"
Her request was granted, and, for a minute, the woman gazed in mute grief
at the destruction of her comfortable home. Then, as a fresh yell from the
foe rose on the air without, she trembled, and turned with a mother's care
towards the unconscious beings that slumbered at her side.
"Thy brother hath been driven by the heathen to the foot of the
palisadoes," observed the other, after regarding his companion with
manly kindness for a moment, "and he hath lessened his force by many
that are wounded."
A short but eloquent pause succeeded. The woman turned her tearful face
upwards, and stretching out a bloodless hand, she answered--
"I know what thou wouldst do--it is not meet that Sergeant Ring should
be a woman-tender, when the Indian enemy is in his neighbor's fields! Go
to thy duty, and that which is to be done, do manfully! and yet would I
have thee remember how many there are who lean upon thy life for a
father's care."
The yeoman first cast a cautious look around him, for this the decent and
stern usages of the Puritans exacted, and perceiving that the girl who
occasionally entered to tend the sick was not present, he stooped, and
impressing his lips on the cheek of his wife, he threw a yearning look at
his offspring, shouldered his musket, and descended to the court.
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