The Romance of Dollard

In April of the year 1660, on a morning when no rain drizzled above the humid rock of Quebec, two young men walked along the single street by the river. The houses of this Lower Town were a row of small buildings with stone gables, their cedar-shingled roofs curving upward at the eaves in Norman fashion. High in north air swelled the mighty natural fortress of rock, feebly crowned by the little fort of St. Louis displaying the lilies of France. Farther away the cathedral set its cross against the sky. And where now a tangle of streets, bisected by the city wall, climb steeply from Lower to Upper Town, then a rough path straggled.