There was a notable stir in Quebec on the morning of the 7th November, 1775. The inhabitants who had retired to their houses, the evening before, in the security of ignorance, rose the next day with the vague certainty of an impending portent. There was electricity in the air. The atmosphere was charged with moral as well as material clouds. People opened their windows and looked out anxiously. They stood on their doorsteps as if timorous to go forward. They gathered in knots on the street corners and conferred in low tones. There was nothing definite known. Nobody had seen anything. Nobody had heard anything. Yet all manner of wild stories circulated through the crowds. Strange fires were said to have burned in the sky during the night. A phantom sentinel had kept watch on the citadel, a spectral waterman had crossed the river with muffled oars, a shadowy horseman from the forest had dashed through Levis, and his foaming steed had fallen dead on the water's edge. Those who disbelieved might see the corse of the animal in a sand-quarry not a hundred yards from where he fell. And there was more. A mysterious visitor had called upon the Governor in the small hours. A long conference had taken place between them. The Governor was in a towering rage, and the stranger had departed upon another errand as singular as that which had brought him to the Chateau. These and other more fantastic rumors flew from mouth to mouth and from one end of the city to the other. It is wonderful how near the truth of things above them the ignorant crowd can come, and how powerful is the instinct of great events in vulgar minds. By ten o'clock Quebec was in an uproar, and Cathedral-square was full of people. Facing the Square from the east was the barracks. But no signs of commotion were visible there. Two sentries walked up and down their long beats as quietly as if on parade. Privates who were off duty stood leaning against the wall or the door-frames of the building, with their hands in their pockets and one leg resting over the other. Some even smoked their pipes with that half-blank, half-truculent expression which people find so provoking in public officials at times of popular excitement. Still a close inspection showed that the military were busier than usual. Patrol guards issued from the courtyard at more frequent intervals, and the knowing ones observed that they were doubled. It was noticed also that more parts of the city were being guarded than the day before. For instance, fully one hundred men were detached for service along the line of the river where previously there were few or none. Officers, too, were constantly riding to and from the barracks, evidently carrying orders. Passing through the Square, they moved slowly, but in the side streets accelerated their pace.