And yet, what sound is that? Lambert clearly hears a dull, strong sound, while, at the same moment, the noise of the enemy is stilled. The sounds become heavier and stronger. Lambert's heart beats as though it would split.
Suddenly there came around the corner of the woods one, two, three riders in full run and a moment later a large company; twenty, thirty horses, under whose hoofs the ground trembles. The riders swing their rifles and "Hurrah! hurrah!" sound forth so that Lambert hears.
He hastens to his comrades. "Have you all loaded? Then up and out! Now it is our turn. Now we will drive them!"
A sharp pursuit--a wild pursuit on the darkening prairie after the French and Indians, who in frenzied flight rush toward the woods while German rifles crack after them.
It was during the fifth summer after these events that the August sun, which rose above the woods in beaming glory, brought the Germans on the creek, on the Mohawk and on the Schoharie, a joyful day. To-day bison and deer might go their way through the primitive forest unmolested. The hunter drew the charge out of his rifle and put into it a large load of loose powder. To-day cattle and sheep were left to themselves in the pasture-fields. The herdsman had brushed his Sunday-coat clean, and had stuck a large bunch of flowers in his hat. To-day there was rest from pressing labor, in field and mart. The farmer, much as he had to do, the herder, the hunter, and all the world, young and old, men, women and children, were to keep a great holiday--a great, wondrous, fine peace-festival. For there was again peace on earth--which had drunk the blood of her children in streams for seven long years. Peace over in the old home; peace here in the new one. There the hero of the century, old Fritz, the great Prussian king, was done with his enemies, and had sheathed his sword. So here too the battle-ax could be buried.
During the last years it had indeed become dull enough. Since, in the spring of 'fifty-eight, the attack of the French and Indians had been so bravely resisted by the Germans, they had made no further invasion across the border, protected as it was by such a warlike race. As now Fort Frontenac had fallen and Quebec was surrendered the following year. England's great victory was won, and what yet followed were only the flying sparks and the last flickering of a great conflagration. But for a German shingle or straw roof sparks are also dangerous, and the master of the house had yet constantly gone to bed burdened with anxiety, and the next morning went to his labor with his rifle on his shoulder. Now the last trace of uncertainty had disappeared, and the bell in the little church sounded out "Peace, peace," over sunny fields and still woods.