About three o'clock in the morning
He first repaired to the barracks in Cathedral-square , where he had a brief conference with the principal officers . He next visited every gate and the approaches to the citadel , where he was pleased to find that the sentries were unusually alert , and quite alive to the exigencies of the situation , without precisely knowing what they were . The Lieutenant-Governor then walked down into the darkness of Lower Town and wandered a long time in silence along the dusky bank of the St. Lawrence . About three o'clock in the morning a sleigh drew up at the door of a large square house in a retired street . Two men issued from it , one middle-aged , erect and dressed in rather costly furs ; the other old , thin and arrayed like an Indian hunter , with a large fox-skin cap on his head . As they stepped across the footpath from the sleigh to the front steps of the mansion , a tall muffled figure stalked slowly on the other side of the street . `` It is the Governor , '' whispered the younger man to his companion .