“I think, Edward, if I could hear the Falls at such a moment, they would seem to me to speak in a voice of rebuke, rather than encouragement.”
“O, mother, you never seem to admire courage; but I suppose it is because you are a woman.”
“No, my dear: women have been accused of having rather an undue admiration for what you mean by courage—fighting courage; but I confess that war seems to me a violation of the law of God, and it appears a profanation of such beautiful scenes as these, to convert them into fields of battle.”
When they reached Newark, the party walked up to Fort George; a slight embankment, surrounded by a palisade, is still dignified by that name. “This palisade as they call it, Ned,” said Mr. Morris, “we should scarcely think a sufficient defence against the batteries of pigs and chickens.”
“It has served, though, to keep the yankees at bay,” said a soldier, gruffly, who was cutting up Canada thistles, and who had suspended his labour for a moment, to regard the strangers.
“A fair hit, friend,” said Mr. Morris; “but all our fighting is over now, and forgotten I hope. This work you are doing here, cutting off these thistles, is far better than cutting off heads.”
“It is far aisier, sir,” replied the man, with a slight curling of the lip, which betrayed a professional contempt for Mr. Morris's preference of the plough-share over the sword; then turning towards the gate he called to a little boy who was just entering it—“Come, come Dick, what do you gaze at, boy? bring me the basket.”
The boy, without heeding the command, dropped the basket; and uttering a cry between joy and surprise, scampered off in the direction of a cottage, or rather hovel, which stood just without the palisade.
“That is Richard Barton!—that is certainly Richard Barton!” exclaimed the children in one breath.
“Surely is it Richard Barton,” said the soldier.