French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America

Humphrey had not hitherto dared to ask the question which had been exercising him all the while-how it was that his brother's life had been spared. He also wanted to know where the old man their father was; for the corpses they had laid in the grave were those of Charles's wife and children.

Charles noted his questioning glance around when the grave had received its victims, and he pointed to the smoking ruins of the house.

"He lies there. They bound him in his chair. They tied the babe down in his cradle. They set fire to the house. Heaven send that the reek choked them before the fire touched them! They lie yonder beneath the funeral pyre-our venerable sire and my bonny, laughing babe!"

He stopped short, choked by a sudden rush of tears; and Humphrey, flinging down his spade, threw himself along the ground in a paroxysm of unspeakable anguish, choking sobs breaking from him, the unaccustomed tears raining down his cheeks.

The brothers wept together. Perhaps those tears saved Charles from some severe fever of the brain. He wept till he was perfectly exhausted, and at last his condition of prostration so far aroused Humphrey that he was forced into action.

He half lifted, half dragged his brother into one of the empty barns, where he laid him down upon some straw. He rolled up his own coat for a pillow, and after hastily finishing the filling in of the grave, he went back into the forest for his game bag, and having kindled a fire, cooked some of the meat, and forced his brother to eat and drink. It was growing dark by that time, and the blackness of the forest seemed to be swallowing them up.

A faint red glow still came from the direction of the burning homestead, where the fire still smouldered amid the smoking ruins. Humphrey closed the door of the barn, to shut out the sight and also the chill freshness of the autumn night.

He lay down upon the straw beside his brother, worn out in body and mind. But there could be no thought of sleep for either man that night; the horror was too pressing and ever present, and anguish lay like a physical load upon their hearts.

The silence was full of horror for both; in self defence Humphrey began to speak.

"When was it, Charles? I was in the forest all day, and I saw and heard nothing. The silence was never broken save by the accustomed sounds of the wild creatures of the wood. No war party came my way. When was it?"

"At the noontide meal. We had all gathered within doors. There was none to give warning of danger. Suddenly and silently as ghosts they must have filed from out the forest. We were already surrounded and helpless before the first wild war whoop broke upon our ears!"

Charles put up his hands as though to shut out that awful yell, the echoes of which rang so long in the ears of those who had heard it. Humphrey shivered, and his hands clinched themselves nervously together.

"Why was I not here to fight and to die?"

"Better to live-and to avenge their blood!" answered Charles, with a gleam lighting his sunken eyes. He was silent awhile, and then went on with his narrative.

"It was not a fight; it was only a slaughter! The children rushed screaming from the house, escaping the first rush of the painted savages when they burst in upon us. But there were others outside, who hacked and slashed them as they passed. I had only my hunting knife in my belt. I stood before Ellen, and I fought like ten demons! God is witness that I did all that one man could. But what avail against scores of such foes? Three corpses were heaped at my threshold. I saw them carrying away many others dead or wounded, Our father fought too; and Ellen backed into the corner where the gun stood, and with her own hands she shot down two of the savages.

"Would to heaven she had shot at the white one, who was tenfold more of a fiend! But he shall not escape-he shall not escape! I shall know his face when I see it next. And I will not go down to the grave till he and I have stood face to face once more, when I am not bound and helpless, but a free man with weapons in my hand. That day will come; I read it in the book of fate. The Lord God, unto whom vengeance belongeth, He will cause it to come to pass!"

Humphrey was afraid of these wild outbursts, as likely to bring on fever; and yet he could not but desire to know more.

"A white man? Nay, brother; that is scarce to be believed. A white man to league himself to such deeds as these!"

"A white man-a Frenchman. For I called upon him in our tongue, and he answered me in the same, but with that halting accent which I know belongs to the sons of France. Moreover, he made no secret of it. He called us dogs of English, who were robbers of the soil where none had right to penetrate save the subjects of his royal master. He swore that they would make an end of us, root and branch; and he laughed when he saw the Indians cutting down the little ones, and covering their tender bodies with cruel wounds; nor had he any pity upon the one white woman; and when I raved upon him and cursed him, he laughed back, and said he had no power to allay the fury of the savages. Those who would preserve themselves safe should retire within the bounds of the colony to which they belong. France would have an end of encroachment, and the Indians were her friends, and would help her to drive out the common foe!"

Humphrey set his teeth and clinched his hands. The old instinctive hatred of centuries between French and English, never really dead, now leaped into life in his breast. He had heard plenty of talk during his boyhood of France's boundless pretensions with regard to the great New World of the West, and how she sought, by the simple process of declaring territory to be hers, to extend her power over millions of miles of the untrodden plains and forests, which she could never hope to populate. He had laughed with others at these claims, and had thought little enough of them when with father and brother he set out for the western frontier.

There was then peace between the nations. Nor had it entered into the calculations of the settlers that their white brethren would stir up the friendly Indians against them, and bring havoc and destruction to their scattered dwellings. That was a method of warfare undreamed of a few years back; but it was now becoming a terrible reality.

"But your life was spared?" said Humphrey at last; "and yet the scalping-knife came very close to doing its horrid work."

"Yes: they spared me-he spared me-when he had made me suffer what was tenfold worse than death; yet I wot well he only thought to leave me to a lingering death of anguish, more terrible than that of the scalping knife! They knew not that I had any to come to my succour. When he drew off the howling Indians and left me bound to the stump, he thought he left me to perish of starvation and burning thirst. It was no mercy that he showed me-rather a refinement of cruelty. I begged him to make an end of my wretched life; but he smiled, and bid me a mocking farewell.

"Great God of heaven and earth, look down and avenge me of mine adversary! I trust there are not many such fiends in human shape even in the ranks of the jealous and all-grasping French. But if there be, may it be mine to carry death and desolation into their ranks! May they be driven forth from this fair land which they have helped to desolate! May death and destruction come swiftly upon them; and when they fall, let them rise up no more!"

"Amen!" said Humphrey solemnly; and the brothers sat in silence for a great while, the gloom hiding them the one from the other, though they knew that their hearts were beating in sympathy.

"The war has broken out," said Humphrey at last. "We can perchance find our place in the ranks of those who go to drive out the oppressive race, whose claims are such as English subjects will not tolerate."

"Ay, there will be fighting, fighting, fighting now till they are driven forth, and till England's flag waves proudly over this great land!" cried Charles, with a strange confidence and exultation in his tones. "England will fight, and I will fight with her. I will slay and slay, and spare not; and I will tell this tale to all wherever I go. I will hunt out mine enemy until I compass his death. They have despoiled me of home, of wife, of children. They have taken away all the joy of life. The light of my eyes is gone. Henceforth I have but one thing to live for. I bare my sword against France. Against her will I fight until the Lord gives us the victory. The world shall know, and all ears shall tingle at the tale which I will tell. There shall be no quarter, no pity for those who use such means as those which have left me what I am tonight!"

Humphrey could not marvel at the intensity of the ferocity in Charles's tones. It sounded strange in one of so gentle and placable a nature; but he had cause-he had cause!

"Think you that the man was other than one of those wild fellows who run from all law and order in the townships and become denizens of the wood, and little better than the wild Indians themselves? We. have heard of these coureurs de bois, as they are called. There are laws passed against them, severe and restrictive, by their own people. Perchance it were scarce just to the French to credit them with all that this man has done."

"Peace, Humphrey," was the stern reply. "We know that the French are inciting the Indians against our peaceful settlers, and that what has happened here today is happening in other places along our scattered frontier. The work is the work of France, and against France will I fight till she is overthrown. I have sworn it. Seek not to turn me from my purpose. I will fight, and fight, and fight till I see her lying in the dust, and till I have met mine enemy face to face and have set my foot upon his neck. God has heard my vow; He will fight for me till it be fulfilled."

Chapter 2: Friends In Need

It was not to be surprised at that, after that terrible day and night, Charles should awake from the restless sleep into which he had dropped towards dawn in a state of high fever.

He lay raving in delirium for three days, whilst Humphrey sat beside him, putting water to his parched lips, striving to soothe and quiet him; often shuddering with horror as he seemed to see again with his brother's eyes those horrid scenes upon which the fevered man's fancy ever dwelt; waking sometimes at night in a sweat of terror, thinking he heard the Indian war whoop echoing through the forest.

Those were terrible days for Humphrey-days of a loneliness that was beyond anything he had experienced before. His brother was near him in the flesh, but severed from him by a whole world of fevered imaginings. Sometimes Humphrey found it in his heart to wish that the Indians would come back and make a final end of them both. All hope and zest and joy in life seemed to have been taken from him at one blow. He could neither think of the happy past without pangs of pain, nor yet face a future which seemed barren of hope and promise.

He could only sit beside his brother, tend him, nurse him, pray for him. But the words of prayer too often died away upon his lips. Had they not all prayed together, after the godly habit of the household, upon the very morning when this awful disaster fell upon them? Were these vast solitudes too far away for God to hear the prayers that went up from them?

Humphrey had never known what awful loneliness could engulf the human spirit till he sat beside the fevered man in the vast solitude of the primeval forest, asking in his heart whether God Himself had not forsaken them.

It was the hour of sundown, and Humphrey had gone outside for a breath of fresh air. He looked ten years older than he had done a few days back, when he had come whistling through the forest track, expecting to see the children bounding forth to meet him. His eyes were sunken, his face was pale and haggard, his dress was unkempt and ragged. There were no clever fingers now to patch tattered raiment, and keep things neat and trim.

There was an unwonted sound in the forest! It was distant still. To some ears it would have been inaudible; but Humphrey heard it, and his heart suddenly beat faster.

The sound was that of approaching steps-the steps of men. A few minutes more and he heard the sound of voices, too. He had been about to dash into the shed for his gun, but the fresh sounds arrested his movement.

He had ears as sharp as those of an ambushed Indian, and he detected in a moment that the men who were approaching the clearing were of his own nationality. The words he could not hear, but he could distinguish the intonation. It was not the rapid, thin-sounding French tongue; it was English-he was certain of it! And a light leaped to his eyes at the bare thought of meeting a brother countryman in this desolate place.

Probably it was some other settler, one of that hardy race that fringed the colony on its western frontier. Miles and miles of rolling forest lay between these scattered holdings, and since war was but lately begun, nothing had been done for the protection of the hapless people now becoming an easy prey of the Indians stirred up to molest them.

Humphrey knew none of their neighbours. Forest travelling was too difficult and dangerous to tempt the settler far away from his own holding. If it were one of these coming now, most likely he too had suffered from attack or fear of attack, and was seeking a friend in the nearest locality.

He stood like one spellbound, watching and waiting. The sound of steps drew nearer to the fringe of obscuring forest trees; the sound of voices became plainer and more plain. In another minute Humphrey saw them-two bronzed and stalwart men-advancing from the wood into the clearing. They came upon it unawares, as was plain from their sudden pause. But they were white men; they were brothers in this wild land. There was something like a sob in Humphrey's throat, which he hastily swallowed down, as he advanced with great strides to meet them.

"You are welcome," he said. "I had thought the Indians had left no living beings behind them in all this forest save my brother and myself."

No introductions were needed in this savage place; the face of every white man lit up at sight of a like countenance, and at the sound of the familiar tongue. The men shook hands with a hearty grip, and one said to Humphrey:

"You have had Indians here?"

Humphrey made an expressive gesture with his hand.

"This was a week ago as fair a holding as heart of man could wish to see in this grim forest. You see what is left today!"

"Your house is burnt down, as we plainly see. Have you lost aught beside? Has human blood been spilt?"

"The corpse of my venerable father, and that of a bold baby boy, lie beneath yon heap of ruins which made their funeral pyre. In yonder grave lie the mingled corpses of my brother's wife and four fair children, hacked to death and half burnt by the savages. And yet this work is not the work of savages alone. With them we have dwelt at peace these many years. The shame, the horror, the disgrace of it is that we owe these horrors to the white sons of France, who hound on the savages to make these raids, and stand by to see them do their bloody work!"