All localities have their romance, their unseen or possible life, which is hinted to the maker of stories alone. But Canada is teeming with such suggestions—its picturesque French dwellers in remote valleys are to-day a hundred or two hundred years behind the rush of the age.
Adam Daulac, Sieur des Ormeaux, stands distinct against the background of two centuries and a quarter ago. His name and the names of his companions may yet be seen on the parish register of Villemarie—so its founders called Montreal. His exploit and its success are matters of history, as well authenticated as any event of our late civil war. While the story of Thermopylæ continues to be loved by men, the story of Dollard cannot die. It is that picture of stalwart heroism which all nations admire. It is the possible greatness of man—set in this instance in blue Canadian distances, with the somber and everlasting Laurentines for its witnesses. The phase is medieval, is clothed in the garb of religious chivalry; but the spirit is a part of the universal man.
Mary Hartwell Catherwood.
THE ROMANCE OF DOLLARD.
I.
A SHIP FROM FRANCE.
IN April of the year 1660, on a morning when no rain drizzled above the humid rock of Quebec, two young men walked along the single street by the river. The houses of this Lower Town were a row of small buildings with stone gables, their cedar-shingled roofs curving upward at the eaves in Norman fashion. High in north air swelled the mighty natural fortress of rock, feebly crowned by the little fort of St. Louis displaying the lilies of France. Farther away the cathedral set its cross against the sky. And where now a tangle of streets, bisected by the city wall, climb steeply from Lower to Upper Town, then a rough path straggled.