, sidelong charge upon their ancient conquerors, had spluttered
and kicked a little, and had then turned tail upon disaster and defeat.
An incoherent little army had been shattered into fugitive factors, and
every one of these hurried and scurried for a hole of safety into which
he could hide. Some were mounted, but most were on foot.

Officers fared little better than men. It was "Save who can": they were
all on a dead level of misfortune. Hundreds reached no cover, but were
overtaken and driven back to British headquarters. In their terror,
twenty brave rebels of two hours ago were to be captured by a single
British officer of infantry speaking bad French.

Two of these hopeless fugitives were still fortunate enough to get a
start of the hounds of retaliation and revenge. They were both mounted,
and had far to go to reach their destination. Home was the one word in
the mind of each; and they both came from Bonaventure.

The one was a tall, athletic young man, who had borne a captain's
commission in Papineau's patriot army. He rode a sorel horse--a great,
wiry raw-bone, with a lunge like a moose, and legs that struck the
ground with the precision of a piston-rod. As soon as his nose was
turned towards Bonaventure he smelt the wind of home in his nostrils;
his hatchet head jerked till he got the bit straight between his teeth;
then, gripping it as a fretful dog clamps the bone which his master
pretends to wrest from him, he leaned down to his work, and the mud, the
new-fallen snow and the slush flew like dirty sparks, and covered man
and horse.

Above, an uncertain, watery moon flew in and out among the shifting
clouds; and now and then a shot came through the mist and the half dusk,
telling of some poor fugitive fighting, overtaken, or killed.

The horse neither turned head nor slackened gait. He was like a
living machine, obeying neither call nor spur, but travelling with an
unchanging speed along the level road, and up and down hill, mile after
mile.

In the rider's heart were a hundred things; among them fear, that
miserable depression which comes with the first defeats of life, the
falling of the mercury from passionate activity to that frozen numbness
which betrays the exhausted nerve and despairing mind. The horse could
not go fast enough; the panic of flight was on him. He was conscious of
it, despised himself for it; but he could not help it. Yet, if he were
overtaken, he would fight; yes, fight to the en