour in rounding the camp that he could not possibly come near another sentry. The night was well advanced when he strode finally between the colonial army and the frowning city.

Skulking past Mount's Tavern, giving a wide berth to every farmhouse or suburban residence that might perchance shelter some American force on special duty, he stood at last between the suburb of St. Louis and that of St. John's, and hesitated as to which gate to approach. He chose that of St. John's, and, hastening up to it with an air of importance and fatigue, was challenged at some distance by a sentry on the wall. His prompt account of himself got him speedily through the wicket, and soon a guard officer was escorting him to Colonel Maclean, who was for the time quartered in a house near the bastion of La Pota.s.se, in order to be close to the barracks and St. John's Gate.

Maclean sat in a room on a level with the street, holding vigil with some officers. d.i.c.k faced him across a table on which were a candelabra, writing materials, and a great ma.s.s of papers. The British commander, Scotchiest of the Scotch, was rugged, frowning, and sharp-speaking, but seemed to have a solid substratum of good-nature. He read Carleton's letter in silence, then scrutinized d.i.c.k with gray eyes as hard as granite, and pelted him with a succession of gruff questions, to which d.i.c.k replied with quiet readiness and a steady return of look. The questions were all on matters covered by the letter, which, d.i.c.k could easily see, the sagacious Scot did not suspect of having been opened.

d.i.c.k's answers evidently convinced the colonel that the letter had not changed bearers since leaving General Carleton's hand. For the colonel's address was a little less gruff, when he presently asked:

"What is your name, my guid mon?"

"Tammas MacAlister," replied d.i.c.k, under a prompt inspiration, and added, in imitation of the Fiddler's manner of speech, "Ye maun hae kenned my fayther, and his fayther afore him, that baith piped ahint the heels of Charlie Stuart in '45, though the present generation is loyal, soul and body, to the powers that be. I oft heard them tell of the Macleans, and what a grand family they are,--begging your pardon."

"I dare say," answered the colonel, his face having lost its rigor.

"Though I don't mind at the moment, I maun hae kenned your forebears in days lang syne. 'Tis strange I didn't heed your Scottish tongue sooner.

Ye're the build and face of a true Caledonian, and ye'll mak' a braw recruit for the Royal Emigrants. Captain, let MacAlister mess and quarter with your company for the time being, and see that he reports to me to-morrow at ten o'clock." The officer addressed sent an attendant for a sergeant, in whose charge d.i.c.k was placed, and by whom he was soon a.s.signed to a bunk in the adjacent barracks, his mind in a whirl of emotions, thoughts, and plans, all regarding his military mission and his intended visit to Catherine de St. Valier.

The next morning, at breakfast, d.i.c.k studied carefully each man of the mess. Pretending to a previous knowledge acquired through a seafaring uncle, he asked an old Quebec man whether there were any St. Valiers still in the city. He soon learned that Gerard and Catherine were the last of their branch of the family, that it was an impoverished branch, and that they were now living with their unmarried uncle in the latter's house in Palace Street, near the street that led from the St. John's Gate.

d.i.c.k next, observing that a certain prating corporal affected expert knowledge of the town's defences, and had a truly Scotch tenacity of a.s.sertion, lured him subtly into an argument regarding the present state of Quebec as compared with that in Wolfe's time; and thus elicited, as to the disposition of artillery, a statement so exact and full that, to be relied on, it required only to agree with some report from another source. d.i.c.k secretly a.s.signed each section of a piece of biscuit to represent some particular post named by the corporal, and on that section he made tiny finger-nail scratches equal in number to the cannon said to be at the post. Being under orders to remain with the sergeant, he found, by using his eyes skilfully while about the barracks, that the corporal's account was correct as far as concerned certain guns in the vicinity of St. John's Gate.

During the morning there came to the barracks a barber who had customers among soldiers stationed at different parts of the town. Now that the troops remained near their posts when off duty, ready to respond in case of sudden attack, this pract.i.tioner, instead of keeping shop as usually, made the rounds to visit the customers who could not visit him. d.i.c.k was shaved by him, and, during the operation, led him to discourse upon those parts of the city to which duty called him. The observant barber incidentally let fall numerous bits of information that confirmed, if they did not augment, certain details of the knowing corporal's disclosures.

This barber and the corporal had the knack possessed by small boys and dogs, of nosing into every opening whence anything might be seen, and had come by far more and far other information than they were properly ent.i.tled to possess. d.i.c.k had begun the day with the knowledge, won in his own experience, that in every score of people there are two or three such investigating persons. Keen observation had enabled him to single out the two such from the host of men he met in the barracks, and by the closest attention he had picked out, from the chaff of their talk, the few grains that were to his purpose. It was not, therefore, mere good luck that had brought him so promptly a better approximate account of the city's heavy armament than he could have obtained in hours of suspicious loitering around the various batteries.

At ten o'clock he reported to Colonel Maclean at the latter's temporary headquarters. He had to give an account of his supposed journey from Montreal and of how he had contrived to pa.s.s the American camp. Maclean said it would be useless to send him back with a message to General Carleton, as the latter's whereabouts would doubtless remain unknown until his arrival at Quebec, which might occur at any time. He proposed, therefore, that d.i.c.k should enlist in the Royal Highland Emigrants.

d.i.c.k, who had borne in mind from the first that his task must be done ere the arrival of Carleton, as the governor would know him from the genuine messenger, replied that to serve in the Emigrants was the ambition of his life. The colonel asked d.i.c.k what soldiering he had seen. d.i.c.k replied, "Nane, afore the fighting between the Lakes and Montreal. But, considering the stock I'm of, I should tak' well to the profession, seeing that I hae done weel at most things I've put a hand to, from the rifle to the quill pen." At the last words, the colonel looked at the ma.s.s of papers on his table, as d.i.c.k had designed he should do, and said, "If ye have skill at pen waurk, there's a task of copying ye might set to, before we mak' a Royal Emigrant of ye. My secretary is more useful at the new fortifications these times, having the gift of construction in works as well as in words; yet I'm sore wishful for a copy of these letters, for my ain keeping."

d.i.c.k repressed his elation, and it was soon arranged that he should forthwith write out a copy of some correspondence that the colonel set before him. Maclean then left the office, to make his usual rounds, and d.i.c.k was left alone with an adjutant, a door-attendant, and two guards at the entrance. The adjutant sat writing at one side of the table, d.i.c.k at the opposite side, both using ink from the same receptacle.

To his disappointment, d.i.c.k found the correspondence to concern a bygone question of misappropriated supplies, and hence to be of no value as information for his commander. While he wrote, his eye ranged the table, at intervals, and took in every visible bit of writing thereon, making note of such sheets, wholly or partly in view, as contained matter arranged in columns. He acquainted himself with the exact location of three such sheets among the countless others that enc.u.mbered the table.

He then waited the opportunity that would come with the adjutant's departure from the room.

But the adjutant, whose work was behind, through his having accepted more than his regular duties, continued to write. Shortly after noon, the colonel returned, with some of his staff, and had dinner in the adjoining room. d.i.c.k was sent to dine with his mess. He made short work of dinner, and hastened back, hoping he might arrive at the office table before the adjutant, who was to have dined with the colonel's staff. But d.i.c.k found the adjutant already at work, an odor of wine about him telling that he had finished his dinner. The colonel and the other officers presently went out, as they had done in the forenoon. The afternoon pa.s.sed on as the forenoon had, with the difference that, outside the window, snow began to fall. d.i.c.k utilized some of the time by transcribing, on a bare sheet of paper, the statement he had recorded on his piece of biscuit, which he now set before him on the table as if intending presently to eat it. He then adroitly slipped the sheet of paper from the table to his lap and thrust it carefully beneath his jacket with his left hand while continuing to write with the other.

When the gray afternoon began to darken, d.i.c.k resolved on a desperate measure. As if his hunting-knife galled him, he took it from his belt and placed it on the table, with its point thrust under the inkstand. A few minutes later, as if to remove it out of the way of his paper, he lifted it suddenly in such manner that it overturned the inkstand, deluging one of the adjutant's hands with ink. That officer arose with an expression of disgust, darted an angry look at d.i.c.k, called the attendant to mop up the ink, and went into a closet to wash his hand.

d.i.c.k, with a pretence of rescuing the papers from the spreading pool of ink, swiftly grasped the three sheets he had singled out and placed them, each on top of a different pile, within range of his eye. The adjutant, returning to his delayed work, did not notice what rearrangement d.i.c.k had made of the papers. While the two wrote silently on, d.i.c.k scanned the farthest of the three papers. He soon saw that it was a list of provisions, and of trivial consequence. The next one of the three turned out to be a statement of arms needed to complete the equipment of a certain militia company. d.i.c.k turned his eye, with diminis.h.i.+ng hopes, to the third and last. This is what he saw there, and copied in feverish haste, with trembling fingers:

In garrison at Quebec, November 17th.

70 Royal Fusileers.

230 Royal Emigrants.

22 Artillery, fire-workers, etc.

330 British militia.

543 Canadians.

400 Seamen.

50 Masters and men of vessels.

35 Marines.

120 Artificers.

------ 1800

The copy of this return, deluged with sand in d.i.c.k's impatience to dry the ink, followed the artillery account to concealment, and d.i.c.k, casting a peculiar smile across the table at the busily writing adjutant, went on copying the colonel's correspondence.

Presently candles were lighted by the attendant. Then in came Colonel Maclean, shaking off the snow and bl.u.s.tering at the cold, and accompanied by two officers, one of whom said, hastening to the fireplace:

"I'll wager this is the kind of weather they've been waiting for, though, to be sure, one never knows when they may melt away in the night, as--who the devil's that?"

The colonel turned to look where the speaker did, but saw only a flying figure that darted through the door, plunged past the guards, and was gone in the falling snow and gathering gloom. The figure was d.i.c.k's, for the man who had spoken was Lieutenant Blagdon.

d.i.c.k had been minded for an instant to stay and outface him. But on the heels of that impulse had come the thought that Blagdon knew sufficient that differed from the name and nationality and other particulars d.i.c.k had given Maclean, to prove the imposture, and that the word of a well-known British officer would of course be taken against d.i.c.k's.

Hence the timely bolt for the street.

He had turned naturally in the direction that led towards Palace Street, at which thoroughfare he arrived without having attracted attention, his rapid pace being that which a soldier might use in carrying a hurried order. He knew Palace Street by its width and the rich appearance of its houses. Not looking back to see whether a pursuit had yet been started, he turned leftward and hastened on, now changing his gait from a run to a rapid stride. Duty required that he should first make safe his information by finding Mere Frappeur and entrusting it to her. He asked an artisan where her wine shop was, but the artisan was French and shook his head in sign of not understanding. A short distance farther on, d.i.c.k picked out an English face among the snow-pelted pa.s.sers-by, and repeated his question.

"About the fifth or sixth house in the second little street to the right," replied the Englishman, who had the look of a merchant's clerk; "the street that turns off beyond the St. Valier house,--the house with the large garden."

The St. Valier house! d.i.c.k would have to pa.s.s it, then, on his way to Mere Frappeur's wine shop! He sprang forward, barely taking time to thank his informant, and ran plump into a begowned priest, who, thrown from his balance, uttered a rapid series of words, as to which d.i.c.k did not know whether they were Latin e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns or French execrations.

d.i.c.k was further impeded on his way by having to make room for a squad of soldiers, and to pa.s.s round a sledge that had come to a standstill where streets crossed. He now cast a look backward, from a slight eminence, and saw a half dozen troops turn into Palace Street where he had turned into it. One of them carried a lantern, held close to the snow. d.i.c.k knew what that meant,--they were tracing him by his footprints in the snow. He blamed himself now for having, in his desire to avoid collisions, kept so clear of other walkers.