men and children left the
place in groups, and only the men remained behind.

Aaron now ascended the stone pulpit and spoke. "Brothers and friends,"
he began, "we have done our duty to the dead; now let us discharge our
obligations to the living. Enough of funeral dirges for the present! Let
us now to arms!"

Three hundred men echoed his words. "To arms!" they cried, "to arms!"
They were ready and eager to go in quest of the foemen at whose hands
their fellow-townsman had met his death. "Come, let us go home and arm
ourselves!" said they, one to another.

"We will meet in the marketplace!" called out Aaron from the stone
pulpit, when suddenly he felt a strong hand on his belt behind, and he
was lifted down bodily from his place. He did not need to ask who dealt
thus summarily with him; he knew that only his brother Manasseh was
capable of such a feat of strength.

"What are you thinking of?" cried Manasseh, in a voice that all could
hear. "Have I not made peace with our neighbours and sworn in the name
of the one living God to maintain it, and would you put me to shame?"

"Have they not murdered our brother Jonathan?" demanded Aaron.

"No; our brother fell in battle like a brave soldier, with his sword in
his hand. And others of our land are fighting now for their country and
will die for her. We shall mourn them and honour their memory, but we
are not wild Indians to exact a bloody vengeance for those fallen on the
battle-field."

"Very well, brother Manasseh, but you need not charge us with being wild
Indians. I do not ask that we should fall upon our neighbours and burn
their houses over their heads, but that we should be on our guard and
defend ourselves and our families the best we know how. Believe me,
brother, I am as good a Christian as the next man; I go to church every
holy day, even when I am ill; but I feel easier, when I pray for my
soul's salvation, if I know my gun is loaded and primed."

"Then you are no true believer in God," returned Manasseh, in a tone of
reproof. "You worship that Jesus in whose name the massacre of St.
Bartholomew was perpetrated, the burning of heretics sanctioned, and the
crusades undertaken; but you are no true follower of that Jesus who came
with a message of peace and good-will to mankind, and who said to Peter,
'They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.'"

"I am not so sure that he really said that," rejoined Aaron, shrewdly.
"Matthew has it that he did,