h general himself could hardly restrain. San Joachim du
Petit Cap need not hope to escape. 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 been built not many years before by the Seminaire priests of
Quebec for the protection and nourishment of their seigniory, that
huge grant of rich land stretching from Beaupre to Cap Tourmente,
bequeathed to the church by the first bishop of Canada.

The miller suddenly dashed up with a shout. He heard his wife scream
above the rattle of the mill, and stumbling over basement litter he
unstopped a loophole and saw the village already mounting in flames.

The mill door's iron-clamped timbers were beaten by a crowd of
entreating hands, and he tore back the fastenings and dragged his
neighbors in. Children, women, men, fell past him on the basement
floor, and he screamed for help to hold the door against Montgomery's
men. The priest was the last one to enter and the first to set a
shoulder with the miller's. A discharge of firearms from without
made lightning in the dim inclosure, and the cure, Father Robineau de
Portneuf, reminded his flock of the guns they had stored in the mill
basement. Loopholes were soon manned, and the enemy were driven back
from the mill door. The roaring torch of each cottage thatch showed
them in the redness of their uniforms,--good marks for enraged
refugees; so they drew a little farther westward still, along the hot
narrow street of San Joachim du Petit Cap.

At an unoccupied loophole Father Robineau watched his chapel burning,
with its meagre enrichmen