University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.

Fugit tempus! was the commonplace exclamation of
the ancient poets and moralists; and “Time flies—time flies,
O how swiftly!” has been a thousand times repeated and
reiterated, from their day to ours, by every moralizing people;
as, with feelings of mingling interest and concern, they have
noted how swiftly the winged months and years glided irrecoverably
by them in the ceaseless flight of time. With the
healthful and happy, and with the eagerly busy and gain
devoted classes in life, this often quoted sentiment is doubtless
but a melancholy truism. But not so with all. With the
sorrowful and despondent, the days seem to pass slowly and
heavily away—with the weary in waiting, they appear to lag
and linger as if only to tantalize them with hopes deferred;
while with the poor, brain-clouded invalid, time makes no
progress.

Many weary and slowly dragging weeks had elapsed since
the event which last occupied us, transpired. And the modified
atmosphere and longer and lighter days, that had succeeded
the cold, short, and dark ones of the previous months, told
that the dreary reign of winter was now fast drawing to a close.
On a comfortable couch in one of the rooms of the solitary
farm house on the island shore, which we left the mysterious
white wanderer of the woods and his dusky associates

approaching, lay the still helpless and unconscious wounded
officer. The cottage was occupied by a widowed Quakeress,
with a son and daughter, who were old enough to render
material assistance to their meek and industrious mother, in
all the various in and out-door duties required in her secluded
situation, and who, with herself, constituted the good Samaritan
little family into whose care the invalid had fortunately
fallen. The stranger and his Indian assistants had greatly
surprised her by bringing a sick and helpless man to her
door; and, at first, she thought she could not receive him.
But the former, by the magic of some whispered token, had
so touched the secret sympathies of the Quakeress, and so well
backed his personal appeal to her humanity by his assurances
of pecuniary indemnity, that she soon yielded her scruples,
and cheerfully received the sufferer into her quiet domicile;
when giving her his instructions in regard to the invalid, and
bidding her to act discreetly in regard to himself, he dismissed
his Indian assistants to return in the canoes, and hurried off
himself, by land, in another direction. From that day the
widow had untiringly devoted herself to the care of the
patient, who, notwithstanding all her exertions and those of
the physician called in accordance with her instructions, had
lain there, week after week, without either visible change or
amendment. The doctor, however, in his visit on the previous
night, had spoken much more hopefully of the case
than he had ever done before, believing he had discovered a
favorable crisis in the disease, which he called a brain fever,
produced as much by the excitement of the battle as the
wounds received in it, and predicting with considerable confidence,
that when the invalid next awoke, he would do so with
partially or fully restored consciousness. And his unusually
deep and quiet slumbers, long and easy respirations, and other
corresponding symptoms exhibited through the night, having
all appeared to go in comfirmation of the doctor's hopeful
predictions, the encouraged widow now, on the morning
chosen for the opening of the present chapter, had taken her
seat with her knitting work in hand near the couch of the
invalid, and with an air of solicitous expectation, sat patiently
awaiting the promised result of his awaking. She was a middle
aged woman, of a rather slight but symmetrical figure, and
very comely features, which however, in spite of all the natural
vivacity of countenance that enlivened them, bore the impress
of many early trials and sorrows. She was not to be kept
long in this suspense. For in a short time after she had taken
her seat, and while thus employed, with an occasional wishful
glance to the face of the sleeping invalid, he fetched a long,
deep respiration and awoke.

“Awake at last!” was the first feeble exclamation that escaped
his lips. “This must be real,” he continued, at musing
intervals, to murmur, without looking up, or in any way
showing himself aware of the presence of another in the
room. “Yes, real, now; but what a dream!—if it be all a
dream; if not, which the real, and which the dream? But
this”—he added, as with a surprised air he began to glance at
objects within the scope of his vision as he lay—“this is not
the place! A finished room! A white man's dwelling?”

And now turning his head slightly, his bewildered and enquiring
gaze encountered the meek but gratified countenance
of his attendant, who, readily anticipating what would naturally
be the enquiries which would arise first in his mind,
and fearing that he might overtax his new found faculties,
now rose, and advancing to his bedside, considerately interposed
by saying, with the air of one wishing to obviate all necessity
of further questions,

“Yea, friend, thou art indeed in a white man's, or rather
in a white woman's house, on the western side of Aquidneck,
a few miles north of Newport.”

“But how came I here, and who brought me to this place?”

resumed the invalid, after a seeming effort to collect his confused
faculties.

“That,” replied the former—“that I would have told thee
at once, if I could have done so with any certainty; for I am
desirous to save thee, in thy weak state, from worrying thyself
by further questionings. But, peradventure, it may be
the lesser evil, now the thought is evidently beginning to perplex
thee, to say that thou wast brought here by a white stranger
and several of the red people, and placed under my care as
a wounded prisoner, whom his captors had for some reason decided
to convey to the white settlements.”

“Yes,” responded the invalid, after a thoughtful pause—
“yes, it must be the same. I clearly remember now, how
singularly I fell into this stranger's hands, and how much
surprised I was to encounter such a man under the circumstances,
and how puzzled at his words and conduct. There
is a mystery about the whole affair, which, if I ever get about
again, I shall feel an interest in trying to unravel. But why
should he have thrown me on you, a stranger, when I might
have as easily been taken to Newport, where I am known to
many?”

“I can't pretend to tell thee,” said the woman with a manner
intended to discourage further conversation.

“How long have I been here?” persisted the querist.

“About six weeks.”

“So long! Why, you must have had a hard time in taking
care of me, my good woman; but you shall be well paid for
all.”

“I have been already paid.”

“By whom?”

“The stranger himself. And he has not only paid me well,
but left money with me to pay the doctor we have called to
attend thee.”

“Strange! Strange! All strange—dreams and all—as I

suppose my wandering fancies must have been, though I
would like to ask, if you have been my only female attendant?”

“My daughter Mary, a girl of thirteen, has frequently
been with thee,” said the Quakeress, with a slightly suppressed
and hesitating air; “but why didst thou ask the question?”

“Because,” slowly and musingly resumed the invalid—“because,
among the thousand continually coming and going fancies
which I have a dim consciousness of having haunted me
during my long, troubled sleep, as it appears to me only to
have been, there has been one that seems so distinct and
abiding, that I find it difficult, and I may say painful, to believe
wholly unreal. It was in the form, sometimes of an
an angel with white wings, gracefully folded, as she stood
wistfully watching by my bedside, and sometimes simply of a
youthful female, but always wearing the same sweetly expressive
face—always tenderly ministering to my wants, or
looking down upon me with the same anxious, and, at times,
tearful countenance.”

“It is hard making ropes out of sand,” rejoined the
Quakeress, evading the subject matter of the other's remarks,
and affecting to be closely examining her knitting work, as if
to hide the sly, roguish expression which was just perceptibly
stealing over her features. “Thou will be apt to find it, methinks,
rather a fruitless task, friend, to try to make many
realities out of such vague fancies as those which we have all
been aware were disturbing thy bewildered mind. Thou
hadst best refrain now. It only worries thee. Quiet thyself
as much as possible, and excuse my absence a little time, that
I may go and prepare for thy taking such nourishing beverage
as will now benefit thee.”

With this, she quietly rose, and, leaving her mystified patient
to his reflections, glided out of the apartment. In a

short time, however, she reappeared, bearing a small tray
containing some kind of smoking beverage, which, turning
out and cooling in a saucer, she gently administered, bidding
him drink plentifully. He did so; and then falling back on
his carefully smoothed pillow, and, seeming to dismiss all anxieties
from his mind, was soon lost again in those quiet and
childlike slumbers which as surely, as they do beautifully,
mark the rallying of the physical powers in the first hours of
convalescence after a long and prostrating fit of sickness.

The doctor, a small, plain, sedate looking man, of few
words, and abrupt, well clipt phrases, called, in the course of
the morning; and passing, with a simple nod to the family
then engaged in an outer room, directly to the bed of his patient,
felt his pulse, noted all his symptoms, and, without
awaking him, was on the point of leaving the house, when he
was hailed by its mistress—

“Thou hast left no directions, doctor.”

“None needed—fever gone—brain quiet—small wounds
nearly well—great one in the shoulder making no more trouble—sha'n't
call again—nature and nursing to do the rest—
to be kept quiet, fed moderately, and soon be up again.”

“Thou now wilt consent to write to his friends—wilt
thou not?”

“Not yet.”

“But they know not, peradventure, where he is, nor whether
he be dead or alive.”

“Didn't mean they should. Misapplied medicine kills
some, misjudging friendship more. Low patients and officious
friends should have a double edged sword placed between
them. Will write, when he can sit up half a day. Little
strength enough then to contend with friends—will need half
as much as wanted to meet his enemies in battle. The old
fellow who had him brought to your quiet place, with prohibition
of notice, knew something. Good morning, madam.”

“Stay, doctor—if thou art not to come again, thou shouldst
be paid now. What is thy charge?”

“You pay? Ah! Let me see. Ten visits, five shillings
each—ten times five, fifty—two twenties, one ten—ay, two
pounds ten, that is it, madam.”

“Here, count for thyself, doctor,” said the Quakeress, who,
while the other was reckoning, had stepped to a chest, and
now coming forward, held out to him a handful of coin.

“Will—guilders! Dutch coin—good—know the value—
get it right,” said the gratified doctor, as he went on counting
out the amount of his pay, which he so little expected to receive,
at least for the present, till he had finished the agreeable
task. “There, all right; but where did you get this
rare coin?”

“From the stranger. He entrusted it with me for the very
purpose of paying thee, or such other doctor as I chose to
employ,” replied the other, after some hesitation.

“A stranger from the woods with these! Here's room for
peradventures—inferences—guessing,” rejoined the doctor,
with a puzzled, studying air.

“Ay, but thou wilt oblige me by doing thy guessing mostly
to thyself, doctor,” responded the Quakeress, with a significant
look.

“Ah! I see—private concernment—unfortunate liabilities
or something akin, maybe—but no matter—the old fellow is a
gentleman—my respects to him, if you ever see him again—
same to you, madam—good morning,” said the sententious
little man, nodding complacently, and immediately departing.

After a day and night passed mostly in peaceful and
refreshing slumbers, Captain Willis awoke the next morning
so much better and stronger, that, when he had partaken the
light but the most substantial breakfast his careful hostess
dared give him, he was smilingly told by her, the bridle she

had put on his tongue the day before might now, perhaps, if
he desired it, be safely removed for a little season.

“The first use to be made of the privilege,” responded the
invalid, in the same spirit, “should be, I think, to inquire the
name of the kind lady to whose care and attention I am evidently
very deeply indebted.”

“Nay, nay, friend; I had done but a common duty of
humanity, without the compensation I have received—much
less, now, could I claim any special thanks from thee. But
thou wouldst know my name? It is Rachel Minturn.”

“A widow, I think you intimated, with these two hopeful
children I have seen here? But I would also know something
about your family or personal history, my good lady.”

The woman, after a pause, meekly commenced her story,
which we will call

THE TRIALS OF THE PERSECUTED QUAKERESS.

“I am,” she began—“I am, as thou hast rightly imagined,
a widow, with my two children—George Fox and Mary Dyer
—and the small farm here which their father left us, for my
only hope and dependence. He died about five years ago,
after we had occupied here nearly twenty, with a disease
traceable to the early troubles which he and I had in common
experienced, and which at length drove us to seek an asylum
in this peaceful and soul-free island. Yea, it was indeed a
dark and angry cloud that gathered over the bright looking
path which he and I were beginning to tread together. We
were Quakers—that was our crime. We were both reared in
the same village in the vicinity of Boston, and at rather an
early age were betrothed for a union soon to be consummated;
when soon after, some of the earnest disciples of that man of
power and of the Spirit—George Fox—who was then moving
all England, either as followers or persecutors, came over and
began to preach in our neighborhood. Curiosity prompted

me to attend one of the meetings of this new sect, whom the
clergy were all bitterly denouncing, and most of the people
deriding. I went to laugh, but came away to pray.

“I was greatly troubled at what I heard, for I could not
deny its truth, nor reconcile it with the religious formulas I
had been taught to believe essential. I opened the Bible,
and was surprised to find the same doctrine which the preacher
had enforced, breathing through every line and precept uttered
by Him who spake as never man spake; and I now could not
see how it was possible the simple doctrines of love and charity
could ever have been twisted into the sanctioning of the
rigid and intolerant requirements of the old churches. The
light seemed all at once to burst upon my mind, like the sun
breaking through a misty cloud. The clogged spirit within
suddenly responded to the striving Spirit from above. I felt
I had been transformed into one of the new sect. I gave in
my adhesion, because God in my conscience commanded it;
and I openly and boldly proclaimed my belief, because I
neither dared nor wished to withhold it from the world. I
was arrested, taken before magistrates, and ordered to recant.
But, instead, I was moved by irresistible impulse to exhort
them to recant. I was then thrown into prison among felons;
but, still unmoved, I went to exhorting the prisoners, the
jailer, my betrothed, and all who came to see me, till all began
to doubt and tremble. `This pestilent creature must be removed,
or she will spread this devilish wild-fire over the whole
country,' said the rulers; and accordingly I was brought out,
banished, on pain of death for return; my tongue—this
scarred tongue—punched through with a hot iron; my ear—
this maimed ear—slit down and cropped. I was then placed
before a constable on horseback, flourishing a long scourge,
and, under the sharply applied lash, driven through the jeering
multitude. Without being allowed to go to my home—which
was with a distant relative—for a change of raiment, I was

forced on to the borders of the next town, in a southern
direction. Here I was delivered over to a new constable,
already there, and waiting at the town lines to receive me,
and, by the blows of a new and untired arm, greatly to
increase my sufferings. But my betrothed, the faithful
Nathan Minturn, who had resolved to share my fate, and had
accordingly provided himself with what money he could
command, procured my clothes and hastily packed them up
with his own, now, to my great joy, soon overtook us, fell in
by my side, and, in despite the curses of my new driver,
shielded me, and, as far as he could, took the cruel blows
upon his own head and shoulders. The gush of love and
gratitude that then welled up from my heart, shook my whole
frame as I staggered onward; but I could not express it, save
by looks, and that imperfectly, for my parched mouth was
filled by my swollen tongue, and the blinding blood from my
ear was disfiguring my whole features. But I need not enlarge
on the mingled joys, sorrows, and sufferings of that day's terrible
journey. Having been thus scourged from town to town
by a succession of remorseless officers, we arrived, near nightfall,
at the southern border of the colony; when, with a parting
lash and a bitter anathema, we were told to go to the land
of heretics where we belonged, and never show our faces
again, unless we wished to swing on the gallows.

“As soon as this last rude official, who now wheeled his horse
and rode off, was out of sight, we involuntarily dropped down,
in our fatigue and perplexities, upon a rock by the wayside,
and, with our heads on each other's shoulders, truly, as the
Scripture hath it, lifted up our voices and wept. We then,
after mingling our tears awhile, and comforting each other as
we best could, united in a heartfelt supplication to heaven, for
support and guidance in our unprotected, homeless, friendless
condition. After this, we rose much comforted, calmed, and
trusting, and instinctively bent our steps towards Providence,

then as now, the city of refuge for the oppressed. Arriving
there by daylight, we presented ourselves to friend Roger
Williams, then Governor, and rejoicing in the new freedom
charter of the whole Narraganset province, which, after so
much labor, he had just obtained from England. He received
us kindly, ordered refreshments, and then taking a seat beside
us, listened to our story.

“`Poor martyrs of soul liberty!' he exclaimed, with tears
starting from his eyes, as we finished our story. `I welcome
you both to our conscience-free plantations. But you must
be assisted. Let me see—there is a tract of land large enough
for several good farms, on the west shore of Aquidneck, that
have not been appropriated. Your unusual sufferings for
conscience' sake, entitle you to the best one. You shall have it.'

“He then hurried off, and in a few minutes returning with a
freshly written deed—yea, of this very farm, handed it to us
for perusal, and keeping. My Nathan read it and hesitated,
saying he could not pay for so much land.

“`Pay?' said the good man, rebukingly. `Do you think
the Lord placed me here with the means and power, after he
had so sorely tried me, for any worse purpose than to give
free homes to the persecuted? Talk no more of pay, but go
to your granted home and improve your talent in peace. But
children,' he added, after a thoughtful pause, `you are not
married. I am a minister—no formal bans are necessary—it
can be done before me, and here on the spot; so rise, my
children, and be joined in marriage.'

“At this, we both hesitated. The thought of such an event
just then, being so unexpected—so strange, and making such
a crowning of that sad day's adventures! But friend Williams
thinking it would be best, under the circumstances, we
yielded, stood up, and were duly married. After remaining
in Providence a few days, we came here to our farm, built a
temporary house, and went to cultivating the soil. My husband

diligently followed his avocation that year and the next,
with none but brief absences.

“But on the approach of the second winter, as he had decided
to build a better house the next season, and as he still had
property in Massachusetts, which might be sold for enough
to aid him greatly in building, he made a journey, with that
view, to his old home. Not knowing the fact, which, to his
sorrow, he soon ascertained, that a decree of banishment had,
at the time of our leaving, been issued against him also, he
had not thought of meeting with any molestation. But although,
being a prudent man, he had never declared his belief
there, or done aught to manifest it, save the part he took
while coming off with me, yet he was at once arrested on his
arrival as a returned Quaker, and, without being allowed any
hearing, thrown into prison. And here he was kept in a cold
damp cell, through that whole long and dreary winter, during
which he contracted an inflammatory disease, from which he
never fully recovered. Early in the spring, however, through
the exertions of friends, who made intercession for him on the
ground that he had returned in ignorance of the decree, they
at last reluctantly released him, and, on account of his infirmities,
graciously allowed him to depart without the usual
scourging on the way.

“Such is my poor story,” added the Quakeress in conclusion.
“The people and rulers of my native colony have
caused me very many, and very sore afflictions; but I forgive
them for all; they knew not what they did.”

The invalid, who had listened with deep interest and varying
emotions to the simple and touching recital of the Quakeress,
failed not to express, what, in view of some of his own
experiences, he the more sensibly felt, a warm sympathy for
her in her trials and afflictions. Nor did he hesitate to openly
and strongly inveigh against the blinded bigots who had

caused her trouble. But although the forbearing woman evidently
felt the force of his remarks, yet she could not be
brought to join him in any words of condemnation, and “it
is not for me to judge them,” was her only response; for, in
common with all her remarkable sect,

Still he had evidently by his kind words and frank declarations,
which she had hardly expected of one from the colonies
from which she had been driven, touched a chord in her feelings
which greatly raised him in her regard; which made him,
indeed, henceforth doubly a favorite in the family, and caused
the days of his convalescence to pass pleasantly away. And
from that time, that convalescence became as rapid as it was
thus made pleasant. Within four days from the recovery of
his consciousness, he was able to leave his bed, and sat up for
hours at a time—within a week, to walk about the house and
yard, and, in less than another, to go abroad for short excursions
along the shores of the bay, or into the woods with his
rifle, which, together with his valued sword, he was gratified
to find, had been carefully preserved and brought along with
him to that place.

Up to this time he had taken but little thought about leaving
his pleasant quarters. He was growing restless, indeed,
with his returning vigor of health; but it was far less any
matter of public than private concernment that caused his
uneasiness. It was the mysteries attending his late singular
capture, connected, as he now more than ever felt them somehow
to be, with those still enveloping the fate of his long
lost Madian, which now chiefly occupied his mind, and which
he was intently but vainly casting about him for the means

of solving. Independent of this object of his solicitude, he
had formed no definite plans in regard to his own future
movements: for, smarting, as he was, under a keen sense of
neglect and contumely shown him by the colonial authorities,
as his only reward for all his services and sufferings, he felt
little inclined to trouble them any further with his presence;
and he was beginning to make up his mind to settle down
somewhere among the quiet people with whom his last lot
seemed so strangely to have been cast. But events were now at
hand which were suddenly to rouse him from his indifference
and change the whole current of his thoughts towards a happier
and more important consummation. The Quakeress had
the week before despatched her son to apprise the doctor of
his patient's rapid recovery; and she had been for some days
wondering why her communication had not led, as she had
understood it would, to visits from the friends of the latter;
when, one evening after dark, as the family were all sitting
within, chatting together, they were startled by a loud and
heavy rapping at the door.

“That must be a rough customer,” said Willis, rising,
“let me go, Mrs. Minturn, and ascertain what the man would
have.”

Accordingly he proceeded to the outer door, carelessly threw
it open, and came to a stand on the threshold; when he discovered
the outlines of a stout, burly man sitting on a horse
before him, but there was not light enough for any personal
recognitions, and for a moment there was a dead pause on
both sides. The silence, however, was quickly broken by the
new comer, who, in a doubtful, grum, heavy tone, said—

“Can you inform me, friend, of the whereabouts of a certain
runaway dead man, once considerable of a creature,
passing under the name of Vane Willis?”

“Is not this Captain Mosely?” hesitatingly asked Willis,

without replying to the rough, unceremonious question. “It
must be, I think—ay, it can be no other.”

“Not very well, I fancy,” responded the other; “and now
I hear your voice, I know what I half suspected at first—that
I am talking to the very chap I am after—have found at last,
and now see, thank Heaven! standing like a well man, square
on his feet before me.”

“Captain Mosely,” rejoined the former, “I am as glad as
I am surprised to see you. Alight, sir,—alight and walk
in.”

“Ay, to be sure, I will; for I have no notion of letting you
slip through my fingers this time,” said Mosely, dismounting
and following his gratified friend into the house.

“This is Captain Mosely from Massachusetts, Mrs. Minturn,”
said Willis as he ushered him into the room.

“He is one of thy friends—is he?” said the Quakeress.

“Ay, and a most valued one.

“He shall be considered one of ours then; friend Mosely,
I bid thee a kind welcome to my house and such poor fare as
it may afford. George Fox, take care of friend Mosely's
horse; and thee Mary Dyer, come, stir thyself, and we will try
to make good our words of welcome by preparing something
acceptable in the way of supper.”

“Now I like that!” exclaimed the off hand captain, taken
aback by the words and manner of the Quakeress. “It sounds
hearty. I thought the Quakers never paid any attention to
politeness; but hang me, if there an't more of the quintessence
of politeness in these few words she has just spoken
here, than in all the fine phrases I ever heard at a Boston
dinner table! Captain Willis, I don't wonder at your safe
recovery in such keeping.”

When these word-tokens of mutual, amicable, and happy
feeling, had been thus pleasantly exchanged, Willis and
Mosely retired to the private apartment of the former, for the

double purpose of more freedom of conversation, and of relieving
the females of their restraining presence during the hospitable
preparations of the kitchen.

“Now, Captain Mosely,” said Willis, as the two became
seated, “now for the news from the colonies—the progress of
the war, and all. Your coming has re-awakened something like
the old interest which I used to feel, but which I thought I
should never feel again, in their public affairs there.”

“News?—Progress of the war?” exclaimed Mosely, with
a look of surprise. “Why, don't you know, Willis? Hav'n't
they told you what has been happening the past winter?”

“No, how should I? From the night of that desperate
swamp fight, which closed over me in a swoon from loss of
blood from wounds, which I was hardly aware I had received,
I have known nothing distinctly till within the last fortnight.
And since then, I have scarcely felt interest enough in events
abroad to enquire. And if I had enquired, it would not have
availed me in this secluded family of Quakers, who never
enquire or talk about the events of war. No others have I
seen to enquire of, except the doctor; and him I only indistinctly
remember, as he discontinued his visits about the time
I fairly came to myself, and so managed, as I began to suspect,
that I should not immediately have any other visitors.”

“Ay, very likely—a queer old stick, that doctor. It was
he who wrote to a friend of mine, giving us the first news
we had of you, whom, as you were not to be found when we
retreated, we supposed to have been killed and dragged off,
or taken prisoner and then killed, and in coming into this
section, as I immediately did, I had to go to this doctor
for directions to the place where you might be found.”

“Ah! Then it would seem he has been keeping up a sort
of supervision over me, during my convalescence, and chose
his own time when I should come into the world again. Well,
he may have jndged correctly. At all events, it has been a

matter of indifference with me. But to the news you were
about to tell me.”

“The news, I am sorry to tell you, Willis, goes to make up
a sad and gloomy tale. The events of the war since I saw
you, present an almost unvarying picture of blood, plunder,
and conflagration. Our wicked assault on the Narraganset
village, and our indiscriminate massacre there, as dear as it
cost the Indians, cost us still dearer. Every tribe in the
country seemed to make common cause with the survivors, in
the work of revenge. They were before that time, simply
ordinary enemies, since then they have been infuriated fiends.
As we slew unoffending women and children at that battle;
so they, in turn, have spared neither age nor sex in their subsequent
warfare upon us. The villages of Lancaster, Medfield,
Groton, Warwick, Marlboro, Bridgewater, Sudbury, and Scituate,
have been successively sacked and laid in ashes, and
large portions of their inhabitants made victims of the bullet
and tomahawk; while the scattered settlements of nearly the
whole frontier of Massachusetts have shared the same melancholy
fate. It has seemed as if all hell had been let loose upon
our devoted colonies.”

“But our troops—where have been our troops in the meanwhile?”
exclaimed the astonished and horrified young officer.

“They have been everywhere—ay, and everywhere on the
chase after the enemy. But it has all amounted to little or
nothing. We would hear of them concentrating in large
numbers to assault some particular town, and we would make
a forced march for the place. But when we arrived, the mischief
was done, and the red devils were off to emerge from
their fastnesses, two days after, perhaps to bring the same
doom on some other equally unprepared town fifty miles off in
an opposite direction. And even when we were lucky enough
to come across, and engage any of their roving bands, they
have, I am ashamed to say, generally succeeded, by their ambushes,

traps, and other devices of their devilish cunning, in
killing two of our numbers where we killed one of theirs.
They are, however, giving us a little respite just now, having
gone, it is thought, over to Connecticut river. But they will
probably soon be back upon us again, and in larger force than
ever. In short, matters look rather squally for us, I can
assure you, friend Willis. We must have you in the field
again.”

“I am in no condition to take the field at present, Captain
Mosely; and besides that I have resolved never to enter the
service again without a commission. I have already fought
and suffered enough for one who is to receive scorn and neglect
as the only reward for his perilous services. You know the
part I took in the swamp-fight, and how I was then treated.”

“Ay, and I know also, that but for your masterly movement
in gaining the island and assailing the foe in the rear,
that victory, if victory it could be called, had never been won.
And I further know your gallant achievments, on that terrible
day, have in no way been noticed by our bigot-blind superiors.
The people, however, I find, understand it. And your reward,
brought about by their clamors in your behalf, cannot be, I
think, far distant. But enough of this. I will now hear, as
far as you could know them, the circumstances of your mishap
in the battle, capture, manner of getting out of the woods to
this place, and recovery The old doctor gave me some
vague and mystified hints about it; but I want to hear it from
you.”

Accordingly Captain Willis proceeded to relate all, with
which our readers have been made acquainted, respecting the
singular occurrences embraced within the scope of the other's
enquiry; when, as the two, both almost equally in the dark
respecting the mysteries in which the whole subject was still
involved, were discussing the probable character of the
stranger, and the motives which could have actuated him in

his friendly, liberal, but extraordinary and unaccountable
course and conduct towards an entire stranger, and before they
could hit upon anything that looked like even a probable solution,
their conversation was interrupted by a new and unexpected
arrival.

“Friend Willis,” said the Quakeress, gently throwing open
the door, “there is a youngerly red man here, who desires to
see thee; but both of thee had better come out now, as our
supper is nearly ready.”

Casting at each other looks of inquiry, slightly mingled with
surprise, the officers at once rose, and, without remark followed
their hostess into the kitchen.

“That is friend Willis,” said the Quakeress, pointing to the
younger officer, while directing her words to a young Indian,
who stood near the outerly entrance, demurely looking down
upon the floor; but who, thereupon, with a keen glance at
the person indicated, advanced a step, and held out a letter.

Captain Willis, with a look of lively interest came forward,
took the letter, at once opened it, and, after glancing over the
contents, and hesitating a moment, read aloud,

“There! by the George, Willis,” exclaimed Mosely, slapping
the other on the shoulder, “in that short and sweet epistle,
I see the spot where the light is to come from out of
that cloud of mist and mystery, we were just bothering
about.”

“Then you would advise me to go there, would you?”

“To be sure I would—there is a meaning in this queer
affair.”

“When, and how would you go, Mosely?”

“To-morrow, and with me. I came by way of Providence
—left my horse there—came down in a little schooner, which
returns to-morrow from Newport, where I landed and took
horse hither. You are well enough for the trip, and will be
in a fever till you know what is to come out of the business.
Yes, go with me to-morrow; I will stop in that town till you can
tell me something of the discoveries you may make; for I'll
be whipped if I ain't getting to feel as curious about it as a
little girl over a riddle.”

“I will do it, Captain Mosely,” responded the other cheerily;
“so we will call it settled.”

“But art thou to leave us, then, to-morrow morning, friend
Willis?” asked the Quakeress, with visible emotion.

“It would seem so, my good lady,” replied the young officer,
tenderly.

“Then to-morrow will be the saddest day we have had this
long time,” responded the Quakeress with starting tears.

“Oh, it is not for a final separation, I trust, my kindest of
friends,” rejoined the other, feelingly. “Oh, no! I can
never forget this family—no, never; and however the journey
contemplated now, may turn out, I shall often visit the peaceful
abode where I have been placed under so many obligations.
But I must have a word with the messenger,” he
added, turning to the Indian. “When do you return to Providence,
my red friend?”

“Part way—up, long four, three mile, where left canoe, to-night,
may be—rest part way, next sun—morrow morning.”

“Well, as you will doubtless get to Providence first, you
may tell the man who sent you here, that I shall probably
reach there some time to-morrow afternoon.”

“Yas. Me go, now,” said the native, turning to depart.

“Nay, nay, red friend,” interposed the kind Quakeress,

“thou must not go till thou hast had some food. Come, we
are about to take supper, and, if these gentlemen here don't
object, we will give thee a seat with us at the table. The
Lord, according to our creed,” she added, addressing the
readily consenting officers, as they all now seated themselves
round the well loaded board—“The Lord created all men
equal, whatever their race or color; and it is not for us, his
poor creatures, to be the first to set up distinctions.”