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Ontario Readers Third Book, The

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<h2>THE HEROINE OF VERCHÈRES</h2> Verchères was a fort on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, about twenty miles below Montreal. A strong block-house stood outside the fort, and was connected with it by a covered way. On the morning of 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 man of eighty, and a number of women and children. The commandant was on duty at Quebec; his wife was at Montreal; and their daughter, Madeline, fourteen years of age, was at the landing-place not far from the gate of the fort, with a man-servant. Suddenly she heard firing from 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 made the time seem very long. As soon as she was near enough to be heard, she cried out: "To arms!—to arms!" hoping 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 lighted match in his hand. "What are you going to do with that match?" she asked. He answered: "Light 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, who were ten and twelve years old, aided by the soldiers, whom her words had inspired with some little courage, began to fire from the loop-holes on the Indians, who, ignorant of the weakness of the garrison, showed their usual reluctance to attack a fortified place, and occupied themselves with chasing and butchering the people in the neighbouring fields. Madeline ordered a cannon to be fired, partly to deter the enemy from an assault, and partly to warn some of the soldiers who were hunting at a distance. A canoe was presently seen approaching the landing-place. In it was a settler named Fontaine, trying to reach the fort with his family. The Indians were still near; and Madeline feared that the new-comers would be killed, if something were not done to aid them. Distrusting 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 made them march before me in full sight of the enemy. We put so bold a face on it, that they thought they had more to fear than we. Strengthened by this reinforcement, I ordered that the enemy should be fired on whenever they showed themselves. "After sunset a violent north-east wind began to blow, accompanied with snow and hail, which told us that we should have a terrible night. The Indians were all this time lurking about us; and I judged by all their movements that, instead of being deterred by the storm, they would climb into the fort under cover of darkness." She then assembled her troops, who numbered six, all told, and spoke to them encouraging words. With two old men she took charge 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 man on a third, while she herself took charge 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 came again; 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 smiling face, and encouraged her little company with the hope of speedy succour. "We were a week in constant alarm," she continues, "with the enemy always about us. At last a lieutenant, sent by the governor, arrived in the night with forty men. As he did not know whether 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 time dozing, with my head on a table and my gun lying 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 who were there. I asked: 'Who are you?' One of them answered: 'We are Frenchmen come to bring 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 him, and said: 'I surrender my arms to you.' He answered gallantly: '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." (Adapted) <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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