"Corporal Burns," said he, with a voice strangely broken, as the listening soldiers told, "take this fellow, with a file of men, to the rear. The Colonel may wish to question him. Forward, lads!" he added, as the peasant was taken, in great tribulation of mind, towards the column, and once more the march of the advanced guard was resumed, and Roland Ruthven tramped on, so full of agitating thoughts that he never knew his cigar had been cold and out for half an hour or more.
The junction was duly effected with the column of Sir John Colborne; the Royal Scots Regiment, the Montreal Rifles, and Globinsky's Volunteers, were formed in one brigade under Colonel Wetherall. The latter force was dispatched through the forests that border the upper road leading to the point to be attacked, with orders to drive back and disperse all pickets and parties of the insurgents, while the remainder of the brigade crossed the Ottawa, or Grande Rivière, on the ice on the 14th of December.
There along the Ottawa, the then snow-covered country is undulating, thickly covered with fine wood, except on the western bank of the river, where for some twelve miles have been laid out townships, chiefly occupied by Irish, and American settlers. Below that of Chatham the old French Seigneuries begin.
The advance on the enemy's stronghold now began from several points.
In Roland's heart much of the ardour and fierce excitement incident to the march had died away, or rather taken the form of unspeakable anxiety and grief, especially when on the 14th of December he saw before him St. Eustache, with its wooden houses and orchards of bare apple-trees, the cold winter sunlight tipping the spire of the church, and the vanes of the large white house, wherein Roland knew that she might be, though the man taken over night informed Colonel Wetherall that it was not improbable she might be in the church, which the rebels considered the key of their position.
"Patience—patience!" he muttered, "patience yet awhile!"
No magistrate being with the troops, Sir John Colborne, while still at a little distance from the place, resolved to send forward an officer with the printed proclamation. For this service Roland at once volunteered. Tying a white handkerchief to the blade of his sword, in token of truce, he borrowed his friend the adjutant's horse, and galloped forward to the first line of stockades or outer defences, behind which the dark forms of armed rebels were seen clustering thick as bees, and at the windows of the seigneur's house.
The whole troops watched with anxiety the brief parley that seemed to ensue; then it was suddenly cut short by a lamentable crime. A stream of smoke came from the window of a house, the report of a musket rang out on the clear frosty air, Roland's horse was seen to rear, with its rider lying back on the crupper, but his knees still in the stirrups, to all appearance a corpse, as Nolan's was borne back from Balaclava!
A shout of rage burst from the Royals; the artillery opened, and all pressed forward to the attack, intent on dire vengeance, at a well-ordered rush.
By barricades, palisades, trenches, and loopholing the houses, the church, and its presbytery, Papineau, Smash, and their bands of rebels, had left nothing undone to render St. Eustache a somewhat formidable post; and they were encouraged by the knowledge that other bodies of their compatriots had fortified themselves at St. Benoit and elsewhere.