“Don’t cry, Winona,” he said. “I’m sorry for you and myself and Maxwell. It’s this cursed slavery that’s to blame. If your father had lived all this would never have happened.”
“I am sorry—so very sorry! But you see, Judah, it cannot be; I have no love to give.”
Judah stood beside her, his heart bursting with suppressed emotion. The bitter words would break from his lips.
“The white man gets it all—all!”
“Do you forget all that Mr. Maxwell has done for us, Judah, that you condemn him so bitterly? It is not like you—you who are generally so generous and true-hearted. He knows not of my love and will never know. Is he to blame?”
“You are right—you are right! But how is a man to distinguish between right and wrong? What moral responsibility rests upon him from whom all good things are taken? Answer me that.”
They were walking now toward the camp; the shadowy trees tossed their arms in the twilight and the stars came out one by one in the sky. Only the silent tears of the girl at his side gave answer to his question.
A month had passed since the fugitives had reached the camp. Captain Brown eagerly awaited the return of Warren with Parson Steward to help them on the trip to Canada.
The wild flowers swayed above their counterfeits in every gurgling stream; the scent of wild grapes was in the air; the cliffs and rocks blossomed with purple and white and pink blooms. The birds sang and the bees droned in the woods on the morning when, wild and dishevelled, Parson Steward’s wife and two children found their way into the Brown camp.
“My heavenly marster!” shrieked the widow in incoherent wailing. “The Rangers done caught my husband and shot him; they’ve carried the young Englishman to jail. What will become of me and my poor children?”