CHAPTER III.

"Thou art my good youth, my page;

I'll be thy master: walk with me, speak freely."

Cymbeline.

THE apartment in which Ruth had directed the children to be placed, was in the attic, and, as already stated, on the side of the building which faced the stream that ran at the foot of the hill. It had a single projecting window, through which there was a view of the forest, and of the fields on that side of the valley. Small openings in its sides, admitted also of

glimpses of the grounds which lay further in

the rear. In addition to the covering of the roofs, and of the massive frame-work of the building, an interior partition of timber protected the place against the entrance of most missiles then known in the warfare of the country. During the infancy of the children, this room had been their sleeping apartment; nor was it abandoned for that purpose, until the additional outworks, which increased with time around the dwellings, had emboldened the family to trust themselves, at night, in situations more convenient, and which were believed to be no less equally secure against surprise.

"I know thee to be one who feeleth the obligations of a warrior," said Ruth, as she ushered her follower into the presence of the children. "Thou wilt not deceive me; the lives of these tender ones are in thy keeping. Look to them, Miantonimoh, and the Christian's God will remember thee in thine own hour of necessity!"

The boy made no reply, but in a gentle expression which was visible in his dark visage, the mother endeavoured to find the pledge she sought. Then, as the youth, with the delicacy of his race, moved aside, in order that they who were bound to each other by ties so near, might indulge their feelings without observation, Ruth again drew near her offspring, with all the tenderness of a mother beaming in her eyes.

66 Once more I bid thee not to look too curiously at the fearful strife that may arise in front of our habitations," she said. "The heathen is truly upon us, with bloody mind; young, as well as old, must now show faith in the protection of our Master, and such courage as befitteth believers."

"And why is it, mother," demanded her child, "that they seek to do us harm? Have we ever done evil to them ?"

"I may not say. He that hath made the earth, hath given it to us for our uses; and reason would seem to teach that if portions of

its surface are vacant, he that needeth truly, may occupy."

"The savage!" whispered the child, nestling still nearer to the bosom of her stooping parent. "His eye glittereth like the star which hangs above the trees."

66

Peace, daughter; his fierce nature broodeth over some fancied wrong!"

"Surely, we are here rightfully.

heard my father say,

I have

that when the Lord

made me a present to his arms, our valley was a tangled forest, and that much toil only has made it as it is."

"I hope that what we enjoy, we enjoy rightfully; and yet it seemeth that the savage is ready to deny our claims."

"And where do these bloody enemies dwell? Have they, too, valleys like this, and do the Christians break into them to shed blood in the night?"

They are of wild and fierce habits, Ruth, and little do they know of our manner of life.

Woman is not cherished as among the people

of thy father's race, for force of body is more regarded than kinder ties."

The little auditor shuddered, and when she buried her face deeper in the bosom of her parent, it was with a more quickened sense of maternal affection, and with a livelier view than her infant perception had ever yet known, of the gentle charities of kindred. When she had spoken, the matron impressed the final kiss on the forehead of each of the children, and asking aloud that God might bless them, she turned to go to the performance of duties that called for the exhibition of very different qualities. Before quitting the room, however, she once more approached the boy, and holding the light before his steady eye, she said solemnly

"I trust my babes to the keeping of a young warrior!"

The look he returned was like the others, cold but not discouraging. A gaze of many moments elicited no reply, and Ruth prepared