is religion out in this
country."

"Right, lad, but a mon ha' need o' all his religion, I'm thinkin'."

"Well, as for me, mother is of the established church an' father is a
Dissenter."

"Either'll do an' the both ought. It'll be no fault of our forebears
if we ha' not religion in plenty, an' some o' the gude as should gang
wi' it."

Rodney thought of the morning prayers at home, his father kneeling by
the old splint-bottomed chair. Tears came to his eyes, he knew not
why, for was he not soon to see his father and were they not to
prosper and go back in the fall for his mother and sister? Yet he
looked out on the swirling water as through a mist.

"One of the men said you had seen long service as a soldier in the
king's army, Mr. Ferguson."

"That's how I came to this country, an' when I laid by me red coat I
thought this a bonny place to bide in. I got me a good team an' was
makin' a tidy bit cartin' supplies ower the mountains when the war
broke oot. I drove me team with Braddock's army an' afterward joined
the militia."

"Father was a soldier under Braddock. I've heard him tell how brave
some of the teamsters were in the midst of the panic and how cowardly
were some of the others."

"Same old story; all kinds o' folks to make a world. I mind well the
grit o' one o' them, Daniel Morgan was his name. We drove our teams
ower Braddock's grave in the road so's to hide it from the redskins.
Morgan's a mon as belongs at the head o' the column. He fears naught
on the face o' the earth, an' such men lead oot in this country where
courage an' skill at war are more account than any ither place i' all
the world. Morgan an' I were teaming supplies to Fort Chiswell i' the
summer of 1756. One o' the British officers got mad at him an' struck
him wi' the flat o' his sword when Morgan he oop-ended the officer's
person wi' a smart crack o' his feest. That was fat i' the fire you
may be sure. Insubordination don't go i' the army an' they tied Morgan
to his cart wheel an' laid five hundred lashes on his bare back. 'Twas
a wicked sight, the flesh o' him hung i' strips, an' he as cool as a
cowcumber an' countin' every stroke. He always declared they missed a
stroke. A braw lad be that same Dan Morgan."

"I should have thought it would have killed him."

"Keel him! Lad, ye don't know the stuff o' which such men are made.
Why, after he'd gone into the service he was ambushed by the savages
an' was shot i' the neck, the bullet