“To hell with it,” the spokesman said. “All we been hearing since we left York is some old woman with a sword and a cocked hat saying, ‘Now, my brave men, forward for your country!’ We ain’t such fools as we look. Don’t you suppose we knew he didn’t give a damn about anything except getting promoted? We never got no food or powder or pay, excepting paper money that wa’n’t good for nothing but wadding. We never got decent treatment when we took sick. What’s more, we ain’t never had no officers that knew what they was talking about—just a pack of he-schoolma’ams, squabbling over which one got into the army first. To hell with all of ’em!”

“Look here,” I said, “we can knock that vessel to pieces in no time. There’ll be free beer all round, and I’ll get you a ride to Crown Point on the barge.”

“Beer!” the spokesman said. “How much beer?”

The others, too, looked interested. “A quarter barrel a day?” one asked.

“Yes.”

“ ’Tain’t enough,” he said instantly. But I saw that this was merely a hopeful form of speech, and that my point was carried, whereupon I ventured to speak more decisively in order to make a good impression at the outset.

“Listen to this,” I said. “You’ll get a quarter barrel, and drink it after work. What’s more, you’ll toe the mark and do as I say, or you’ll have your teeth knocked out through your ears.”

They grumbled as they ate their kettleful of stew; but when it was gone they followed us to the shipyard peaceably enough. Indeed, after they had started on the demolition of the skeleton vessel, and had worked up a sweat, they became even amiable, so that I think one of their troubles had been an insufficiency of work, which is enough to make any man discontented with his lot.

*    *    *

… At mid-morning we heard shouting on the outskirts of town. A man ran past us, bawling; and boys, barefooted, appeared from nowhere, with dogs capering and barking alongside, to run yelling after the man.

The whole settlement seemed to ooze women and girls and Canadian Frenchmen in bob-tailed summer jackets and battered stove-pipe hats, all with long queues hanging down their backs, and with the customary half-sour, half-doltish look that seemed peculiar to them. On the Iberville side, too, people emerged from farm houses and moved in knots along the Richelieu.

The river banks, in a moment’s time, were lined with people; and above their babbling and shouting we heard from upstream the sound of drums and fifes.