The cruise of the Canoe Club

by W. L. Alden

Chapter VIII.

THERE is no place more unfit for a sudden and unexpected bath than the lock of a canal. The sides and the gates are perpendicular and smooth, and present nothing to which a person in the water can cling. Charley had no difficulty in supporting himself by throwing one arm over the stern of Harry’s canoe, but had he been alone in the lock he would have been in a very unpleasant position.

As soon as the gates were opened the boys paddled out of the lock, and went ashore to devise a plan for raising the sunken canoe. Of course it was necessary that some one should dive and bring up the painter, so that the canoe could be dragged out of the lock; but, as canal-boats were constantly passing, it was a full hour before any attempt at diving could be made. There were half a dozen small French boys playing near the lock, and Charley, who was by no means anxious to do any unnecessary diving, hired them to get the canoe ashore, which they managed to do easily. It was then found that nearly everything except the spars had floated out of her, and the rest of the morning was spent in searching for the missing articles in the muddy bottom of the canal. Most of them were recovered, but Charley’s spare clothes, which were in an India-rubber bag, could not be found.

This was the second time that the unfortunate Midnight had foundered, and Charley was thoroughly convinced of the necessity of providing some means of keeping her afloat in case of capsizing. It was impossible for him to put water-tight compartments in her, such as the Sunshine and the Dawn possessed, but he resolved to buy a dozen beef-bladders at the next town, and after blowing them up to pack them in the bow and stern of his canoe. Tom, whose “Rice Lake” canoe was also without water-tight compartments, agreed to adopt Charley’s plan, and thus avoid running the risk of an accident that might result in the loss of the canoe and cargo.

When the fleet finally got under way again there was a nice breeze from the south, which sent the canoes along at the rate of four or five miles an hour. Chambly, the northern end of the canal, was reached before four o’clock, the boys having lunched on bread-and-water while in the canoes in order not to lose time by going ashore. They passed safely through the three great locks at Chambly; and entering the little lake formed by the expansion of the river, and known as Chambly Basin, they skirted its northern shore until they reached the ruins of Chambly Castle.

More than one hundred and fifty years ago the Frenchmen built the great square fort, with round towers at each angle, which is now called Chambly Castle. At that time the only direct way of communication between the settlements on the St. Lawrence and those in the valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk was up the Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and Lake George. It was this route that Burgoyne followed when he began the campaign that ended so disastrously for him at Saratoga, and it was at Chambly Castle that he formally took command of his army. The castle was placed just at the foot of the rapids, on a broad, level space, where Indians used to assemble in large numbers to trade with the French. Its high stone walls, while they could easily have been knocked to pieces by cannon, were a complete protection against the arrows and rifles of the savages, and could have withstood a long siege by any English force not provided with artillery. In the old days when the castle was garrisoned by gay young French officers, and parties of beautiful ladies came up from Montreal to attend the officers’ balls, and the gray old walls echoed to music, and brilliant lights flashed through the windows, the Indians encamped outside the gates must have thought it the most magnificent and brilliant place in the whole world. Now there is nothing left of it but the four walls and the crumbling towers. The iron bolts on which the great castle gate once swung are still embedded in the stone, but nothing else remains inside the castle except grassy mounds and the wild vines that climb wherever they can find an angle or a stone to cling to.

The canoeists made their camp where the Indians had so often camped before them, and after supper they rambled through the castle and climbed to the top of one of the towers. They had never heard of its existence, and were as surprised as they were delighted to find so romantic a ruin.

“I haven’t the least doubt that the place is full of ghosts,” said Charley as the boys were getting into the canoes for the night.

“Do you really believe in ghosts?” asked Tom, in his matter-of-fact way.