Julian paused, looking thoughtfully into the fire. Humphrey heaved a great sigh, and said half bitterly:
"But the Lord delayeth His coming, and men wage war against their brethren."
"Yes, verily; yet I think that should make us long the more for the day which will surely come. However, let me tell my tale. The great enterprise of France in the south and west has come to but a very small thing. No chain of forts guards the great river. The highway from Canada to the south has never been opened up. France is speaking of it to this day. These very hostile movements towards England are all part and parcel of the old plan. She still desires to hold the whole territory by this chain of forts, and shut England in between the sea and those mountains yonder. You have heard, I doubt not, how England is resolved not to be thus held in check. Major George Washington and General Braddock have both made attacks upon Fort Duquesne, and though both have suffered defeat owing to untoward causes and bad generalship, the spirit within them is still unquenched. Fort Duquesne, Fort Niagara, Fort Ticonderoga--these are the three northern links of the chain, and I think that England will never rest until she has floated her flag over these three forts.
"We have come from far to the heart of that great struggle which all men know must come. The day of rest for us seemed ended. We have been travelling all through the long, hot summer months, to find and to be with our countrymen when the hour of battle should come."
Humphrey looked from one to the other, and said:
"There are only two of you. Where are all the rest from your smiling valley of the south? Were you the only twain that desired to join the fight?"
"A dozen of us started, but two turned back quickly, discouraged by the hardness of the way, and a few died of fever in the great swamps and jungles: Others turned aside when we neared the great lakes, thinking to find an easier way. But Fritz and I had our own plan of making our way to New England, and after long toil and travel here we are at the end of our journey. For this indeed seems like the end, when we have found a comrade who will show us the way and lead us to the civilized world again!"
"Ay, I can do that," answered Humphrey; "I know well the road back to the world. Nor is it a matter of more than a few days" travel to reach the outlying townships. I have often said I would go and visit our sisters and friends, but I have never done so. Alas that I should go at last with such heavy tidings!"
"Heavy tidings indeed," said Fritz, with sympathy; "yet we will avenge these treacherous murders upon those who have brought them to pa.s.s."
"That will not restore the dead to life," said Humphrey mournfully.
"No, but it will ease the burning heart of its load of rage and vengeance."
Humphrey"s eyes turned for a moment towards his sleeping brother.
He knew how welcome would be such words to him--that is, if he awoke from his fever dreams in the same mood as they had found him.
"And yet," said Julian thoughtfully, "we have been taught by our fathers that brothers should live at peace together, even as we in our valley lived long at peace with all and with one another. So long as the memory of our venerable Father remained alive there was all harmony and concord, and every man sought his brother"s well being as earnestly as his own."
"Can you remember the holy man?" asked Humphrey, with interest.
"No; but my father remembered him well. He was well grown towards manhood before the venerable old man died at a great age. My grandfather has told me story after story of him. I have been brought up to love and revere his memory, and to hold fast the things which he taught us. But after his death, alas! a new spirit gradually entered into the hearts of our people. They began to grow covetous of gain, to trade with the Indians for their own benefit, to fall into careless and sometimes evil practices. Before my father died he said to me that the Home of Peace was no longer the place it once had been, and that he should like to think that I might find a better place to live in, since I was young and had my life before me."
"Was that long ago?"
"Just a year. My mother had died six months earlier. The dissensions of the parent countries had begun to reach to us. We had been French and English from the beginning, but had dwelt in peace and brotherly goodwill for nigh upon eighty years. We had married amongst ourselves, so that some amongst us scarce knew whether to call themselves French or English. But for all that disunion grew and spread. Stragglers of Louisiana found their way to us. They brought new fashions of thought and teaching with them.
Some Romish priests found us out, and took possession of the little chapel which Father Fritz had built with such loving care, and the Ma.s.s was said instead of that simpler service which he had drawn up for us. Many of us the priests dubbed as heretics, and because we would not change our views for them, they became angry, and we were excommunicated. It has been nothing but growing strife and disunion for the past two years. I was glad to turn my back upon it at last, and find my way to a freer land, and one where a man may worship G.o.d according to his conscience; albeit I have no desire to speak ill of the priests, who were good men, and sought to teach us what they deemed to be the truth."
"I am a Protestant," said Humphrey; "I know little about Romish devices. I was taught to hate and abhor them. We dwelt among the Quaker folk of Pennsylvania. but we are not Quakers ourselves. Out here in the wilds we must live as we can. We have the Bible--and that is all."
"People say of the Quakers that they will not fight!" said Fritz suddenly. "Is that so?"
"I know not," answered Humphrey; "I think I have heard my father say something of that sort. But surely they will fight to avenge such things as that!" and he made a gesture with his hand as though indicating the burnt homestead and the graves of the murdered woman and children.
"If they be men they surely will. You will go and tell them your story, Humphrey?"
"Ay, that I will!" answered Humphrey, between his shut teeth.
Fritz sat staring into the fire for some time, and then he too broke out with some heat.
"Yes, it is the same story all over. It was the French who came and spoiled our happy home. If they had let us alone, perchance we might have been there still, hunting, fishing, following the same kind of life as our fathers--at peace with ourselves and with the world. But they came amongst us. They sowed disunion and strife.
They were resolved to get rid of the English party, as they called it. They were all softness and mildness to them. But those in whom the st.u.r.dy British spirit flourished they regarded with jealousy and dislike. They sowed the seeds of disunion. They spoiled our valley and our life. Doubtless the germs were there before, but it was the emissaries of France who wrought the mischief. If they could have done it, I believe they would have taught the Indians to distrust us English; but that was beyond their power. Even they held in loving reverence the name of Father Fritz, and none of his children, as they called us all alike, could do wrong in their eyes. So then it was their policy to get rid of such as would not own the supremacy of France in all things. I was glad at the last to go. We became weary of the bickerings and strife. Some of the elders remained behind, but the rest of us went forth to find ourselves a new home and a new country."
Humphrey listened to this tale with as much interest as it was possible for him to give to any concern other than his own.
Something of that indignant hatred which was springing into active life all through the western continent began to inflame his breast.
It had been no effect of Charles"s inflamed imagination. The French were raising the Indians against them, and striving to overthrow England"s sons wherever they had a foothold, beyond their immediate colonies. It was time they should arise and a.s.sert themselves.
Humphrey"s eyes kindled as he sat thinking upon these things.
"I too will go forth and fight France," he said at last; and with that resolve the sense of numb lethargy and despair fell away from him like a worn-out garment, and his old fire and energy returned.
Chapter 3: Philadelphia.
"I will go and tell my tale in the ears of my countrymen," said Charles, with steady voice but burning eyes, "and then I will go forth and fight the French, and slay and slay till they be driven from off the face of the western world!"
The fever had left Charles now. Some of his former strength had come back to him. But his brother looked at him often with wondering eyes, for it seemed to him that this Charles was a new being, with whom he had but scant acquaintance. He could not recognize in this stern faced, brooding man the quiet, homely farmer and settler whose home he had shared for so long.
Their new comrades were glad of the rest afforded them by the necessity of waiting till Charles should be fit to move. They had been travelling for many months, and the shelter of a roof--even though it was only the roof of a shed--was grateful to them.
Fritz and Charles took a strong mutual liking almost from the first. Both were men of unwonted strength and endurance, and both were fired by a strong personal enmity towards the French and their aggressive policy.
Julian told Humphrey, in their private conferences, something of the cause of this personal rancour.
"There was a fair maid in our valley--Renee we called her--and her parents were French. But we were all friends together; and Fritz and she loved each other, and were about to be betrothed. Then came these troubles, and the priest forbade Renee to wed a heretic; and though she herself would have been faithful, her parents were afraid. It seemed to all then that the French were going to be masters of the land. There was another youth who loved her also, and to him they married her. That was just before we came away--a dozen of us English youths, who could not stand the new state of things and the strife of party. Fritz has neither forgotten nor forgiven. The name of France us odious in his ears."
"And in yours, too?" asked Humphrey.
Julian"s face was grave and thoughtful.
"I have my moments of pa.s.sionate anger. I hate everything that is vile and treacherous and aggressive. But I would seek to remember that after all we are brothers, and that we all bear the name of Christ. That is what Father Fritz of old sought to make us remember. Perhaps it comes the easier to me in that I have French blood in my veins, albeit I regard myself now as an English subject. I have cast in my lot with the English."
Humphrey and Julian drew together, much as did Charles and Fritz.
Julian was a year or two older than Humphrey, and Charles was several years older than Fritz; but all had led a free open-air life, and had tastes and feelings in common. They understood woodcraft and hunting; they were hardy, self reliant, courageous.
It was of such men as these that the best soldiers were made in the days that were at hand; although the military leaders, especially if they came from the Old World with its code of civilized warfare, were slow to recognize it.
A heavy storm of wind and rain--the precursor of the coming winter--raged round the little settlement for several days, during which the party sat round their fire, talking of the past and the future, and learning to know each other more and more intimately.
Charles recovered rapidly from the loss of blood and the fever weakness. His const.i.tution triumphed easily over his recent illness, and he was only longing to be on the road, that he might the sooner stand face to face with the foe.
And now the storm was abating. The sun began to shine out through the driving wrack of clouds. The woodland tracks might be wet, but little reeked the travellers of that.
They bound upon their backs as much provision as would suffice for their immediate needs. They looked well to their arms and ammunition. They had mended their clothes, and were strong and fresh and full of courage.
The journey before them seemed as nothing to the pair who had traversed so many thousands of miles of wood and water. And the settlers had friends at the other end who would remember them, and have tears of sympathy to shed at hearing their terrible tale.
The brothers stood looking their last upon the clearing which had for so long been their home. In Humphrey"s eyes there was an unwonted moisture; but Charles"s face was set and stern, and his lips twitched with the excess of restrained emotion. His eyes were fixed upon the mound which hid from his view the corpses of wife and children. Suddenly he lifted his clinched hand towards heaven.
"Strengthen, O Lord, this right hand of mine, that it may be strong against the nation whose crimes bring desolation upon Thy children.