“He hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.”
“There is no respect of persons with God.”
“Do to another as you would that another should do to you.”
“Remember those in bonds as bound with them.”
In the field the negro learned for the first time in his life the sweetness of requited toil together with the manliness of self-defence, for the musket was the companion of the implements of rural toil, as in the days of Nehemiah the restorers of Jerusalem wrought “every man with one hand upon the wall and with the other held his spear, having his sword girded by his side;” and also that it was better to die than to live a coward and a slave.
Winona was quartered at the Brown domicile. With her story and her beauty she was an object of uncommon interest to all in the camp. She became Captain Brown’s special care and the rugged Puritan unbent to spoil and pet the “pretty squaw,” as he delighted to call her.
And to Winona all the land had changed. The red-golden light that rested upon it near the evening hour was now as the light of heaven. The soft breezes that murmured through the trees and touched her cheek so gently, seemed to whisper, “Peace and rest. Peace and rest once again. Be not cast down.”
There was the touch of sympathy and comfort in the rugged Captain’s hand pressed upon her short-cropped curls. It gave her courage and robbed her heart of its cold desolation. She felt she was no longer alone; heaven, in her dire need, had sent her this good man, upon whom she might rely, in whom she could trust. Though much older, Captain Brown reminded her of her father, and her quiet childhood dependent upon him for constant companionship had given her a liking for elderly people, and she treated Captain Brown with a reverential respect that at once won his confidence and affection.
But there was not a day nor an hour that she did not think of Maxwell. She craved for news of his safety. When the daily routine of work was ended, the girl would steal into the woods which skirted the camp and climb to a seat on the high rocks watching eastward and westward for some sign of the young Englishman’s return.
Some impulse of the wild things among whom she had lived drove her to a hole in under the bluff. It was necessary to descend to find it. Presently she was in a tunnel which led into a cavern. She made herself a divan of dried moss and flung herself down at full length to think. Time’s divisions were lost on those days when the girl felt that she neglected no duty by hiding herself in her nook. She had come upon the eternal now as she lay in a sweet stupor until forced to arouse herself. She stared across the space that divided Maxwell from her with all the strength of her inner consciousness. That light which falls on the spot where one’s loved one stands, leaving the rest of the landscape in twilight, now rested about him. With rapture she saw again the hopeless passion in Warren’s eyes when he left her. Her hands and feet were cold, her muscles knotted, her face white with the force of the cry that she projected through space, “Come back to me!”