CHAPTER XIX.
A WOMAN’S LOYALTY.
ONE day scouts coming into the town informed the Military Governor, M. de Callière, that Peter Schuyler, with a strong force of English and Dutch troops, accompanied by Mohawks, Wolves and Mohegans, was marching on Ville Marie. Rumor magnified the actual facts to the most exaggerated proportions. A crowd of anxious people blocked the streets in every direction.
“Is it true that the invaders are close at hand?” asked the baker.
“But assuredly,” responded the grocer, who in his haste had forgotten to remove his blue woollen night-cap, the corner of which dangled rakishly over his left eye. “It is the English who will make mincemeat of us. They have sold themselves to the devil, and bathe themselves in the blood of little children. I already see us all being devoured.”
“Ah! my good St. Anne!” cried a young woman, whose short homespun skirt revealed a trim pair of ankles. “Can anyone tell if they are numerous, these sorcerers of English?”
“Numerous, good woman? Dame! but like the sands of the sea. A thousand fire-eaters are close at hand.” A soldier who happened to be passing amused himself at the public expense.
“Javotte! Javotte!” the woman shrieked, waving her hands excitedly. “Five thousand English are upon us; we are all to be scalped and taken prisoners immediately!”
This terrifying prediction spread among the populace, creating consternation which almost amounted to a panic. Meanwhile energetic preparations for defence were being made. All the military and most of the bourgeois were under arms; among the soldiers appeared old men and young lads who, in ordinary cases, would have been considered unfit for service. It had become an absolute necessity that anyone who could shoulder a musket should lend a helping hand. Women and children, who at the signal of alarm had come in from the surrounding country, were busily occupied in carrying their poor possessions to the shelter of the citadel or to the convents. Here an invalid with pale face was carried on a hastily improvised stretcher; there an old man, anxious to preserve the poor remnant of life that remained to him, tottered feebly, leaning on his daughter’s arm; yonder a young mother, frantic with terror, flying in search of refuge, bore in her arms a tiny babe, the little one regarding with true infantile calmness the unfamiliar scene of tumult and confusion.
“Make way there, good people, make way!” cried a stout, robust woman, who was bearing a large blue wooden chest, into which she had thrown pell-mell everything she could collect—clothing, furniture and cooking utensils all huddled together—and which was so heavy that it seemed a marvel she could move it at all. “It is hard enough to get along with never a man’s hand to help, or even to push, without being blocked up as well. Make way there, I say!”