The folk here live snug in the Tidewater, which is maybe a hundred
miles wide from the sea, but of the West they ken nothing. There might
be an army thousands strong concealed a day's journey from the manors,
and never a word would be heard of it."
"But they tell me the Indians are changed nowadays," I put in. "They
say they've settled down to peaceful ways like any Christian."
"Put your head into a catamount's mouth, if you please," he said
grimly, "but never trust an Indian. The only good kind is the dead
kind. I tell you we're living on the edge of hell. It may come this
year or next year or five years hence, but come it will. I hear we are
fighting the French, and that means that the tribes of the Canadas will
be on the move. Little you know the speed of a war-party. They would
cut my throat one morning, and be hammering at the doors of James Town
before sundown. There should be a line of forts in the West from the
Roanoke to the Potomac, and every man within fifty miles should keep a
gun loaded and a horse saddled. But, think you the Council will move?
It costs money, say the wiseacres, as if money were not cheaper than a
slit wizzand!"
I was deeply solemnized, though I scarce understood the full drift of
his words, and the queer thing was that I was not ill-pleased.
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