John Trevena - The Plowshare and the Sword - A Tale of Old Quebec

"It is so," said the sachem gravely. "We cannot read the mind of him who rules. One year there are many animals in the forest, and we live in plenty. The next we starve. A small tribe overthrows a great one. A great tribe becomes too prosperous and is plagued with pestilence. The young men are smitten. The old live on. The wind destroys the forest, the river breaks its own banks. The lightning strikes down the totem-pole which we have raised for his pleasure. It is so. There is a mystery in life. The gods destroy their own handiwork. They remove the strong, and let the weak survive."

He passed on, an erect figure, in spite of his age, and treading firmly.

Onawa, a silent listener to their talk, stepped out. She was good to look upon, with her wealth of black hair, her large eyes, her rounded face, the cheeks and lips lightly touched with paint, her slim muscular figure. She could run against any man, and aim an arrow with the sureness of any forester of Nottingham. But she was headstrong, as changeable as water, and the Englishman did not trust her.

"Where have you been, Onawa?" he said.

"I have come from the camp with my father," she replied. "Where have you left your son? They say, among the tribes, that he grows into a great warrior. They say also that he carries wood and draws water and cuts up the deer which he has killed. Our young men despise a woman's work."

"I have taught him the duty of helping his mother," came the reply. "In my country a man lives for his mother or his wife, and her good favour is his glory."

The girl hesitated, a frown crossing her forehead. "Why are the French so beautiful, so bold-looking?" she asked suddenly.

"That they may captivate the minds and eyes of women who are weak."

"They are better to look at than Englishmen. They do not wear old garments marked with dirt. They do not let the hair upon their faces grow down their bodies. They do not talk deep in their throats. They are not serious. I love to hear them talk, to see them move. They walk like men who own the world."

"I have warned you against them," he said earnestly. "They are the natural enemies of your people. Consider! What Frenchman has ever married into your tribe and settled down among you?"

The girl laughed scornfully, and turned to go, grasping her long hair in her hand.

"You hide from them because you know that they are better men than you," she taunted. "It was a Frenchman who first came Jo our country from the other world. Perhaps there was no England in those days. The sun loves to shine upon Frenchmen. The English live in the mists. You have taken my sister for wife, but I – I, Onawa, daughter of Shuswap, would marry a Frenchman."

"Never shall I wish you a harder fate," retorted the calm man; and having thus spoken he turned aside towards the tiny English settlement to greet his friends and join again his son.

It was the first hour of night when Viner started upon his great journey. The forest was white with a moon, and sparks of phosphorus darted across the falls. When the wooden bars were drawn out of their sockets and the five men emerged from the palisade, the monotonous chirping of frogs ceased abruptly, and a great calm ensued.

In single file they passed along the dark trail, the wet bush sweeping their legs, the branches locked overhead. They rounded the red fires which marked the camping-ground of the Oneidas; they smelt the acrid smoke, and dimly sighted many a brown lean-to; the dogs jumped out barking. They passed, the lights disappeared, the silence closed down. Presently the trail divided; the branch to the left leading to the river, that to the right bearing inland to the lakes, rivers, and hunting-grounds known only to the Indians.

"Get you back now," said Viner, halting at the parting of the ways. "We are already in the country of the enemy. Bid me here God-speed."

There they clasped hands, and in the act of farewell Flower slipped into Viner's hand a little black stone marked with a vein of chalk. "Keep it, lad," he muttered. "One spring when I was near drowning in the Thames by being held in the weeds I caught this stone from the river-bed. Methinks it has protected me from ill. May that same fortune be on you, and more added to it, in the work which lies before you."

A ray of moonlight fell through an opening in the trees, and whitened the five keen faces.

"Superstition made never a soldier of any man," muttered the stern voice of the Puritan. "Fling that idolatry to the bush, Geoffrey, and go your way, trusting rather in the Lord with a psalm upon your lips."

"It is but a reminder of home for the lad," protested Flower gently. "We have each other. But in the solitudes what shall he have?"

"'Tis but a stone from our river, friend Hough," said Geoffrey timidly. "I thank you, neighbour," he added.

"Fare you well," said old Penfold sadly. "We shall lack you sore."

They turned away, and instantly became lost from the man who was going south, because the trail bent sharply. The little band of adventurers, now reduced to four, walked slowly and sorrowfully towards New Windsor, until they came out upon the lake, and heard the beavers gnawing the rushes, and the wind splashing the fresh water up the beach.

"What has come to our nightingales?" said Penfold suddenly. "I like not this silence."

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