“And,” she went on, “would you have shot the Indian if he had taken or tried to take the boat, Pardy?”
“Oh, no! The revolver was not loaded. Our Anglo-Saxon fists would have answered, as we were four to two.”
“But aren’t these Indians Catholics?”
“If you mean that religion puts an end to these little or large superstitions, No. Kismet, the Fates, our Angle ancestors’ Wyrda—the goddess who decreed deaths in battle and spared the brave awhile—she became God for the Christian Angles: then the will of God, and now the law of God, and for some the laws of nature. It is only a transmutation of phrase. We remain fatalists, and change the label.”
“But it seems to me,” said Rose, “a long way from Wyrda, who was rather indecisive, I remember, to changeless law.”
“Rose, you are dreadful! If ever I begin to talk loosely, down comes Anne or you with your confounded rigidity of statement. Don’t marry a fool, Rose, or he and you will have a dreadful time.”
“No, papa, never! Heaven forbid! But isn’t it helpful at least to know—”
“You can’t drag me any further into these deep waters to-day.
‘To-day we give to trifles,
And if to-morrow rifles