His consort followed, but
at even a greater distance than that taken by the wives of other men, as
if she felt the awful necessity of averting even the remotest possibility
of scandal from one of so sacred a profession. Nine offspring of various
ages, and one female assistant, of years too tender to be a wife herself,
composed the household of the divine, and it was a proof of the
salubrious air of the valley that all were present, since nothing but
illness was ever deemed a sufficient excuse for absence from the common
worship. As this little flock issued from the palisadoes, a female, in
whose pale cheek the effects of recent illness might yet be traced, held
open the gate for the entrance of Reuben King, and a stout youth, who
bore the prolific consort of the former, with her bounteous gift, into
the citadel of the village; a place of refuge that nothing but the
undaunted resolution of the woman prevented her from occupying before,
since more than half of the children of the valley had first seen the
light within the security of its defences.
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