“It's a pity you're a Papist,” said another, “or you could have such a recommendation from a 'serious family' I know of in Surrey.”
“Never mind,” rejoined the captain; “one signed 'P. O. Dowdlum, Bishop of Toronia,' will do even better in the Lower Province.”
“Exactly, sir; and, as I used to serve mass once, I can 'come out strong' about my early training with 'his Grace'!”
“Very well,” said Pike; “tell the tailor to take your measure for the livery, and you'll wait on us to-day at table.” With this order I was dismissed, to con over my fictitious and speculate on my true “character.”
CHAPTER XIII. QUEBEC
As viewed from Diamond Harbour, a more striking city than Quebec is seldom seen.
The great rock rising above the lower town, and crowned with its batteries, all bristling with guns, seemed to my eyes the very realization of impregnability. I looked from the ship that lay tranquilly on the water below, and whose decks were thronged with blue jackets, to the Highlander who paced his short path as sentry, some hundred feet high upon the wall of the fortress; and I thought to myself, with such defenders as these, that standard yonder need never carry any other banner.
The whole view is panoramic. The bending of the river shuts out the channel by which you have made your approach, giving the semblance of a lake, on whose surface vessels of every nation lie at anchor, some with the sails hung out to dry, gracefully drooping from the taper spars; others refitting again for sea, and loading the huge pine-trunks, moored as vast rafts to the stern. There were people everywhere; all was motion, life, and activity. Jolly-boats with twenty oars, man-of-war gigs bounding rapidly past them with eight; canoes skimming by without a ripple, and seemingly without impulse, till you caught sight of the lounging figure who lay at full length in the stern, and whose red features were scarce distinguishable from the copper-colored bark of his boat. Some moved upon the rafts, and even on single trunks of trees, as, separated from the mass, they floated down on the swift current, boat-hook in hand, to catch at the first object chance might offer them. The quays, and the streets leading down to them were all thronged; and as you cast your eye upwards, here and there above the tall roofs might be seen the winding flight of stairs that lead to the upper town, alike dark with the moving tide of men. On every embrasure and gallery, on every terrace and platform, it was the same. Never did I behold such a human tide!