“I cannot say. Yankee very cautious; put his nose one, two, three time across the frontier and then run back, like rat to his hole. Maybe Hampton come; we must be ready. Here is your order. You will find the train at King’s Posts and use all expedition.”

Saluting the General, Morton withdrew and, rejoining his men, they marched down the narrow and crooked maze of St Paul street, attracting little attention, for the sight of soldiers had become familiar even to the habitant wives, who were[Pg 3] jogging homeward in their market-carts. By the time the town was cleared, and the Lachine road gained, the sun was inclining to the west, and his rays being more endurable, the men stepped out briskly, bandying coarse jests, while the officer, some paces behind, eyed with surprised delight the foaming rapids, which he now saw for the first time. The afternoon was calm, which made the spectacle of a wide expanse of water tossed into huge billows without apparent cause, all the more singular. “Why,” said Morton inwardly, “all the rivers of the United Kingdom, with their falls and cataracts, if added to this vast river, would not perceptibly add either to its volume or its tumult.”

[Pg 3]

At the head of the rapids, where the St Lawrence expands into the lake named St Louis, stood the King’s Posts, an extensive collection of buildings, with wharves in front, at which were moored a large number of boats. King’s Posts was the depot of supplies for the country west of Montreal, and therefore a place of bustle in time of war, boats stemming the rapids and long trains of carts conveying to its storehouses daily the supplies brought by shipping from England to Montreal, to be in turn sent off as required to the numerous garrisons along the upper St Lawrence and lakes Ontario and Erie, while the troops, then being hurried to the front, here embarked. Reporting his command, Morton was informed the boat with the supplies he was to guard would not be ready to sail until[Pg 4] late in the evening, and quarters were assigned his men and to himself an invitation to join the mess-dinner. Thus relieved, he strolled to the water’s edge, and watched the shouting boatmen and the swearing soldiers as they loaded the flotilla that was in preparation, and was fortunate enough to see a bateau arrive from Montreal, poled up against the current by part of its crew while the others tugged at a tow-rope, reinforced by a yoke of oxen. Then he watched the sun, which, as it neared the horizon, dyed the waters of the majestic river with many hues. Slowly it neared the thick battalion of pines behind which it would disappear, and as Morton noted the broad 

 Prev. P 3/261 next