The patriarch looked at the fire on the altar, which burned in his house as in every other house of the village; then he looked keenly at his grandson.
“There are two ways of living in a strange place, Marcus Colonus,” he said. “One is, to live after the manner of those who are born there, obey their gods, learn their law, eat their food, work as they do, join in their feasts and their games. The other is to fight them, and drive [pg 22]them away, or make them your servants. Which is your choice?”
Colonus hesitated. “My father,” he said, “to take the first path, I must change my nature and become another man, which I would not do even if I could. Here or in another country, or in the moon if men could go there, I should be Colonus, the farmer,—not a sailor, or a trader, or any other man. To take the second way I must be leader of many fighting men, and this is not possible, since if we go we must take our wives and children. It is in my mind, my father, that there may be a middle way. If we hold to our own customs and are faithful to our own gods and to one another, surely the gods should keep faith with us. If we hurt not the people of the land where we go, but stand ready to defend ourselves against any who try to attack us, they may allow us to live as we please. If not, then must we fight for the right to live.”
The old chief smiled. “My son,” he said, “you are wise with the wisdom of youth. Yet sometimes that is better than the unbelief of age. It is better to die fighting strangers than to die by starvation, or to fall upon one another, and I have had fear that one or the other might happen here, for truly the land is changed. It may be that this plan of yours shall end in new branching [pg 23]out of our people, the Ramnes, and in new power to our gods,—and if so, surely the gods will lead you.
“Now I have a story to tell you, and you will give careful heed to it, and not speak of it lightly, but store it away in the secret places of your mind. Sit down here, close to me, for I do not wish to be heard by any listener.
“Many years ago, before you were born, or ever the road was made over the marsh or the bridge across the river, our people were at war with a strange people from the north. My son, whom you resemble, went to fight against them and did not come back. Whether he died in battle and was left on some unknown field we did not know. We never knew, until in after years, one who was taken prisoner with him came back, his hair white as snow, and told what he had seen.
“In that country of which you have spoken, where a plain stretches away toward the sea, and is guarded with mountains and divided by a yellow river, there are people who speak a language like ours and are sons of Mars, as we are. Some live in the hills and some in the plain, and some on the Long White Mountain. Beyond the river the people are strange in every way and their gods are also strange and terrible.
“Now among the people of the Long White [pg 24]Mountain was a chief with two sons, and when he died the elder should have been ruler in his place. But the younger one, an evil man, stole into his brother’s place and killed his sons, and forbade his daughter to marry. Here my son was taken as a captive, and he became a servant to that chief.
“The daughter of the elder brother was a fair woman, and my son was a strong and comely man, and in secret they married. Then did my son escape, thinking to come back with an army and bring away his wife with their twin boys. But the wicked chief discovered what had been done, and killed the mother and the children, and sent a war party after my son to kill him also. He could have escaped even then, for he crossed a river in flood by swimming. But when they called to him that his wife and her two sons were dead, he returned across the river and fought his pursuers until they killed him. Then he went to find his beloved in that unknown country which is neither land nor water and is full of ghosts.