To all appearance, the intention of permitting him to quit the
defences had therefore been entirely abandoned, when old Mark so suddenly
announced a change of resolution. The conjectures on the causes of this
unlooked-for determination were exceedingly various. Some believed that the
Puritan had been favored with a mysterious intimation of the pleasure of
Providence, in the matter; and others thought that, beginning to despair
of success in his undertaking, he was willing to seek for a more visible
manifestation of its purposes, by hazarding the experiment of trusting the
boy to the direction of his own impulses. All appeared to be of opinion
that if the lad returned, the circumstance might be set down to the
intervention of a miracle. Still, with his resolution once taken, the
purpose of Mark Heathcote remained unchanged. He announced this unexpected
intention, after one of his long and solitary visits to the block-house,
where it is possible he had held a powerful spiritual strife on the
occasion; and, as the weather was exceedingly favorable for such an
object, he commanded his dependants to prepare to make the sortie on the
following morning.
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