bustle of preparation, the town
and province were left in stillness and repose.

But stillness and repose, at such a time of anxious expectation, are
hard to bear. The hearts of the old people and women sunk within them
when they reflected what perils they had sent their sons, and husbands,
and brothers to encounter. The boys loitered heavily to School, missing
the rub-a-dub-dub and the trampling march, in the rear of which they had
so lately run and shouted. All the ministers prayed earnestly in their
pulpits for a blessing on the army of New England. In every family, when
the good man lifted up his heart in domestic worship, the burden of his
petition was for the safety of those dear ones who were fighting under
the walls of Louisburg.

Governor Shirley all this time was probably in an ecstasy of impatience.
He could not sit still a moment. He found no quiet, not even in
Grandfather's chair; but hurried to and fro, and up and down the
staircase of the Province House. Now he mounted to the cupola and looked
seaward, straining his eyes to discover if there were a sail upon the
horizon. Now he hastened down the stairs, and stood beneath the portal,
on the red free-stone steps, to receive some mud-bespattered courier,
from whom he hoped to hear tidings of the army. A few weeks after the
departure of the troops, Commodore Warren sent a small vessel to Boston
with two French prisoners. One of them was Monsieur Bouladrie, who had
been commander of a battery outside the walls of Louisburg. The other
was the Marquis de la Maison Forte, captain of a French frigate which
had been taken by Commodore Warren's fleet. These prisoners assured
Governor Shirley that the fortifications of Louisburg were far too
strong ever to be stormed by the provincial army.

Day after day and week after week went on. The people grew almost
heart-sick with anxiety; for the flower of the country was at peril in
this adventurous expedition. It was now daybreak on the morning of the
3d of July.

But hark! what sound is this? The hurried clang of a bell! There is the
Old North pealing suddenly out!--there the Old South strikes in!--now
the peal comes from the church in Brattle Street!--the bells of nine or
ten steeples are all flinging their iron voices at once upon the morning
breeze! Is it joy, or alarm? There goes the roar of a cannon too! A
royal salute is thundered forth. And now we hear the loud exulting shout
of a multitude assembled in the st