In the Brown camp the great family of fugitives dwelt together in guileless and trusting brotherhood under the patriarchal care of Captain Brown, who daily praised the Eternal Sire, and one soul of harmony and love was infused into each individual dweller. John Brown was a man of deep religious convictions; but mingled with austerity were perfect gentleness and self-renunciation which inspired love in every breast. But amid the self-denying calmness of his deportment, those who looked deeply into his eyes might discern some cast of that quiet and determined courage which faced his enemies in later years before the Virginia tribunal where, threatened with an ignominious death, he made the unmoved reply--“I am about God’s work; He will take care of me.” The fugitive slaves who came in fear and trembling were strengthened and improved by contact with the free, strong spirit of their rescuer and his associate helpers of proscribed Free Staters. Weeks must elapse, perhaps, before a force of sufficient strength could be organized to protect the fugitives on their perilous trip to Canada. In the interval Captain Brown was pastor, guide and counsellor. The instruction of youth he considered one of the most sacred departments of his office, so it happened that in the camp the ex-slave received his first lessons in the true principles of home-building and the responsibility of freedom. There he first heard God’s commands in the words of Holy Writ: “He hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth.” “There is no respect of persons with God.” “Do to another as you would that another should do to you.” “Remember those in bonds as bound with them.” In the field the negro learned for the first time in his life the sweetness of requited toil together with the manliness of self-defence, for the musket was the companion of the implements of rural toil, as in the days of Nehemiah the restorers of Jerusalem wrought “every man with one hand upon the wall and with the other held his spear, having his sword girded by his side;” and also that it was better to die than to live a coward and a slave. Winona was quartered at the Brown domicile. With her story and her beauty she was an object of uncommon interest to all in the camp. She became Captain Brown’s special care and the rugged Puritan unbent to spoil and pet the “pretty squaw,” as he delighted to call her. And to Winona all the land had changed. The red-golden light that rested upon it near the evening hour was now as the light of heaven. The soft breezes that murmured through the trees and touched her cheek so gently, seemed to whisper, “Peace and rest. Peace and rest once again. Be not cast down.”