But no hands were lifted. The thought of deliverance was paralyzing.
"Word has come that the gracious Queen of England will send us and our long-suffering brethren to her colonies in the New World. I have had a letter from our old neighbor the magistrate of Oberdorf. He is in London, awaiting the sailing of the ships. He is well cared for; charitable persons exert themselves for the afflicted people. Probably by this time he is already far on his way."
"But to-morrow, father!" cried Catrina. "Why start to-morrow?"
"As well to-morrow as another day," answered John Conrad. "We have few possessions and they are easily gathered together. To those of our friends who will not come with us we could not express our affection and our farewells in a hundred days. We will go on foot to the river and make our way to the lowlands and thence to England. It is a long and perilous journey, but it is not so perilous as to stay. I cannot advise any one what to do. But for all those who come I will care as though they were my own."
"But Liesel!" cried the young woman with the baby in her arms. "We will die without Liesel!"
John Conrad smiled.
"Liesel will stay in Gross Anspach. She will be the perpetual property of the Gross Anspach babies."
George Reimer spoke next. He sat with his arms folded across his breast, within them his precious flute. Tears were in his eyes and in his voice as he said:—
"I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me."