"My good Porter," he said, speaking calmly to his excited servant, who, himself awakened, came rushing to his master, "have Alfred saddled at once while I complete dressing, and inform Major Glegg and Colonel Macdonell that I am off up the river to Queenston."
In another minute Isaac Brock was in the saddle.
As he passed through the gates, thrown open by the sentry, a dragoon, mire from head to foot from furious riding, handed him a despatch announcing that the enemy had landed in force at Queenston. A second later, in response to the pressure of his knees, his horse was carrying our hero at a wild gallop across the common that separated his quarters from the upper village.
Day was near to breaking. The earth steamed from the heavy rain. Passing objects rose out of the dark mists, magnified and spectral.
At the residence of Captain John Powell, Brock reined up. The household was astir, aroused by the ominous roar of artillery carried down by the river from the gorge above. He stayed, without dismounting, long enough to take a cup of coffee brought to him by General Shaw's daughter--a "stirrup cup"--his last. Then, giving his charger the spur, he rode away to death and distinction, tenderly waving a broken good-bye to the sad-eyed woman at the porch. This was his betrothed, who faintly fluttered her kerchief in weeping farewell to the gallant lover she would never see again.
Brushing his eyes and urging his big grey to greater speed, "Master Isaac," eager to reach the scene of trouble, struck across the village, his horse's hoof-beats bringing many a citizen to the door to "God speed him." Some came out to follow him, and many a good wife's face was pressed to the window to watch "The General! God bless and spare him," as he headed his charger for the Queenston Road and Brown's Point. Among the more zealous hastening after Brock were Judge Ralph Clench and a few old half-pay officers of His Majesty's service, who hurried to Queenston to range themselves in the ranks of the volunteers. Others joined as the signal guns and the bells of the church of St. Mark's and the court-house spread the alarm.
His road lay up hill. Seven miles back from the shore of Lake Ontario stretched the height of land, extending west from the river to the head of the lake--a gigantic natural dam, over 300 feet high and twenty miles through; a retaining wall of rock, the greatest original fresh-water _barrage_ in the world.