re coming, then? The scout has said as much?"

"When? and by what path? for the dunce has omitted to tell me this.
There is a letter, it would seem, too; and that is the only agreeable
part of the matter. For the customary attentions of your Marquis of
Montcalm--I warrant me, Duncan, that he of Lothian would buy a dozen
such marquisates--but, if the news of the letter were bad, the gentility
of this French monsieur would certainly compel him to let us know it."

"He keeps the letter, then, while he releases the messenger!"

"Ay, that does he, and all for the sake of what you call your
'_bonhommie_,' I would venture, if the truth was known, the fellow's
grandfather taught the noble science of dancing."

"But what says the scout? he has eyes and ears, and a tongue: what
verbal report does he make?"

"O! sir, he is not wanting in natural organs, and he is free to tell all
that he has seen and heard. The whole amount is this: there is a fort of
his majesty's on the banks of the Hudson, called Edward, in honor of his
gracious highness of York, you'll know; and it is well filled with armed
men, as such a work should be."

"But was there no movement, no signs of any intention to advance to our
relief?"

"There were the morning and evening parades; and when one of the
provincial loons--you'll know, Duncan, you're half a Scotsman
yourself--when one of them dropped his powder over his porretch, if it
touched the coals, it just burnt!" Then suddenly changing his bitter,
ironical manner, to one more grave and thoughtful, he continued; "and
yet there might, and must be, something in that letter which it would be
well to know!"

"Our decision should be speedy," said Duncan, gladly availing himself of
this change of humor, to press the more important objects of their
interview; "I cannot conceal from you, sir, that the camp will not be
much longer tenable; and I am sorry to add, that things appear no better
in the fort; more than half the guns are bursted."

"And how should it be otherwise? Some were fished from the bottom of the
lake; some have been rusting in the woods since the discovery of the
country; and some were never guns at all--mere privateersmen's
playthings! Do you think, sir, you can have Woolwich Warren in the midst
of a wilderness, three thousand miles from Great Britain!"

"The walls are crumbling about our ears, and provisions begin to fail
us," continued Heyward, without regarding this new burst of indign