Then she scuttled all the canoes but
one, and taking the scalps with her as proof of her revenge, she put
the nurse and the boy into the canoe and paddled down the river. She
escaped all roving bands and won her way home again to find her
husband and sons safe and well, and to show the scalps--the blood
payment for her murdered child. Such were the stories told and retold
in every colonial township, round every fire; such were the stories
brought home by the sailors and the merchants; they were published in
books of travel. Think you that our English blood had grown so
sluggish that it could not be fired by such tales? Think you that the
romance of the Colonies was one whit less enthralling than the romance
of the Spanish Main?
I say nothing of the wars in which the British troops and the
Colonial, side by side, at last succeeded in driving the French out of
the country. They belong to the history of the eighteenth century and
to the expansion of the English-speaking race. But for them, North
America would now be half French and a quarter Spanish. These,
however, were regular wars, with no more romance about them than
belongs to war wherever it is conducted according to the war-game of
the day. The manoeuvres of generals and the deploying of men in masses
inspire none but students, just as a fine game of chess can only be
judged by one who knows the game.
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