The Sun Of Quebec Part 41

"Yes, my nephew," he said, "your own uncle, though wounded grievously, on this the saddest of all days for France, son of my dear, dead sister, Gabrielle."

Then he fainted dead away from loss of blood, and the Canadian, Dubois, appearing suddenly, helped them to revive him. Robert hung over him with irrepressible anxiety.

"The brother of my mother!" he exclaimed. "I always felt there was a powerful tie, a blood tie, uniting us! That was why he spared me so often! That was why he told me how to escape at Ticonderoga! He will not die, Dave? He will not die?"

"No, he will not die," replied Willet. "The Marquis de Clermont can receive a greater wound than that, and yet live and flourish."

"The Marquis de Clermont!"

"Aye, the Chevalier de St. Luc is head of one of the greatest families of France and you're his next of kin."

"And so I'm half a Frenchman!"

"Aye, half a Frenchman, half an Englishman, and all an American."

"And so I am!" said Robert.

"Truly it is a great morning," said Tayoga gravely. "Tododaho has given to me the triumph, and Tandakora has gone to his hereafter, wherever it may be; the soul of Garay is sped too, France has lost Canada, and Dagaeoga has found the brother of his mother."

"It's true," said Willet in a whimsical tone. "When things begin to happen they happen fast. The battle is almost over."

But the victorious army, as it advanced, was subjected to a severe fire on the flank from ambushed Canadians. Many of the French threw themselves into the thickets on the Cote Ste.-Genevieve, and poured a hail of bullets into the ranks of the advancing Highlanders. Vaudreuil came up from Beauport and was all in terror, but Bougainville and others, arriving, showed a firmer spirit. The gates of Quebec were shut, and it seemed to show defiance, while the English and Americans, still in the presence of forces greater than their own, intrenched on the field where they had won the victory, a victory that remains one of the decisive battles of the world, mighty and far-reaching in its consequences.

A night of mixed triumph and grief came, grief for the loss of Wolfe and so many brave men, triumph that a daring chance had brought such a brilliant success. Robert found Charteris, Grosvenor, Colden and the Virginians unharmed. Wilton was wounded severely, but ultimately recovered his full strength. Carson was wounded also, but was as well as ever in a month, while Robert himself, Tayoga, Willet and Zeb Crane were not touched.

But his greatest interest that night was in the Chevalier de St. Luc, Marquis de Clermont. They had made him a pallet in a tent and one of the best army surgeons was attending so famous and gallant an enemy. But he seemed easiest when Robert was by.

"My boy," he said, "I always tried to save you. Whenever I looked upon you I saw in your face my sister Gabrielle."

"But why did you not tell me?" asked Robert. "Why did not some one of the others who seemed to know tell me?"

"There were excellent reasons," replied the wounded man. "Gabrielle loved one of the Bostonnais, a young man whom she met in Paris. He was brave, gallant and true, was your father, Richard Lennox. I have nothing to say against him, but our family did not consider it wise for her to marry a foreigner, a member of another race. They eloped and were married in a little hamlet on the wild coast of Brittany. Then they fled to America, where you were born, and when you were a year old they undertook to return to France, seeking forgiveness. But it was only a start. The s.h.i.+p was driven on the rocks of Maine and they were lost, your brave, handsome father and my beautiful sister--but you were saved.

Willet came and took you into the wilderness with him. He has stood in the place of your own father."

"But why did not they tell me?" repeated Robert. "Why was I left so long in ignorance?"

"There was a flaw. The priest who performed the marriage was dead. The records were lost. The evil said there had been no marriage, and that you were no rightful member of the great family of De Clermont. We could not prove the marriage then and so you were left for the time with Willet."

"Why did Willet take me?"

Raymond Louis de St. Luc turned to Willet, who sat on the other side of the pallet, and smiled.

"I will answer you, Robert," said the hunter. "I was one of those who loved your mother. How could any one help loving her? As beautiful as a dream, and a soul of pure gold. She married another, but when she was lost at sea something went out of my life that could never be replaced in this world. You have replaced it partly, Robert, but not wholly. It seemed fitting to the others that, being what I was, and loving Gabrielle de Clermont as I had, I should take you. I should have taken you anyhow."

Robert's head swam, and there was a mist before his eyes. He was thinking of the beautiful young mother whom he could not remember.

"Then I am by blood a De Clermont, and yet not a De Clermont," he said.

"You're a De Clermont by blood, by right, and before all the world,"

said Willet. "I've a letter from Benjamin Hardy in New York, stating that the records have been found in the ruins of the burned church on the coast of Brittany, where the marriage was performed. Their authenticity has been acknowledged by the French government and all the members of the De Clermont family who are in France. Copies of them have been smuggled through from France."

"Thanks to the good G.o.d!" murmured St. Luc.

"And Adrian Van Zoon? Why has he made such war against me?" asked Robert.

"Because of money," replied Willet. "Your father was a great owner of s.h.i.+pping, inherited, as Richard Lennox was a young man under thirty when he was lost at sea. At his death the control of it pa.s.sed into the hands of his father's partner, Adrian Van Zoon. Van Zoon wanted it all, and, since you had no relatives, he probably would have secured it if you had been put out of the way. That is why you were safer with me at Albany and in the woods, until your rightful claims could be established.

Benjamin Hardy, who had been a schoolmate and great friend of your father, knew of this and kept watch on Van Zoon. Your estate has not suffered in the man's hands, because, expecting it to be his own, he has made it increase. Jonathan Pillsbury knew your history too. So did Jacobus Huysman, in whose house we placed you when you went to school, and so did your teacher, Master Alexander McLean."

"I had powerful friends. I felt it all the time," said Robert.

"So you had, lad, and it was largely because they saw you grow up worthy of such friends.h.i.+p. You're a very rich man, Robert. There are s.h.i.+ps belonging to you on nearly every sea, or at least there would be if we had no war."

"And a Marquis of France--when I die," said St. Luc.

"No! No!" exclaimed Robert. "You'll live as long as I will! Why, you're only a young man!"

"Twenty-nine," said St. Luc. "Gabrielle was twelve years older than I am. You are more a younger brother than a nephew to me, Robert."

"But I will never become a Marquis of France," said Robert. "I am American, English to the core. I have fought against France, though I do not hate her. I cannot go to France, nor even to England. I must stay in the country in which I was born, and in which my father was born."

"Spoken well," said Willet. "It was what I wanted to hear you say. The Chevalier will return to France. He will marry and have children of his own. Haven't we heard him sing often about the girl he left on the bridge of Avignon? The next Marquis of Clermont will be his son and not his nephew."

Which came to pa.s.s, as Willet predicted.

Robert stayed long that night by the pallet of his uncle, to whom the English gave the best of attention, respecting the worth of a wounded prisoner so well known for his bravery, skill and lofty character. St.

Luc finally fell asleep, and, going outside, Robert found Tayoga awaiting him. When he told him all the strange and wonderful story that he had heard inside the tent, the Onondaga said:

"I suppose that Dagaeoga, being a great man, will go to Europe and forget us here."

"Never!" exclaimed Robert. "My home is in America. All I know is America, and I'd be out of place in any other country."

And then he added whimsically:

"I couldn't go so far away from the Hodenosaunee."

"Dagaeoga might go far and yet never come to a nation greater than the great League," said Tayoga, with deep conviction.

"That's true, Tayoga. How stands the battle? I had almost forgotten it in the amazing tide of my own fortunes."

"General Wolfe is dead, but his spirit lives after him. We are victorious at all points. The French have fled into Quebec, and they yet have an army much more numerous than ours, if they get it all together.

But Montcalm was wounded and they say he is dying. The soul has gone out of them. I think Quebec will be yielded very soon."

And surrendered it was a few days later, but the victors soon found that the city they had won with so much daring would have to be defended with the utmost courage and pertinacity. St. Luc, fast recovering from his wound, was sent a prisoner to New York, together with De Galissonniere, who had been taken unhurt, but Robert did not get away as soon as he had expected. Quebec was in peril again, but now from the French. De Levis, who succeeded Montcalm as the military leader of New France, gathering together at Montreal all the fragments of the French power in Canada, swore to retake Quebec.

Robert, Tayoga and Willet, with the rangers, served in the garrison of Quebec throughout the long and bitter winter that followed. In the spring they moved out with the army to meet De Levis, who was advancing from Montreal to keep his oath. Robert received a slight wound in the battle of Ste. Foy that followed, in which the English and Americans were defeated, and were compelled to retreat into Quebec.

This battle of Ste. Foy, in which Robert distinguished himself again with the New England rangers, was long and fierce, one of the most sanguinary ever fought on Canadian soil. De Levis, the French commander, showed all the courage and skill of Montcalm, proving himself a worthy successor to the leader who had fallen with Wolfe, and his men displayed the usual French fire and courage.

Hazen, the chief of the rangers, was badly wounded in the height of the action, but Robert and Willet succeeded in bringing him off the field, while Tayoga protected their retreat. A bullet from the Onondaga's rifle here slew Colonel de Courcelles, and Robert, on the whole, was glad that the man's death had been a valiant one. He had learned not to cherish rancor against any one, and the Onondaga and the hunter agreed with him.