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They had ample time to set the trap; for an incessant nor'-easter blew up the St Lawrence day after day and held Carleton fast in Montreal, while, only a league away, Montgomery's main body was preparing to cross over. Escape by land was impossible, as the Americans held Berthier, on the north shore, and had won over the habitants, all the way down from Montreal, on both sides of the river.
Chills can be caught amidst the most glorious scenery the little tufts of purple self-heal at my feet were shivering and shaking in a biting breeze that swept down from the snows to the north-east, and although I am an admirer of Kingsley, I do not hold with him in his wrong-headed admiration for a "nor'-easter" so I quitted my perch in search of tea. Easter Monday.
For, strangely enough, although we were going ten knots good by the aid of the wind that had worked round more abeam, so that all our fore and aft sail drew, while the ship, which, when I saw her before, seemed to be running with the nor'-easter and sailing at a tangent to our course so that she ought really to have increased her distance from us, now, on the contrary, appeared ever so much nearer, as if she had either altered her helm or drifted closer by the aid of some ocean current in the interim; albeit, barely five minutes at the best, if that, had only elapsed since I first sighted her.
Dr Duncan was hardly out of the house when Old Rogers arrived, and was shown into the study. He looked excited. I allowed him to tell out his story, which was his daughter's of course, without interruption. He ended by saying: "Now, sir, you really must do summat. This won't do in a Christian country. We ain't aboard ship here with a nor'-easter a-walkin' the quarter-deck."
With a receiver clamped over his head, with a motor purring at his feet and with the hum of wires and coils all about him, he felt more at ease and at home than he had been for many hours. His talk with the skipper had confirmed his fears; they were in for a blow. "A nor'-easter, sir," he had affirmed, "an' one you'll remember for many a day.
"Ain't you comin' to the ghost, Jack?" said the little man hungrily. "All in course, sir. Well, gentlemen, it was hard times pretty often with my grandfather and his friends, as you may suppose; and never so much as when they had to trudge it across country, with the nor'-easter buzzin' in their teeth and the snow piled on their cockt hats like lemon sponge on entry dishes.
Adams and the hands forward, though, were busy getting ready the storm staysails I had seen the former cutting out some days previously so as to be prepared to hoist them on the first available opportunity, as it would never do to run too far off our course, which many hours going at that rate before the nor'-easter would soon have effected; and so, during a slight lull that occurred about breakfast-time, a mizzen staysail and foretopmast staysail, each about the size of a respectable pocket-handkerchief, were got aloft judiciously and the foresail as carefully handed, when the ship was brought round again head to wind and lay-to on the port tack.
The Commissioner was right when he indicated that service in the north required men of robust health and hopeful temperament. Inspector A. M. Jarvis says the sailors regard Herschell Island as a "blowhole." The wind blows one way or the other constantly, and he quotes the captains as saying that "a nor'-easter never dies in debt to a sou'-wester."
We had run some distance scudding before the gale; and, as the navigating officer thought that we were now pretty well beyond the risk of experiencing any further ill effects from the stormy nor'-easter, the commodore made up his mind to utilise it and proceed on our voyage home.
He went down with Miss Skeat, and when he came up again he said he would go forward," answered she, giving the nautical pronunciation to the latter word. "Oh, I see him," cried Barker, "there he is, just going up the bridge. By Jove! what a height he looks." "Yes," put in the Duke, "he is rather oversparred for a nor'-easter, eh?
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