Young Lion of the Woods eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 145 pages of information about Young Lion of the Woods.

Young Lion of the Woods eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 145 pages of information about Young Lion of the Woods.

At length the Rebels and Red men grew furious.  They arrived at Grimross early one morning, while Paul was out among the tribe trying to keep them quiet, and surrounding the house and store of Captain Godfrey they demanded his surrender.  The yells and whoops of the Indians were terrific, demons from the depths of perdition could not have made a more frightful noise.  The children were terrified; the youngest fainted with fright.  At this crisis Margaret Godfrey calmly walked to the door while her husband and son Charlie stood a few paces in her rear.  She opened the door, and as she did so in rushed the demons, led by the cross-eyed, monkey-faced rebel.  One of the Indians by name Pete Gomez, took hold of Margaret and forced her to the floor, Charlie took up a stick of wood and knocked Gomez senseless.  At this moment Paul Guidon returned, Horatio Keys, one of the rebels, had seized Captain Godfrey by the throat and was holding him tightly against the wall, Margaret clinched the rolling-pin and in an instant sent Keys staggering to the floor.  The squinting monkey-faced rebel’s name was Will, and Will by force pushed Margaret to the floor, and was dragging her by the hand toward the door, as Paul stepped in.  Paul struck him with his fist, and like lightning placed both his feet against the rebel’s breast, almost knocking the life out of him.  Jim Wade, Sam Scarp, and Mark Paul, three Indians, rushed in after Paul, who turned and struck Wade a terrific blow on the neck, knocking him out.  The Captain, Charlie, Paul and Margaret went for the other two in lively style and soon laid them low.  The remaining rebels and Indians beat a hasty retreat to the woods.  The insolent invaders who had got so deservedly well punished at the hands of the Godfrey household were pitched out of the house, and when they had sufficiently recovered they also made for the woods.  During the tumult the four smaller children were fastened in the bedroom and their screams were terrible.  The night after the assault was a dismal and anxious one at Grimross.  The children trembled and sobbed during the entire hours of darkness.  The morning at length dawned, and with its dawning Margaret Godfrey’s soul went out for counsel and guidance to Him, who in all their perils, in the darkest moments of their lives, had never forsaken them.

She said to Paul Guidon, “the rebels may kill my husband, my children and myself, but from this hour their threats shall not intimidate me from acting as a British subject should act in a British Colony.  I shall do my duty, for under God I am determined whenever and however we attempt to make our escape, if I have to die I shall die free and not as a slave or traitor.”  The Indian who had attentively listened to Margaret’s words promised to stand by her.

“Paul Guidon,” she continued, “there remains to us a great duty to be performed.  I am fully convinced there will be a way of escape opened to us, but we must seek it first.  Cannot we escape to Fort Frederick?  Is the canoe safe to convey the whole of us and what stuff we may require?” To which the Iroquois replied, “If water smooth no trouble, trouble may be Indians ’long river bank, I go up Neck and bring down canoe.”  This latter he quickly did, hauling it on shore and hiding it among some bushes.

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Young Lion of the Woods from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.