He had nearly reached the limit of the farm, and entered his neck of
woods, when the breathing of a cow trying to nip some comfort from the
frosty sod delighted his ear. The pretty milker was there, with her
calf at her side. Gaspard stroked and patted them. Though the New
Englanders should seize them for beef, he could not regret they were
wending home again. That invisible cord binding him to his own place,
which had wrenched his vitals as it stretched, now drew him back like
fate. He worked several hours to make his truants a concealing corral
of hay and stakes and straw and stumps at a place where a hill spring
threaded across his land, and then returned between his own boundaries
to the house again.

The homesick zest of one who has traveled made his lips and unshaven
chin protrude, as he smelled the good interior. There was the wooden
crane. There was his wife's old wheel. There was the sacred row of
children's snow-shoes, which the priest had spared from burning. One
really had to leave home to find out what home was.

But a great hubbub was beginning in Phips's fleet. Fifes were
screaming, drums were beating, and shouts were lifted and answered by
hearty voices. After their long deliberation, the New Englanders had
agreed upon some plan of attack. Gaspard went down to his landing, and
watched boatload follow boatload, until the river was swarming with
little craft pulling directly for Beauport. He looked uneasily toward
Quebec. The old lion in the citadel hardly waited for Phips to shift
position, but sent the first shot booming out to meet him. The New
England cannon answered, and soon Quebec height and Levis palisades
rumbled prodigious thunder, and the whole day was black with smoke and
streaked with fire.