20 The Sound of the Guns

The Chateau de St. Maur was massive and silent as we approached. To Pierre’s resounding knocks the seigneur himself, a little more worn and anxious, but as stem and defiant as ever, responded. He gave me a dubious welcome, half pleasure, for I knew he liked me, and half regret that I should be there again.

“I was sorry to disturb you in your enjoyment of country life. Lieutenant Charteris,” he said, with an attempt at lightness, “but we could not leave you there to live that life alone.”

I said that I preferred Quebec even as a prisoner, and then we went into the house. I saw nothing of Louise, and the seigneur did not refer to her. On her father’s account I asked nothing about her. But I met her presently in one of the halls accompanied by her maid, and the brightness of her eye and the deepening roses in her cheeks told me that I had lost nothing by absence.

Marie was a discreet little woman, and, as I have said, a friend of mine. She walked some yards away, and while she was staring at the ceiling I told Louise that I trusted she would never become Madame Savaignan. She shook her head as if in doubt, and blushed, and then Marie came back and took her away. A half hour later Marie brought me word that the seigneur wished to see me.

I went down to the room in which the seigneur and I had fought our mock duel, and found him alone and much troubled.

“Father Michel has perhaps told you,” he said, “that Quebec is likely to be besieged very soon. Although it is against my wish, I shall be compelled to keep you a close prisoner for awhile, but I do not think it will be long.”

“Do you anticipate the speedy fall of Quebec?” I asked.

The old seigneur, grand seigneur, drew himself up in defiance, and his eyes flashed at the thought of surrender.

“The English take Quebec!” he exclaimed. “Not while Montcalm is here and has with him Frenchmen as true as himself!”

It was such a defiance as I had expected, and to hear it was why I had asked the question.

With more apologies for locking me up, he walked back with me to my room and left me there. I spent two days in that little chamber alone, save for the visits of Pierre and Father Michel. The priest told me that the seigneur was nearly always absent now from the chateau, helping in the preparations for the defense of the city.

I would hear sometimes a great clash of arms and military music in the street, and I would have given much to see what was going on, but I was compelled to content myself with surmises.

“Come out of this room,” said Father Michel to me on the morning of the third day, “and you can see the troops that are going to pass to-day. I do not think you are likely to escape so long as you are in my company.”

I accepted the invitation with gladness, and we went out into a narrow hall and then up a steep little flight of steps to one of the dormer windows in the roof. The good father opened it, and the fresh air of God rushed in on my face. I had been only two days in close confinement, but that was two days too much.

The priest and I thrust our heads out and looked about us. I did not see much but a narrow street and a maze of red-tiled roofs, but it was enough to bring back my old fierce desire for liberty.

“Listen to the drum,” said Father Michel. “The troops are coming.”

I heard the faint rat-a-tat in the clear air. Soon it grew louder and swelled in volume, trumpet and fife mingling with the deeper notes of the drum. Then a regiment of French regulars, in their white uniforms, marching with beautiful precision, came in sight. Behind them were Canadian huntsmen in forest green. Aloft upon a banner borne in the front rank waved the lilies of France. The music grew louder. Though I was an enemy, I was also a military man, and it appealed to me. The people in the street set up a great shout, and I heard a slight feminine cheer very near me. I looked around and saw that it was Louise. She was standing at the dormer window next to us, her face flushed with enthusiasm and looking more brilliant and beautiful than ever in the clear daylight. A bow of satin ribbon on her shoulder was knotted into the likeness of the lilies of France. I could forgive the enthusiasm she showed, for she was a Frenchwoman and these were her people.

Some of the soldiers in the street, seeing her face at the window, raised a cheer. The officers drew their swords and saluted her with great grace and gallantry. Knowing somewhat of the feelings of soldiers, especially youthful ones, I was aware that her brilliant and approving face at the window cheered and inspired these men. I groaned inwardly at my own fate which kept me bound there a prisoner.

The soldiers passed on. The cheering crowd followed them, and the sound of music became fainter.

“They are gone,” said Father Michel. “May victory attend them!”

“I add my wish to that,” said Louise, “but it is a sad war.” Then her face fell as she looked at me. I believed that I could read her mind. She could not be the daughter of her father and not have the true French spirit and patriotism, but such feelings were forced to encounter other emotions now.

I remained silent and went back to my prison, growing morbid over the thoughts that I must remain shut up there while others were doing or trying to do great things.

Pierre brought my supper and left candles. I sat for a long time meditating, looking now and then up at the little dormer window, which, however, seemed to hold out no possibility of escape. It grew dark outside, and I had decided to end my meditations for the time by going to bed and seeking a sound sleep when I heard a heavy, dull report far away, but distinct, and echoing through the night.

I remained quite still and listened intently. In two or three minutes I heard the booming sound again, and then the echo. I knew that it was the report of a heavy cannon, and, moreover, that the bombardment of Quebec had begun. Perhaps it had begun before my arrival, and this was but a renewal after a period of rest.

For an hour I sat there, and I counted fourteen distinct reports; then they ceased, the fire probably stopped by the increasing darkness. I was thrilled with excitement, and it was a long time before I could compose myself for sleep. In fact, I lay awake many hours listening for the great guns, but I did not hear them any more that night.

The seigneur seemed to repent of his severity, and on the next day more liberty was permitted to me. I could go about the halls on the upper floor, but I was watched always by that sour-faced wretch Pierre, who carried a long-barreled pistol in his belt. He never relaxed his vigilance, as I soon discovered. I remembered the dormer window from which I had seen the soldiers, and thought it would be pleasant to take the fresh air again. I mounted to the little flight of steps, and was feeling around for the fastenings when the voice of Pierre spoke out:

“If monsieur is attempting to escape, he will show wisdom by abandoning the effort. I have a very large ball in my pistol, and the wound it would make would probably mean death.” I looked around and saw Pierre with his long pistol in his hand. I assured him with some haste that it was not my purpose to leave the chateau, and that I was merely bent upon taking the air.

“I think it would be much better if monsieur would return to the room that has been assigned to him,” he said.

I took him at his word and went back to my room.

I foresaw that if ever I escaped I would have to foil Pierre.

Two or three days more passed thus. I saw the seigneur once, Louise twice, though but briefly, and Father Michel often. The good priest was much preoccupied, but in reply to my questioning about the bombardment, which I heard at intervals, he said the English were making no progress. But he added that the fire of the ships was doing damage in the town, and the quarrels among the great officials were increasing. With such small rations of news I was forced to content myself.

I was sitting in my chamber one evening after my last talk with him, thinking with much gloom over my situation, when I heard the sound of music below. It was of a light and frolicsome character, and I wondered greatly thereat; but to wonder was all I could do. My door was locked, the wretch Pierre having done it, and I could not get out to see. This proceeded for some time, and I was filled with curiosity, but I could make nothing of it. Occasionally above the music rose the sound of voices in laughter.

I had been listening to these sounds for about an hour when I heard some one at my door. It was thrown open, and the round and rubicund Father Michel entered. His face was all abeam with good humor.

“Well, M. le Prisonnier,” he broke out, “I told the seigneur it was not right that you should be locked up here, heretic and enemy though you be, while we were enjoying our festivities.”

“Festivities!” I said. “That accounts for the music that I have heard.”

“You speak truth,” said Father Michel, “and a portion of that music was made by Mlle. de St. Maur herself upon her harp, which was brought all the way from France. Know then that Captain Savaignan has returned to Quebec. Whether he has distinguished himself in the war I know not, but the seigneur would make a feast for his son-in-law that is to be, and he is now present with other guests in the great dining hall below. So I have come to tell you that the house is free to you for an hour or two.”

I was greatly disturbed by Savaignan’s return and the news that a banquet was made for him—a banquet to which it seemed I had been invited only as an afterthought or as a concession to bare politeness. Suspecting that I was not wanted, and that my presence would be a restraint upon the hilarity of the company, I told Father Michel I would not join him at the table, but I accepted the freedom of the house.

“Since you will not go with me then, I must return alone to the banquet chamber,” said Father Michel, “for the wine there is good and the venison is good and the company is good, and I would fain miss none of them.”

He left me alone in the hall, and I wandered about the chateau, examining its curious construction, so different from the mode of building we practiced in the colonies, and listening now and then to the sounds of revelry, which now I could hear much more plainly. I was stirred, too, by feelings of jealousy. Louise might yield at last to her father’s wish.

I went to the dormer window again, but found it fastened. Through the diamond pane I could see splashes of rain whirled about by the wind in the dusk. It was a fit night for the French to make merry indoors.

I turned away from the window and went down the hall until I came to the flight of steps that led to the lower floor. They were unobstructed. I went softly down the steps, somewhat struck by the fact that there was no one about, and arrived in the lower hall. I strolled along, listening to the echoes of the music and the laughter, and became aware that some one was following me. It was not that I heard any noise behind me; it was merely an aroused consciousness, a sense of human presence, conveyed to me by some unknown agency.

I turned about, and there was Pierre treading silently. He said nothing when I looked at him, but stopped and watched me. I moved on, and Pierre followed after. When I stopped again he stopped also, and when I started again he started also. There was much annoyance in this, but it would have been useless to speak to Pierre, so I made up my mind even to endure It as best I could.

I passed in front of the banquet hall and listened for a few minutes. I heard mademoiselle singing a piquant and picturesque little song of the south of France, and accompanying herself upon the harp. I listened with much pleasure and attention. There was a note in the singer’s voice which appealed to my sympathy. When the song ended there was a great clapping of hands and chorus of bravos. Then everybody fell to laughing and talking, and I moved on, feeling much bitterness of spirit, for I was but young, and liked to share in scenes of good humor and gayety.

But as I left I heard the seigneur call in a stalwart voice, a little husky with wine perhaps, for Pierre. There was relief in that, for then I might slip away from the pestiferous spy; not that I had any intention or hope of escaping, but ’tis an uncomfortable thing to be followed around and spied upon by any one.

I went farther down the hall, and saw a door standing half open. Knowing no reason why I should not explore, I pushed it farther open and entered a very small apartment furnished in half military style. I judged it to be a species of lounging room of the seigneur’s. It was lighted by one of the heavily crossbarred windows which opened upon the street. I lay hold of this window, but found it to be fastened in such a way that I could not open it. Accordingly, I pulled a chair made of curiously twisted deer horns and stuffed with fur up to the window and sat in it, determined to make myself as comfortable as the circumstances would permit. The noises of the banquet came to me but faintly there. The street seemed to be without life, and, as there was nothing to occupy my eyes or my ears, I fell to thinking of my old companions, Culverhouse and the others.

Presently I heard male voices singing. Doubtless the guests had drunk much wine by this time, and Mlle. de St. Maur had withdrawn, for the French women have not the freedom which is accorded to ours in America. The song was gay in words and tune, and I found it to be of such soothing quality that I fell half asleep listening. When one is dozing thus he is scarce conscious of the passage of time, and perhaps it was very late when I was aroused by a hasty footstep and a voice crying, “Keep away, monsieur!” half in fright and half in anger.

Louise had entered the little room and was standing with her face to the door. The light filtered through the panes upon her face, which was flushed, while her eyes were sparkling with wrath. Her anger, like everything else, it seemed to me, became her. Then I looked beyond her and saw Captain Savaignan in the doorway.

I had not at any time seen any particulars in which Captain Savaignan called for admiration, and just now the seigneur himself could not have called him engaging, however much he might have wished for him as a son-in-law. He staggered against the doorsill and leered at Louise.

“You shall not follow me here!” said she, very angrily.

“I but wish to salute Mlle. de St. Maur, who is soon to be Madame Savaignan,” he said with a drunken hiccough.

“That time will never come,” she said disdainfully.

“It is the will of your father,” he said.

“But not mine.” she returned with flashing eyes, “and I refuse now to carry out the contract.”

Dear Louise! How beautiful she looked in her wrath!

“Mademoiselle has queer taste. If she does not like me, Captain Savaignan, perhaps she likes some one else,” said he.

Mlle. de St. Maur did not answer.

“Some one else! Some one else!” he repeated in a kind of drunken soliloquy. “It is the prisoner, the American lieutenant, whom the seigneur holds in this chateau! Yes, that is the man whom mademoiselle prefers to me. I knew it long ago when I saw you together in New York.”

He slapped his hands together in glee like a boy who has solved a riddle. Louise reddened, but she remained silent.

Savaignan burst into a loud laugh.

“Well, it does not matter,” he said.

“Out of my way, sir!” she exclaimed fiercely.

But he slipped forward and seized her by both wrists. The next moment he would have kissed her, but I sprang from the chair and, striking him with all the force of an arm which had a fine endowment of muscle, sent him sprawling against the wall. From the wall he rebounded and fell in a limp heap upon the floor.

Louise uttered a cry of surprise and relief when she saw me and fled from the room.

I could not follow her, for Savaignan demanded my attention.

He rose from the floor and faced me. He was a most unpresentable sight. My blow seemed to have sobered him, but it had caused the blood to flow over his yellow face and to dye red streaks in his black mustache.

“And so it is the prisoner who has interfered!” he said, with what he intended to be very sharp sarcasm.

“Yes,” I replied, “it was my good luck to protect Mlle. de St. Maur from you, you spy.”

“Perhaps she did not desire protection,” he said.

“I would give you another blow for that,, but your face is already too ugly,” I replied.

“I shall see that the seigneur punishes his prisoner for a blow and an insult to his guest, the man to whom he has chosen to give his daughter,” he said. “Pierre here shall be a witness of what I say.”

Pierre had appeared suddenly at the side of Savaignan like a wraith rising up from the floor, but I did not care for either him or Savaignan. I felt a great exhilaration. I had saved the girl I loved from insult and I had punished the insulter. So I told them carelessly that they might do whatsoever they chose, even to going out and jumping into the St. Lawrence if they felt like it, and then I went back to my prison room sure that the banquet had come to a sudden end, for a few minutes later I heard the rapid boom of great guns, and I knew that the presence of all the officers would be demanded at the scene of action. Savaignan, I said to myself, with much satisfaction, would be a more presentable sight for the next day or two in a camp than in a drawing room.

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