Part 38 (1/2)

A prompt, decisive man, no breath Our father wasted: ”Boys, a path!”

Well pleased, (for when did farmer boy Count such a summons less than joy?) Our buskins on our feet we drew; With uard our necks and ears froh

And, where the drift was deepestcrystal: we had read Of rare Aladdin's wondrous cave, And to our own his naave, With many a wish the luck were ours To test his lamp's supernal powers

We reached the barn with merry din, And roused the prisoned brutes within

The old horse thrust his long head out, And grave onder gazed about; The cock his lusty greeting said, And forth his speckled harem led; The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, And er looked; The horned patriarch of the sheep, Like Egypt's Aesture usty north wind bore The loosening drift its breath before; Low circling round its southern zone, The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone

WHITTIER: ”Snow-bound”

THE HEROINE OF VERCHeRES

Vercheres was a fort on the south shore of the St Lawrence, about twentyblock-house stood outside the fort, and was connected with it by a covered way On theof the twenty-second of October, (1692) the inhabitants were at work in the fields, and nobody was left in the place but two soldiers, two boys, an old hty, and a number of women and children The commandant was on duty at Quebec; his as at Montreal; and their daughter, Madeline, fourteen years of age, was at the landing-place not far froate of the fort, with afrom the direction where the settlers were at work, and an instant after the servant called out: ”Run, miss!--run!

here come the Indians!” She turned and saw forty or fifty of them at the distance of a pistol-shot She ran to the fort as quickly as possible, while the bullets whistled about her ears, and h to be heard, she cried out: ”To ar that somebody would come out and help her; but it was of no use The two soldiers in the fort were so scared that they had hidden in the block-house

When she had seen certain breaches in the palisade stopped, she went to the block-house, where the ammunition was kept; and there she found the two soldiers, one hiding in a corner, and the other with a lightedto do with that ht the powder and blow us all up” ”You are a miserable coward!”

said she ”Go out of this place” She then threw off her bonnet, put on a hat, and taking a gun in her hand she said to her two brothers: ”Let us fight to the death We are fighting for our country and our religion”

The boys, ere ten and twelve years old, aided by the soldiers, whoan to fire fronorant of the weakness of the garrison, showed their usual reluctance to attack a fortified place, and occupied thehbouring fields Madeline ordered a cannon to be fired, partly to deter the enemy from an assault, and partly to warn so at a distance

A canoe was presently seen approaching the landing-place In it was a settler na to reach the fort with his family The Indians were still near; and Madeline feared that the new-co were not done to aid the the soldiers, she herself went alone to the landing-place

”I thought,” she said, in her account of the affair, ”that the savages would suppose it to be a ruse to draw them towards the fort, in order to make a sortie upon them They did suppose so; and thus I was able to save the Fontaine family When they were all landed, I ht of the eneht they had thened by this reinforcement, I ordered that the enemy should be fired on whenever they showed thean to blow, accompanied with snow and hail, which told us that we should have a terrible night The Indians were all this tied by all theirdeterred by the storm, they would climb into the fort under cover of darkness”

She then assembled her troops, who nu words With two old e of the fort, and sent Fontaine and the two soldiers with the women and children to the block-house She placed her two brothers on two of the bastions, and an old e of the fourth All night, in spite of wind, snow, and hail, the cry of ”All's well” was kept up from the block-house to the fort, and from the fort to the block-house One would have supposed that the place was full of soldiers The Indians thought so, and were completely deceived, as they afterwards confessed

At last the daylight caain; and as the darkness disappeared, the anxieties of the little garrison seemed to disappear with it Fontaine said he would never abandon the place while Madeline remained in it She declared that she would never abandon it: she would rather die than give it up to the enemy

She did not eat or sleep for twice twenty-four hours She did not go once into her father's house, but kept always on the bastion, except when she went to the block-house to see how the people there were behaving She always kept a cheerful and sed her little company with the hope of speedy succour

”We were a week in constant alarm,” she continues, ”with the eneovernor, arrived in the night with forty men As he did not knohether the fort was taken or not, he approached as silently as possible One of our sentinels, hearing a slight sound, cried: 'Who goes there?' I was at the ti across my arms The sentinel told me that he heard voices from the river I went at once to the bastion to see whether they were Indians or Frenchmen ere there I asked: 'Who are you?' One of the you help'”

”I caused the gate to be opened, placed a sentinel there, and went down to the river to meet them As soon as I saw the lieutenant I saluted hiallantly: 'They are in good hands, Miss' He inspected the fort, and found everything in order, and a sentinel on each bastion 'It is time to relieve them,' said I; 'we have not been off our bastions for a week'”

A band of converts from St Louis arrived soon afterwards, followed the trail of their heathen countrymen, overtook them on Lake Champlain, and recovered twenty or more French prisoners

PARKMAN: ”Frontenac and New France”