ions. The steeples
and turrets of Montreal, the old windmill, the belfry and
high-pitched roof of Notre Dame de Bonsecours, the massed buildings
of the Seminary and the Hotel Dieu, the spire of the Jesuits, rose
against the green shaggy slopes of the mountain, and over the
mountain the sky paled tranquilly toward evening. Sky, mountain,
forests, mirrored belfry and broad rolling river--a permanent peace
seemed to rest on them all.

Half a mile down-stream, where Haviland's camp began, the men of the
nearest picket were playing chuck-farthing. Duty deprived them of
the spectacle in the Place d'Armes, and thus, as soldiers, they
solaced themselves. Through the bulrush stems John heard their
voices and laughter.

A canoe came drifting down the river, across the opening of the
little creek. A man sat in it with his paddle laid across his knees;
and as the stream bore him past, his eyes scanned the water inshore.
John recognised Bateese at once; but Bateese, after a glance, went by
unheeding. It was no living man he sought.

John finished his lathering at leisure, waded out beyond the rushes
and cast himself forward into deep water. He swam a few strokes,
ducked his head, dived, and swam on again; turned on his back and
floated, staring up into the sky; breasted the strong current and
swam against it, fighting it in sheer lightness of heart. Boyhood
came back to him with his cleansing, and a boyish memory--of an hour
between sunset and moonrise; of a Devonshire lane, where the harvest
wagons had left wisps of hay dangling from the honeysuckles; of a
triangular patch of turf at the end of the lane, and a whitewashed
Meeting-House with windows open, and through the windows a hymn
pouring forth upon the Sabbath twilight--

"Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all his sons away . . ."

An ever-rolling stream! It would bear him down, and the generals
yonder, victors and vanquished, drums and trumpets, hopes and
triumphs and despair--overwhelming, making equal the greater with the
less. But meanwhile, how good to be alive and a man, to swim and
breast it! So this river, if he fought it, would out-tire him, sweep
him away and roll on unheeding, majestic, careless of life and of
time. But for this moment he commanded it. Let his new life bring
what it might, this hour the river should be his servant, should
prepare and wash him clean, body and soul. He lifted his head,
shaking the water from hi