Part 48 (1/2)
”Ah! if he had but lived to see the city of his hopes, I would myself have been his nurse, and would have brought him back to health and strength.
”You smile, sir; but yet I have seen much of sickness. You will hear that the doctors themselves give me the credit for saving many lives.”
”I can believe it, Madame; indeed I have seen something of that skill with mine own eyes. But, alas! I fear that the case of our friend was beyond human skill. I think that, had he had the choice, he would have chosen to die as he did in the hour of victory. To wear out a life of suffering in uncongenial inactivity would have been sorely irksome to his unquenchable spirit; and yet, after the hards.h.i.+ps through which he had pa.s.sed, I mis...o...b.. me if he could ever have taken the field again. He would have endured the peril and pain of another long voyage only to die upon s.h.i.+pboard, or at his home if he lived to reach it. The hand of death was surely upon him.”
”And to die in the hour of a glorious victory is surely a fitting close to a hero's life,” said Corinne softly to Julian, when the tide of talk had recommenced to flow in other quarters. ”But tell me, does he leave behind many to mourn him? Has he parents living, or sisters and brothers, or one nearer and dearer still? Has he a wife in England?”
”Not a wife, Mademoiselle, but one who was to have been his wife had he lived to return, and a mother who loves him as the apple of the eye. I shall have a sad task before me when I return to tell them of him whom they have loved and lost.”
”Are you then going back to England?” asked Corinne; ”are you not born in these lands of the West?”
”Yes; and I think that my home will be here when my duties to my friend are done. But first I must return to his home and his mother, and give to them there his last loving messages, and those things he wished them to possess of his. Indeed, his body is to be taken back, embalmed; the officers have decided upon that. I must see his mother and Miss Lowther again; then I think I shall return to these Western sh.o.r.es once again, and make my home upon Canadian soil.”
”Tell me more about Mrs. Wolfe and Miss Lowther,” said Corinne, with keen interest in her eyes and voice.
So Julian told her much of the events of those months which he spent in England by the side of Wolfe, and at last he drew forth the double miniature containing the likeness of the two who loved the hero so well, and gave it to Corinne to look at.
The tears came into her eyes as she gazed at the two faces. He saw the sparkle on her long lashes as she returned him the case, and he loved her for them.
”It is a beautiful face; both are beautiful faces,” she said. ”How sad for them--how very sad--that he should return to them no more!
Do you think Miss Lowther will ever love again? Or will she go mourning all the days of her life for him whom she has lost?”
Julian shook his head doubtfully.
”I cannot tell; yet time is a great healer, and Wolfe himself sent her a message bidding her not mourn too long and deeply for him.
She is still young, and the time they spent together was not very long. I trust and hope that comfort will come to her when her grief has abated and the wound has healed. Life would become too sorrowful a thing if death were able to make such lasting havoc of its hopes and happiness.”
Corinne drew a long sigh. She had seen much of death and disaster those last months of her young life. It would indeed be too cruel if the hand of time held no healing balm in its clasp.
The next days were full of interest for Corinne. Julian took her and Colin under his special protection and care. Fritz was kept to the house and its vicinity by his lameness, which the march into the city had rather increased; and Humphrey was busy in a thousand ways. But Julian, though he had sundry duties to perform, had plenty of leisure on his hands, too; and he gave up a great portion of this leisure to taking Corinne and her brother a regular tour of the various s.h.i.+ps, and of the camps where the English had settled themselves whilst attacking Quebec--showing them exactly how the Heights of Abraham had been scaled, how the plain had been reached and the battle set in array there; and the spot where Wolfe had fallen, and that where he had died.
The bright-faced girl, with her French name and English sympathies, was feted and welcomed everywhere. Brigadier Townshend gave a dinner to some of the residents, and the Abbe and Madame Drucour, with their nephew and niece, were invited. Corinne's health was proposed and drunk amid acclamation, greatly to her own astonishment; and wherever she went she met with nothing but kindness and respect.
She was given a number of trophies of the recent war--a small dagger that had belonged to Wolfe being the most prized of them all. She daily visited the hospital with her aunt, and cheered by her bright presence both the English and French who lay there.
All was busy in and about the city. The garrison was being s.h.i.+pped off to France, according to the terms of the capitulation; and a number of residents whose homes had been destroyed, and who had no mind to remain in the place now that the English were the masters, were eager likewise to be gone. The French s.h.i.+ps in the upper reaches of the river were permitted to come down, take up their crews again, and transport the fugitives to France.
But the Abbe and his sister remained on, uncertain of their future, Madame Drucour waited for news of her husband, and the Abbe lingered to know if he could serve his countrymen any longer. They had friends in France, but were not much disposed to return to that land. Colin and Corinne were burning with desire to see England at least, even if they did not remain there; and Madame Drucour was disposed to wish the same thing for herself.
One day Humphrey brought them news. He had had news of the ex-governor of Louisbourg. He had fallen into the hands of the Indians, but had been rescued by the English, and had been sent, with a number of other prisoners, to England in one of their returning s.h.i.+ps. The news had been brought by a sloop from New York.
Vessels were beginning to arrive in the harbour now from the enthusiastic English provinces. Those in Quebec heard how joy bells were ringing and bonfires blazing throughout New England and the provinces. Far-seeing men saw in the fall of Quebec an augury of a new and splendid empire in the west, over which England should rule. So far, at least, there was no thought of anything else, although the spirit of independence had taken deep root which another day would bring forth a different sort of fruit.
”Madame, your husband is safe,” said Humphrey when brought to her to tell his tale; ”I have heard it from one who saw him. He has not suffered any severe hurt at the hands of the Indians. They were of those who were wavering betwixt loyalty to France and loyalty to England, and who made captives of white men wherever they could, hoping to get a ransom for them. He was rescued by the English and brought to New York, put safely on board a home-sailing vessel, and doubtless he is safe on sh.o.r.e there by this time. He will be well treated; have no fears as to that. The brave Governor of Louisbourg will find many friends in England.”
”Where I will join him!” cried Madame Drucour, clasping her hands.
”Yes, that settles my hesitation. If my husband is in England, I will go thither and join him; and these children shall go with us, and make acquaintance with their mother's kindred in Scotland.