Humility, in matters of this sort, is
the great lesson that all should teach and learn; for it opens the
way to charity, and eventually to faith, and through both of these
to hope; finally, through all of these, to heaven.
The journey up the Kalamazoo lasted many days, the ascent being
often so painful, and no one seeming in a hurry. Peter waited for
the time set for his council to approach, and was as well content to
remain in his canoe, as to "camp out" in the openings. Gershom never
was in haste, while the bee-hunter would have been satisfied to pass
the summer in so pleasant a manner, Margery being seated most of the
time in his canoe. In his ordinary excursions, le Bourdon carried
the mastiff as a companion; but, now that his place was so much
better filled, Hive was suffered to roam the woods that lined most
of the river-banks, joining his master from time to time at the
portages or landings. As for the missionary and the corporal,
impatience formed no part of their present disposition. The first
had been led, by the artful Peter, to expect great results to his
theory from the assembly of chiefs which was to meet in the
"openings"; and the credulous parson was, in one sense, going as
blindly on the path of destruction, as any sinner it had ever been
his duty to warn of his fate, was proceeding in the same direction
in another.
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