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 Beaupré 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 curé, 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