John Trevena

“ There are perils upon every shore. A man may sit out at night under a big moon, beside trees covered with white or pink blooms, every bloom as great as his head and smelling like wine, and he may listen to the Tritons singing as they splash through the sea, and watch the mermaidens—passing fair they say who have seen them—lying upon the rocks, wringing salt water from their hair. 'Tis a wondrous shore. I would rather own an acre of it than be master of all this country of cold forest where there is neither fruit nor flower."
"The fog arises yonder," said Hoevenden, pointing down the river. ”

“ As she stood watching the firelight and the grove, dim ghosts arose and began her punishment. She seemed to hear a sound of scuffling, and to see young Richard and his great hound, Blood, wrestling together, as they had been wont to do among the pine barrens, to the roar of the wind and the lost waters. Again she heard the boyish voice, gasping and triumphant, "I have beaten him again. I am stronger than he." And as she shivered, there came an echo of her own former words from the line of tossing trees, "He is brave and strong. He shall make a man before he has grown." ”

“ Arnaud, I love, and am held in prison; but my nights are short, my days warm, and my position is a happiness. Believe you that love, however unrequited, takes away from life? I tell you it adds, it enriches, it beautifies. It is a crown which makes a humble man a king, and the halo which makes the singing-girl a saint. Love gives a man strength to use his power, to defy superstition and false religion, to snap his fingers in the face of a fat priest who believes that a strong will may be bent and broken by holding the body in bondage. Had I my heart to offer I would scorn your cowardly love. ”

“ Madeleine, sweet wife, before we met I followed the promptings of the body; but through your eyes I have seen the soul. It is not the soldier who wins life with his sword. He does but strive in a vain shadow, until that happy day—ill for him if it comes not—when there dawns upon his heart the light of love, and his mind is inspired, and his ears hear the stirring of wings, and his eyes are opened. ”

“ What honour shall be rendered to pioneers? Who shall seek our graves and pause to say, 'Here lies one who fought to plant the red-cross flag in the face of its enemies'? Fools, fools, fools! We forsake home and kindred in pursuit of a dream, rise up for our unrewarded effort, and fail. So we are gone and our deeds lie buried in our graves."
"One leaf makes not a summer," replied Penfold. "The one cannot be discerned by the eye, and yet that one does its share in making the tree perfect. We also have our part to play. Our lives are obscure. Our deeds shall live, if not our names. ”

“ Gaudriole is now a citizen of the New World. The Cardinal himself is but a shadow here. Even a mountebank of the gutter may turn traitor in the wilderness. Gaudriole is a man this side o' the sea. Were we in Paris I might bow to kiss your garments, and call you Holiness an you desired it. Here the jester is as good as the general. Hunt me into yonder forest at your sword-end, bold captain, and bid me play the will o' the wisp. I should but disappear into a thicket ahead, rise up at your back, and this knife and a moss-swamp would settle all your business. ”

“ The clouds swept low, grey or indigo masses rushing south with the speed of rapids. The dark, solid wind of the lowlands came in a furious succession of great waves. The lovers might have been upon an island with the ocean roaring round in storm. Out of the gloom the wet rocks glimmered and the trunks of long-fallen trees described weird shapes upon the plain.
"This is life!" cried Madeleine. "Glorious life!"
Geoffrey held her closely, looking down upon her wet and radiant face.
"We can fight together, you and I," she went on. "No wind shall conquer while we hold together. ”

“ The troop shall carry away with them a tale to make these crystal mountains feared for ever."
"What plan is this?" said Geoffrey irritably. "We stand upon the most exposed spot of these mountains, and do you propose to light a fire so that all who are concerned may know where we may be found?"
"Control that voice and temper," whispered Von Donck. "Every sound carries over yon ravine. Come, sit near me, and watch as pretty a piece of art-magic as brain of man ever devised. Show not yourself above the great face, or we are undone, and drop no spark into that fire if you love your life." ”

“ Two soldiers rushed out and flung themselves upon the locked trees, jostling each other in the constricted space. A lump of snow hit the foremost between the eyes, he gasped, and would have turned, but a sword-thrust sent him to his doom, and his comrade, blinded in the self-same manner, shared his fate.
"There are men in hiding yonder," rang a voice. "The villains shelter behind the trees."
"Find me a way round," roared an angry voice, and La Salle pushed along the pass. "Are we to be held here by one man behind a fallen tree?" ”

“ An arrow in the back, an arrow shot by an Indian witch. It passes all. Call you that God's way? God wills a man to die in fair fight, with his death in front. And this! Oh, George! To fall like a beast hunted for the pot."
"Yet 'twas a soldier's end."
"Tell them not at home," cried Penfold. "Let them not know, if ever we see Thames-side again, how George Flower fell. Ay, like a flower he came up, and as a grass has he been mown down. Many are the wiles of Satan. The arrow that flieth by night, the coward arrow of treachery. 'Tis a foul wind that blows out a good man's life. ”

“ Laroche hurried up, his big face streaming, the lantern shaking in his hands like a will-o'-the-wisp, his attitude grotesque with terror.
"What witchcraft is here?" he shouted. "See you how this Dutchman has changed body and appearance as well as name?"
"Van Vuren is not here," said Roussilac gravely. "He ran when the abbé lowered his sword; and so soon as he had gone—nay, before—yonder figure stepped out of the darkness under the cliff and challenged La Salle. You see he has covered his face. It is the mad Englishman who fights for the love of fighting. ”

“ The unwieldy vessel fell into the breath of the wind, and, righting herself after a sudden lurch, settled down into the water, ploughing a deep white furrow, every mast bending and every rope straining, every inch of canvas bellying mightily.
The Dutchman came out to avoid the mud flat. She began to make the bend, and her helmsman already saw the wide reach of river beyond, when a terrible shout ascended from the men who were caged between decks. At the same moment a pungent odour tainted the free air, and a thin blue vapour began to leak from the cracks and joinings of the planks. ”

“ He hated the French merely because they were enemies, and because they had betrayed the Iroquois. To go out and fight against them was more exciting, because more dangerous, than to engage with the beasts of the forest; but the struggle between the Powers of Europe for the ownership of North America had injected no venom into his soul.
"Shall I not live here always?" he asked. "Am I not to choose a maid from the Cayugas, and settle upon the isles beside you, my father?"
"Talk not of the future, son. Life is to-day, not hereafter. That lies in the hand of God to give or to withhold. ”

“ The trees went back and the rocks heightened. La Salle heard water rolling up a beach and the sweep of wind across an open surface. The freshet widened and grew more shallow; the keel of the canoe scraped across a ridge of silt. With a deft turn of her paddle Onawa shot the prow upon a sand bank, and signed to him to land.
She led him along a cliff path, across a flat, again into sage brush, and finally into more forest. They moved stealthily under cover, until the trees thinned, and willow scrub sprang thickly out of a grey soil. ”

“ Could we but live in love, it might follow that the wolf would be ashamed to hunt the lamb, and would feed upon grass, and thus it might happen that our kine would lack. It is best as God ordains. The panther must remain fierce, the bind-weed choke the flower, the rose grow its thorn, and the berry retain its poison. But would you walk in my garden, husband?"
"And see the devil changed into a monk?" asked Geoffrey, with a smile.
"There is no devil in my garden," cried Madeleine joyously. "The snake has no bite, and the devil is dead of idleness. The angels show themselves among my roses." ”

“ The boy stood leaning forward, his ears drinking in the shuddering noises of the bush, his face sharp with cold. The smoke stood upright in the clearing like a swathed mummy. Now and again a spark drifted, or a flurry of white wood-ash circled. There was yet no voice from the lungs of the forest.
"Blood smelt no animal," said the resolute Richard. "He does but tongue softly when he follows a bear. That howl he gives when he runs on the track of a man."
"A wanderer lost in the forest. A spy from the fortress. One of Roussilac's creatures," his father muttered. ”

“ Why, I would return home," answered Geoffrey.
"And then?" the girl pursued, the colour rising in her cheeks.
"Then I would fight for the king."
Madeleine sank back.
"Would your fighting-days never be done?" she sighed reproachfully. "Friend, the world gives better things than the sword. Think you," she went on hurriedly, "we are put upon this world to hate one another and be always at strife? Ah no. We are here to live! The soldier's day must pass, his arm grow stiff, and 'tis then he sighs for life—the sword gives only death. How wretched is that soldier's lonely end! ”

“ They stood six deep under the cliff, with as many more upon the side of the river; old and young, women in soiled stiff caps, ragged settlers, and soldiers in faded accoutrements side by side. A ring of men, holding spluttering pine torches, or oil lanterns, the flames of which smoked and flickered up and down the horn sides, enclosed an open space where two shadowy figures swayed almost noiselessly, facing one another, each right arm directing a rapier which flashed continually in the confused lights.
"I would the challenger were any other than the Abbé La Salle," muttered Roussilac. ”

“ White masses of mountain glowed ahead, peaks and crags all glittering in the sun like a huge cascade streaming down from the clouds; ranges of pure crystal, polished like glass, and edged with rose-pink by the colours of the western sky; snow-white gorges of milky quartz, and silver cataracts flung in foam from the whiteness above to the green below.
"These," he said softly, with a thrill of old-world superstition, "these must surely be the great crystal mountains where the Iroquois believe that the gods dwell." ”

“ Woodfield! Comrades, where are ye? Save me now from sorcery. Hough! Go bring the villagers, and bid them fling this hag into the Thames and pelt her with stones when she rises. To me, comrades! Leave not your old captain to perish by witchcraft."
"Canst heal him from this madness?" muttered Hough. "Myself I dared not let his blood, fearing lest I might do that which should hasten his end."
"Our people let no blood," came the answer. "We bring great heat into the body, so that the evil spirit shall come forth to seek water. ”

“ The adventurers smelt the choking fumes, saw the curling vapours, and their faces grew pale with the knowledge that they had to face a more dangerous foe than the French, knowing well that any moment a spark or a flame might touch the magazine.
"Unfortunates!" groaned Penfold. "I had hoped to win this ship, and with her sail to Virginia, there to gather a crew of mine own people, and return hither to harry the French."
"To the boats," cried Flower. "Better be sunk by a cannon ball than perish like rats in a corn-stack." ”