bec houses are built
close and cramped. While these troops were stealing in behind Arnold
to close on him like a trap, it was easy trick for another English
battalion to scramble over house roofs, over back walls, and up the
very stairs of houses where Arnold's troops were guarding the windows.
Then Arnold was carried past his men badly wounded. "We are sold,"
muttered the Congress troops, "caught like rats in a trap." Still they
pressed toward in hand to hand scuffle, with shots at such close range
the Boston soldiers were {308} shouting, "Quebec men, do not fire on
your true friends!" with absurd pitching of each other by the scruff of
the neck from the windows. Daylight only served to make plainer the
desperate plight of the entrapped raiders. At ten o'clock five hundred
Congress soldiers surrendered. It must not for one moment be forgotten
that each side was fighting gallantly for what it believed to be right,
and each bore the other the respect due a good fighter and upright foe.
In fact, with the exception of two or three episodes mutually
regretted, it may be said there were fewer bitter thoughts that New
Year's morning than have arisen since from this war. The captured
Americans had barely been sent to quarters in convents and hospitals
before a Quebec merchant sent them a gift of several hogsheads of
porter. When the bodies of Montgomery and his fellow-comrades in death
were found under the snowdrifts, they were reverently removed, and
interred with the honors of war just inside St. Louis Gate.

Though the invaders were defeated, Quebec continued to be invested till
spring, the thud of exploding bombs doing little harm except in the
case of one family, during spring, when a shell fell through the roof
to a dining-room table, killing a son where he sat at dinner. As the
ice cleared from the river in spring, both sides were on the watch for
first aid. Would Congress send up more soldiers on transports; or
would English frigates be rushed to the aid of Quebec? The Americans
were now having trouble collecting food from the habitants, for the
French doubted the invaders' success, and Congress paper money would be
worthless to the holders. One beautiful clear May moonlight night a
vessel was espied between nine and ten at night coming up the river
full sail before the wind. Was she friend or foe? Carleton and his
officers gazed anxiously from the citadel. Guns were fired as signal.
No answer came from