It was impossible that I should plan for return before we saw what move the English might make by sea, so I abandoned all thought of it, and settled down to await the outcome.
At the beginning of June volunteers gathered from the upper parishes, and with the militia and troops from Montreal, crossed over the St. Charles to take their places in the camp where M. de Lévis had already projected his works. Day after day we watched the men toiling, and presently our lines of defence began to creep slowly out along the shores of Beauport.
That Hugh was there I knew, but I kept myself from thinking by my daily attendance on Lucy, whose unfailing hope saw its fulfilment almost within touch when I told her of the certain coming of the English. Gay parties of chattering women were made up to go out to the camp and encourage the workers, but my heart ached too wearily even at my own distance to wish for any nearer approach.
I stood with Angélique one evening in the garden of the Hôtel-Dieu, and even here the engineers had erected a battery overhanging the steep cliff. Looking up towards the left, we could see the bridge of boats, at the far end of which a hive of busy workers toiled at a fortification, called a hornwork, while immediately below us others were building a boom to be floated across the wide mouth of the St. Charles to protect the bridge, and from this point on, down the banks of the St. Lawrence, lay our main defences.
There the white coats of the regulars mingled with the blue and grey of the Canadians and volunteers. Indians stalked or squatted about, taking no part in a labour they could not understand; officers moved to and fro, directing and encouraging the men, and from the manor of Beauport floated the General's flag, marking his headquarters.
Before this restless, toiling mass swept the great empty river, changing its colour with every change of sky which floated over it, while behind stretched the beautiful valley of the St. Charles, its gentle upward sweep of woods broken only by the green fields and white walls of Charlesbourg until it met the range of blue and purple hills which guards it to the north. At a point opposite where we were standing the nearer mountains opened out and shewed a succession of golden hills which seemed, in the tender evening light, as the gates of some heavenly country where all was peace, and the rumour of war could never enter.
At length all preparations were complete, and we waited impatiently for the drama to begin.
Towards the end of June the first English ships were reported, and on the evening of the twenty-second an excited group of ladies gathered on the Battery of the Hôtel-Dieu, and through a storm which swept down over the hills, amid the flashing of lightning and to the roar of thunder, we watched their fleet silently file into view in the South Channel, and come to anchor under shelter of the Isle of Orleans. In the chapel the nuns were singing:
“Soutenez, grande Reine, Notre pauvre pays: Il est votre domaine. Faites fleurir nos lis.
“L'Anglois sur nos frontières Porte ses étendards. Exaucez nos prières, Protegez nos remparts.”