116 PERSECUTION. [1637-40. 



a strange awe. Nocturnal councils were held; 

 their death was decreed; and, as they walked their 

 rounds, whispering groups of children gazed after 

 them as men doomed to die. But who shouki 

 be the executioner? They were reviled and up- 

 braided. The Indian boys threw sticks at them 

 as they passed, and then ran behind the houses. 

 When they entered one of these pestiferous dens, 

 this impish crew clambered on the roof, to pelt 

 them with snowballs through the smoke-holes. 

 The old squaw who crouched by the fire scowled 

 on them with mingled anger and fear, and cried 

 out, " Begone ! there are no sick ones here." The 

 mvalids wrapped their heads in their blankets ; 

 and when the priest accosted some dejected war- 

 rior, the savage looked gloomily on the ground, and 

 answered not a word. 



Yet nothing could divert the Jesuits from their 

 ceaseless quest of d}ing subjects for baptism, and 

 above all of dying children. They penetrated every 

 house in turn. When, through the thin walls of 

 bark, they heard the wail of a sick infant, no 

 menace and no insult could repel them from the 

 threshold. They pushed boldly in, asked to buy 

 some trifle, spoke of late news of Iroquois forays, 

 — of anything, in short, except the pestilence and 

 the sick child ; conversed for a while till suspicion 

 was partially lulled to sleep, and then, pretending 

 to observe the sufferer for the first time, approached 

 it, felt its pulse, and asked of its health. Now, 

 while apparently fanning the ' heated brow, the 

 dexterous visitor touched it vrith a corner of his 



