“It is of no use, Father Nat; we have gone over the same ground again and again. I shall never settle down as a New England farmer, and there are other reasons why I should go forth from among you. Mother, you have Marcus; he will stand you in good stead: he has almost reached man’s estate, and he is old for his years; he will be a better son to you than I have ever been. Don’t, Loïs, my darling;” and the speaker, a tall, handsome man of four- or five-and-twenty, in the picturesque dress of the New England hunter, sought to unclasp from round his neck the clinging hands of a young girl, down whose face the tears were flowing fast.
“You are my firstborn, and like Esau you are selling your birthright, and surely even as he did you will lose the blessing,” exclaimed his mother, wringing her hands.
Martha Langlade was still a handsome woman, not yet fifty years of age, her brow unwrinkled, no silver thread visible in the bands of her soft brown hair, smoothed back under a snowy cap, round which was tied a broad black ribbon, token of her widowhood.
“Then even as Esau I shall be a great hunter before the Lord,” answered her son. “I am not leaving you comfortless, mother; you have the children and Loïs and Marcus;” and turning towards a youth standing beside Martha, he held out his hand to him, saying, “Marcus, you must take my place.”
“I am too young, Charles; think better of it and stay with us,” he replied.
The young man’s features worked; there was a moment’s hesitation, then he shook his head, stooped and kissed again his sister’s upturned face, and, pushing her gently towards a grey-headed man who had stood a silent spectator of the scene, said huskily,--
“Take care of her, take care of them all, Father Nat.”
“A man has no right to shift his burdens upon other men’s shoulders. You will live to rue this day, Charles Langlade,” was the stern answer.
“I trust not,” said the young man; “but this I know, go forth I must! Farewell, mother; farewell, Father Nat; farewell, all of you. If troubles threaten you I will come to your aid. Farewell;” and turning away, he strode rapidly across the greensward in front of the house, bounded over the paling, and, dashing down the hill-side, entered the forest, and so disappeared. As they lost sight of the tall lithe figure, fully accoutred in his hunting garb, his blanket rolled round him, his gun and ammunition slung across his shoulders, Martha and the two little girls who were clinging to her wept aloud.
“Don’t, mother dear,” said Loïs, throwing one arm round Martha’s neck and kissing her.
“Ah, Loïs, I never thought he’d do it--never! It is your poor father’s fault, taking the lads amongst the heathen. I told him no good would come of it,” and her sobs redoubled.
Father Nat had kept silence since his last words to Charles Langlade; he seemed oppressed with a weight of care. He had never really believed in the oft-threatened desertion, and now the blow had fallen he was for the time stunned; but he roused himself, gave vent to a long deep sigh, then, laying his hand kindly on Martha’s arm, said,--
“It’s no use fretting; what is to be will be. Come, mother, be brave. Don’t ye grieve over much; remember the little ones. We’ve done all we could to hold him back. It seems almost as if the Spirit constrained him. And ye know it is not well to fight against the will of God.”
“The will of God!” exclaimed Martha angrily, wiping her eyes and checking her sobs. “Call it rather the machinations of the Evil One! How can you dare say it is the will of God that a son of mine, my eldest born, should choose to go and live amongst those cannibals, forsaking his father’s house and taking to himself a wife from amongst the idolaters? I never thought to hear you say such a thing, Father Nat! I’m minded you’ll think differently when your Roger goes off after him.”
“My Roger will never do that,” said Father Nat. “I know the two lads love each other dearly--it’s in the blood--as I loved your husband, and as it has ever been from generation to generation, since the first Charles Langlade saved the life of a Roger Boscowen from the Red Indians, and the two joining hands established themselves together on this then waste land.”
“That proves what I say,” answered Martha doggedly; “or would you sooner see our homesteads burnt and ruin threatening us? Have you forgotten the prophecy of the Indian woman, the first who died under the shelter of your ancestor’s roof? ‘When Langlade and Boscowen part, then shall the land be riven.’”
“Nay, nay,” said Nathaniel uneasily. “The lads will love each other still, though they be parted; but Roger will never do as Charles has done--he will never bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. He is my only son.”
“Tut, tut! What is to prevent him, if, as you say of Charles, it should happen to be the ‘will of God’?”
She spoke bitterly--such an unusual thing for Martha that Father Nat looked at her with surprise, and Loïs exclaimed,--
“Oh, mother! surely you do not mean it!” and the girl’s fair face flushed and her lips quivered.
“I mean no harm,” said Martha; “but what more natural? They’ve been like brothers all their lives.”
“But because Charles has gone astray there is no need for Roger to do the same,” said Loïs gently. “It was not kindly spoken, mother, and yet I know you love Roger dearly.”
“Ay, surely she does,” said Nat; “who better, save myself, and his dead mother? Come, Martha woman, shake hands; we be too old friends to quarrel! Making my heart sore will not heal yours.”
“Forgive me, Nat,” said Martha, bursting into tears. “You are right, my heart is very sore. He was such a bonnie boy; and to think I’ve lost him, for truly it is worse than if he were dead!”
“Nay, nay,” answered Father Nat; “while there is life there is hope. Cheer up, mother; who knows? he may come back to us a better and a wiser man.”
“God grant it!” said Martha tearfully, her eyes turning wistfully towards the dark forest, which seemed to have swallowed up her son.
“You’d best come and have supper with me, Martha,” said Father Nat. “It’s near upon eight o’clock,” and he looked at the sky, crimson with the glow of the setting sun. On one side lay the dark forest, and far away the long line of hills encompassing the valley; a broad shining river flashed like a line of silver through the plain, where nestled the two villages of East and West Marsh. On the slope of a hill-side overlooking the whole country stood two houses, built exactly alike, separated from each other originally by a light garden fence, which in the course of years had changed into a thick shrubbery. The “Marshwoods” they were called, and had been so named by the first Langlade and Boscowen who had penetrated with a few followers across the borderland of New England, far away from human habitations, and had struck root on this virgin soil. No one had disputed the land with them, save the Red Indian. Log huts had given place in time to these two homesteads, in front of one of which the scene we have just described had taken place.
Built of the great trees hewn down in the primeval forest, neither storm nor tempest had done them injury. Time had rather beautified than marred their outward seeming. The shingled roofs were thickly overgrown with greeny yellow lichen; the woodwork of the dormer windows, carved balconies, and deep projecting porches had grown dark with age, thus showing off to greater advantage the wealth of creepers which clambered in luxurious profusion from basement to roof. Great clusters of purple and white clematis mingled with the crimson flowers of the dark-leaved pomegranate. Over the porches, stretching up to the casement windows, as if courting soft maiden hands to gather them, clusters of white and pink roses vied with each other in perfume and beauty.
Both houses were so exactly alike! The same spirit seemed to have devised, the same hand to have carried out the work, and yet the founders were of a different people and a different race.
The Langlades were descended from a certain Chevalier de Langlade who had fought in the great wars under Turenne, and when the armies were disbanded the then French Minister, Colbert, had bestowed upon his regiment, as a reward for its services, all the lands lying on the shores of the great Lake of St. Lawrence--“Canada,” as the Indians called it; “New France,” the colonists baptised it, when as far back as 1535 a French explorer, Jacques Cartier, ascended the St. Lawrence.
In 1608 the brave and tender-hearted Samuel Champlain laid the foundations of the City of Quebec, standing proudly on her rock overlooking land and sea. France was then virtually mistress of North America, from Hudson’s Bay to the Gulf of Mexico, by right of precedence. Therefore these warriors, when they landed on the shores of the St. Lawrence, felt that they were not wholly aliens from their beloved country, for which they had fought and bled. Ceasing to be soldiers, they became great hunters. Most of them belonged to the Reformed Church, and though Henry IV. had renounced his faith to become King of France, he so far favoured his former co-religionists as to decree that New France was to welcome the Calvinists, and that they were to be allowed to worship after their own fashion; but Cardinal Richelieu, who by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove the Huguenots out of France, thus depriving her of the most industrious of her population, extended his spirit of intolerance even to New France, and decreed that the Calvinistic worship was no longer to be tolerated there. The result was that many influential families left Canada, seeking a new home. Amongst these was a Charles Langlade, with the young wife he had but lately wedded. It was a perfect exodus, for he was much beloved and had many followers. They went south, past the great Lake Champlain, into the dense forests of the west. The Indians swarmed along their path, and daily, hourly, the exiles were exposed to the danger of the tomahawks of the savages.
One memorable day the French Canadians suddenly came upon a group of Englishmen defending themselves as best they could against an overwhelming number of redskins. Charles Langlade fired, at what proved to be the Indian chief, as with raised arm he was in the act of bringing his tomahawk down on the head of a tall, largely built man, whose rugged features and great strength marked him out from his companions. This man was Roger Boscowen. Their chief slain, the Indians fled. Then Charles Langlade and Roger Boscowen, who had thus seemingly met by chance, joined hands, and a great and strong affection grew up between them, so that they cast in their lots together. Roger Boscowen had but lately landed upon the shores of New England; he too had left his Lincolnshire fens, with other well-to-do, God-fearing yeomen, for conscience’ sake, to find a country where they might glorify God. They were not “broken men,”--adventurers or criminals driven from their fatherland by earthly want,--but men who were constrained by their fear of God and their zeal for godly worship.
