the
result of certain unacknowledged and undefined fears, as of the respect
the English had ever been accustomed to exact. The men removed their
short dingy clay pipes from their mouths with one hand, and uncovered
themselves with the other, while the women made their hasty reverence
with the air of people who seek to propitiate by an act of civility;
even the very children scraped and bowed, as if they feared the
omission might be fatal to them, and, clinging to the hands and dress
of their parents, looked up occasionally to their countenances to
discover whether the apprehensions of their own fluttering and timid
hearts were likely to be realised. Still there was sufficient of
curiosity with all to render them attentive spectators of the passing
troop. Hitherto, it had been imagined, the object of the English was an
attack on the encampments of their enemies; but when the gaze of each
adult inhabitant fell on the unaccoutred form of the lone soldier, who,
calm though pale, now moved among his comrades in the ignominious garb
of death, they could no longer doubt its true destination.

The aged made the sign of the cross, and mumbled over a short prayer
for the repose of his soul, while the more youthful indulged in
half-breathed ejaculations of pity and concern that so fine and
interesting a man should be doomed to so dreadful a fate.

At the farther extremity of the town, and at a bend in the road, which
branched off more immediately towards the river, stood a small public
house, whose creaking sign bore three ill executed fleurs-de-lis,
apologetic emblems of the arms of France. The building itself was
little more than a rude log hut, along the front of which ran a plank,
supported by two stumps of trees, and serving as a temporary
accommodation both for the traveller and the inmate. On this bench
three persons, apparently attracted by the beauty of the day and the
mildness of the autumnal sun, were now seated, two of whom were
leisurely puffing their pipes, while the third, a female, was employed
in carding wool, a quantity of which lay in a basket at her feet, while
she warbled, in a low tone, one of the simple airs of her native land.
The elder of the two men, whose age might be about fifty, offered
nothing particularly remarkable in his appearance: he was dressed in
one of those thick coats made of the common white blanket, which, even
to this day, are so generally worn by the Canadians, while his hair,
cut squa