In the center stood a log hut, neatly and carefully built. A few flowers
grew around the house, and the whole bore signs of greater neatness and
comfort than was usual in the cabins of the backwood settlers.
The point where the party had reached the edge of the wood was
immediately opposite the house. Near it stood a group of some twenty
men, one of whom, apparently their leader, was gesticulating angrily as
he addressed a man who stood facing him.
"I tell ye, ye're a darned royalist--ye're a traitor to the country, and
I've a mind to hang ye and all belonging to ye to the nearest bough."
"I tell you," the man answered calmly, but in the still air every word
he said could be heard by those at the edge of the forest, "I hae
naething to do with the trouble ane way or the ither. I am a quiet
settler, whose business only is to mak a hame for my wife and bairn;
but, if you ask me to drink success to the Congress and confusion to the
king's troops, I tell you I willna do it; not even if you are brutal
enough, but this I canna believe possible, to carry your threats into
execution. I hae served my time in a king's regiment. With the bounty I
received instead o' pension on my discharge I settled here wi' my wife
and bairn, and no one shall say that Duncan Cameron was a traitor to his
king. We do no harm to anyone; we tak no part for or against you; we
only ask to be allowed to live in peace."
"That ye shall not," the man said. "The king's troops have got Injuns
with 'em, and they're going to burn and kill all those who won't take
part with 'em.
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