The Chase of Saint-Castin And Other Stories of the French in the New World
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE MILL AT PETIT CAP. August night air, sweet with a half salt breath from the St. Lawrence, met the miller of San Joachim as he looked out; but he bolted the single thick door of the mill, and cast across it into a staple a hook as long as his body and as thick as his arm. At any alarm in the village he must undo these fastenings, and receive the refugees from Montgomery; yet he could not sleep without locking the door. So all that summer he had slept on a bench in the mill basement, to be ready for the call. All the parishes on the island of Orleans, and on each side of the river, quite to Mont- morenci Falls, where Wolfe's army was encamped, had been sacked by that evil man, Captain Alexander Montgomery, whom the English general himself could hardly restrain. San Joachim du Petit Cap neednot hope to es
...cape. It was really Wolfe's policy to harry the country which in that despairing summer of 1759 he saw no chance of conquering. The mill was grinding with a shuddering noise which covered all country night sounds. But so accustomed was the miller to this lullaby that he fell asleep on his chaff cushion directly, without his usual review of the trouble betwixt La Vigne and himself. He was sensitive to his neighbors' claims, and the state of the country troubled him, but he knew he could endure La Vigne's misfortunes better than any other man's. Loopholes in the hoary stone walls of the basement were carefully covered, but a burning dip on the hearth betrayed them within. There was a deep blackened oven built at right angles to the fireplace in the south wall. The stairway rose like a giant's ladder to the vast dimness overhead. No other such fortress-mill was to be found between Cap Tourmente and the citadel, or indeed anywhere on the St. Lawrence. It had beenbuilt not...
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