manner of his consort, produced some fresher impression on the mind of
Content. Instead of undoing the fastenings of the postern as he had
intended, he deliberately drew its bolts again and paused to think.

"If it produce no other benefit than to quiet thy fears, good Ruth," he
said, after a moment of reflection, "a little caution will be well repaid.
Stay you, then, here, where the hillock may be watched, while I go wake a
couple of the people. With stout Eben Dudley and experienced Reuben Ring
to back me, my father's horse may surely be stabled."

Ruth contentedly assumed a task that she was quite equal to perform with
intelligence and zeal. "Hie thee to the laborers' chambers, for I see a
light still burning in the room of those you seek," was the answer she
gave to a proposal that at least quieted the intenseness of her fears for
him in whose behalf they had so lately been excited nearly to agony.

"It shall be quickly done; nay, stand not thus openly between the beams,
wife. Thou mayst place thyself, here, at the doublings of the wood,
beneath the loop, where harm would scarcely reach thee, though shot from
artillery were to crush the timber."

With this admonition to be wary of a danger that he had so recently
affected to despise, Content departed on his errand. The two laborers he
had mentioned by name, were youths of mould and strength, and they were
well inured to toil, no less than to the particular privations and dangers
of a border life. Like most men of their years and condition, they were
practised too in the wiles of Indian cunning; and though the Province of
Connecticut, compared to other settlements, had suffered but little in
this species of murderous warfare, they both had martial feats and
perilous experiences of their own to recount, during the light labors of