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Richelieu, who was a man of wide outlook, was also compelled by the activity of England and Holland to give attention to the problem of a New France. The spirit of colonization was in the air, and Richelieu, with his genius for ideas, could not fail to see its importance or what would befall the laggards.
In the very unlikely supposition that the distribution of the sexes might vary in different parts of the colony, I make a second excavation, at a few yards' distance from the other. It supplies me with another collection both of perfect insects and of pupae and larvae. When the metamorphosis of the laggards is completed, which does not take many days, I proceed to take a general census.
After that it was noticed that even the laggards began to show unusual energy, as if the prospect of soon being able to throw themselves down and slake their thirst, as well as satisfy their hunger, appealed forcibly to them. It was close on to noon when finally, with a shout, they hurried forward and dropped their packs close to where the ice-cold spring flowed.
The preamble and resolutions adopted were as follows: "Whereas, This day, throughout all this Southern land, sorrow, many-tongued, is ascending to heaven for the death of Robert E. Lee, and communities everywhere are honoring themselves in striving to do honor to that great name; and we, the people of Augusta, who were not laggards in upholding his glorious banner while it floated to the breeze, would swell the general lamentation of his departure: therefore be it
On their designated parades the companies rapidly fell in, while stern-voiced non-commissioned officers rebuked the laggards and aided them into their belts, and each first sergeant took rapid note of his men. No need to call the roll, a skulker would have been detected and kicked into the ranks at the instant.
A little later others with less hardiness could be seen making the most of a meager allowance of water. A few laggards invariably ran the nine o'clock rule very close, and a little pressure had to be applied so that they should not delay the day's work. By 9.20 breakfast was finished, and in ten minutes the table was cleared.
Because we are coming to the light, as Walt Whitman so splendidly says: "The Lord advances and yet advances ... always the shadow in front, always the reach'd hand bringing up the laggards." Our business, if we know that we are laggards, if we only dimly suspect it, is not to fear the shadow, but to seize the outstretched hands.
"Dinner is served, sir," he announced to himself, "dead fish with formaldehyde dressing, petrified dough, and aqua nivis." The storm continued, and as he smoked the gravity of his plight forced itself upon him. The laggards had caught up, and at the edge of the arc of firelight a wide semicircle of insanely glaring eyeballs and gleaming fangs told where the wolf-pack waited.
In twos and threes and dozens, a ragged procession of lanterns and torches, they retreated, foremen urging the laggards, until only a single man at each end of the broken track kept within sight of the tiny red lantern on the ledge. Again it swung in a circle and again the torpedoes replied, this time all clear.
Untiring themselves, they allowed no laggards; they drove the San Franciscan from the wall against which he would have leaned, from the scant shade in which at noontide he might have rested. They turned his smallest fires into conflagrations, and kept him ever alert, watchful, and eager.
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