While waiting to be summoned to the Governor, Lecour glanced around. The part of the buildings in which he stood was the Old Château, a picturesque structure of the French times, dating from 1694, crowning its conspicuous position as a landmark by a mediæval roof of steep pitch; while a gallery two hundred feet in length ran along the outside, supported by tall buttresses, which, clinging to the cliff-side, gave it beneath the same elongated lines as the steep roof above. The result was exceedingly quaint and castellated. He remembered that he had often seen it thus from the river. His present point of view gave him, through the windows and over the gallery, another form of his view of the harbour and Point Levis, one of the most striking landscapes in the world. Looking closer about the room, the low-raftered ceilings of an older time brought another thought to his mind.
"Is not this," he exclaimed to himself, "the very chamber where Count Frontenac, a hundred years ago, must have received the envoy of Admiral Phipps with request to surrender, and returned the reply, 'I will answer your master by the mouth of my cannon.'" He imagined he heard the gallant veteran say the words.
Turning to the windows towards the courtyard, he saw opposite the handsome new range of buildings lately erected, and nicknamed "Castle Haldimand," in which were the apartments of the Governor and his family, and which, on their further side, fronted on the Place d'Armes.
As a boy he had once looked into the courtyard, and contemplated its precincts with juvenile awe. Now, he was standing a guest of honour in the then inaccessible arcana. He was not given much time to continue his reflections. De la Naudière came back, brought him across, and conducted him into the reception chamber of Governor Dorchester. His Excellency, who was a large, finely-made man of a ruddy and generous countenance, received him with that trained, lofty courtesy which marked the meeting of distinguished men of that time, and Lecour, as he reciprocated the salutation, saw that he had nothing to fear from him.
"I recognise your uniform, Chevalier," said he, "which revives to me some pleasant memories of Versailles."
"Your Lordship is, then, acquainted with my Sovereign's Court? His Majesty knows how to appreciate a brave man."
"He has too many in his service to do otherwise; but I have no pretensions on that score."
"The world well knows, your Excellency, 'The Saviour of Canada,'" Lecour replied, "and my country honours you as one of the worthiest of former foes."
"Tut, tut, Monsieur le Chevalier—excuse the freedom of an old Englishman in turning the conversation. My lady will die of curiosity over the appearance of a Garde-du-Corps in this out-of-the-way quarter of the globe. How can I answer her as to the cause?"
"Private business with my family, my Lord, connected with an estate in our mother country."