Yes, Margot heard, but had nothing to say. Finally she remarked in a low voice:
“I would be baptized into thy faith first.”
“What?” cried Gabriel joyfully. “Is that really so, my Margot? What glad news! Now is all indeed well with us! There is a chaplain at Fort Edward; he will baptize thee, and marry us.”
They sat down side by side upon the rude bench before the empty hearth, and talked and made plans as lovers have done since lovers first began. Gabriel’s mind, as we know, worked quickly, and he soon had beautiful schemes mapped out for being transferred to Washington’s command in Virginia, that rising young general having been recently appointed commander-in-chief of the army there.
“My noble captain is now stationed at Winchester,” he concluded, “and with him is that grand old soldier Fairfax, the lord lieutenant of the county. They are engaged in subduing the Indians. At Winchester we will live, and then shall I be ever at hand to protect my wife.”
News traveled slowly in those days, and Gabriel had heard nothing of the panic at Winchester, and with the confidence and faith of youth believed that his hero, George Washington, could accomplish even the impossible.
But duty called, and Julie returned, and Gabriel had to depart; yet not before it was arranged that, with Winslow’s permission, assured in advance, Julie should bring Margot that evening to the church, there to meet the chaplain from Fort Edward, who would perform the two sacraments of baptism and marriage.
Winslow, naturally of a cheerful disposition, rejoiced in this break in the monotony of misery, hastily dispatched a messenger to Fort Edward, and but for Gabriel’s entreaties would have made the marriage as jovial an affair as Puritanical principles admitted of. Discipline forbade that a woman could be received as an inmate of a fortified camp, neither could Gabriel be spared often from duties destined to become daily more onerous and troublesome; but to the two, scarcely more than boy and girl, who stood that evening with bowed heads before the chaplain, there was more than common comfort in the solemn words: “Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder.”
Joy and thankfulness, deep and unutterable, swelled the heart of the young husband as, from the gate in the stockade, he watched the slight form of his girl-wife disappear into the gathering shades of night. She was his now—his to claim, to protect, to have and to hold till death did them part.
In the excitement and rapture of meeting, Gabriel had hardly bethought him to ask her how she had escaped from Le Loutre. The fact that she had escaped, that she was alive and well and with him, filled his mental horizon. The tale, however, was short. The priest, hard pressed, had been compelled to give her up to a party of fugitives hastening to Halifax to take the oath. This party had come upon the Marins, and thinking they also were bound for Halifax, Margot had willingly joined them, finding out when it was too late Marin’s change of view.