Happily, in the midst of all this, confusion and violence,
the young men of the valley were true to their duties. An alarming attempt
to scale the stockade had already been repulsed, and, the true character
of two or three feints having been ascertained, the principal force of the
garrison was now actively employed in resisting the main attack.
"In the name of him who is with us in every danger!" exclaimed Ruth,
advancing to two figures that were so busily engaged in their own
concerns, as not to heed her approach, "tell me how goes the struggle?
Where are my husband and the boy?--or has it pleased Providence that any
of our people should be stricken?"
"It hath pleased the Devil," returned Eben Dudley, somewhat irreverently
for one of that chastened school, "to send an Indian arrow through jerkin
and skin, into this arm of mine! Softly, Faith; dost think, girl, that
the covering of man is like the coat of a sheep, from which the fleece
may be plucked at will! I am no moulting fowl, nor is this arrow a
feather of my wing. The Lord forgive the rogue for the ill turn he hath
done my flesh, say I, and amen like a Christian! he will have occasion
too for the mercy, seeing he hath nothing further to hope for in this
world.
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