Explore "Shadows on the Rock" by Willa Cather on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the seventeenth day of August 1713, fifteen years after the death of Count Frontenac, the streets of Quebec and the headland overlooking the St. Lawrence were thronged with people. By the waterside the Governor-General and Monsieur Vaudreuil, the Intendant, with all the clergy, regular and secular, the magistrates, and the officers from the garrison, stood waiting to receive a long-expected guest. Down the river lay a ship from France, La Manon, unable to come in against the wind. A small boat had been sent out to bring in one of her passengers. As the little boat drew near the shore, all the cannon on the fortifications, and the guns on the vessels anchored in the roadstead, thundered a salute of welcome to Monseigneur de Saint-Vallier, at last returning to his people after an absence of thirteen years.
When the prelate put foot upon the shore of Quebec, the church- bells began to ring, and continued to ring while the Governor- General, the Intendant, and the Archidiacre made addresses of welcome. The Intendant's carriage stood ready to convey the Bishop, but he preferred, characteristically, to ascend on foot to the Cathedral in the Upper Town, surrounded by the clergy and preceded by drums and hautbois.