also, while his muffled instrument marked the
duty for which he had been selected. Like his comrades, none of whom
exhibited their scarlet uniforms, he wore the collar of his great coat
closely buttoned beneath his chin, which was only partially visible
above the stiff leathern stock that encircled his neck. Although his
features were half buried in his huge cap and the high collar of his
coat, there was an air of delicacy about his person that seemed to
render him unsuited to such an office; and more than once was Captain
Erskine, who followed immediately behind him at the head of his
company, compelled to call sharply to the urchin, threatening him with
a week's drill unless he mended his feeble and unequal pace, and kept
from under the feet of his men. The remaining gun brought up the rear
of the detachment, who marched with fixed bayonets and two balls in
each musket; the whole presenting a front of sections, that completely
filled up the road along which they passed. Colonel de Haldimar,
Captain Wentworth, and the Adjutant Lawson followed in the extreme rear.

An event so singular as that of the appearance of the English without
their fort, beset as they were by a host of fierce and dangerous
enemies, was not likely to pass unnoticed by a single individual in the
little village of Detroit. We have already observed, that most of the
colonist settlers had been cruelly massacred at the very onset of
hostilities. Not so, however, with the Canadians, who, from their
anterior relations with the natives, and the mutual and tacit good
understanding that subsisted between both parties, were suffered to
continue in quiet and unmolested possession of their homes, where they
preserved an avowed neutrality, never otherwise infringed than by the
assistance secretly and occasionally rendered to the English troops,
whose gold they were glad to receive in exchange for the necessaries of
life.

Every dwelling of the infant town had commenced giving up its tenants,
from the moment when the head of the detachment was seen traversing the
drawbridge; so that, by the time it reached the highway, and took its
direction to the left, the whole population of Detroit were already
assembled in groups, and giving expression to their several
conjectures, with a vivacity of language and energy of gesticulation
that would not have disgraced the parent land itself. As the troops
drew nearer, however, they all sank at once into a silence, as much