I can now, Master Pettigrue, smoke my pipe in peace, without pricking up my ears at every chance rumble of a wheel or shout of a village roisterer.' 'Even had they pursued us,' said the minister stoutly, 'as long as the hand of the Lord shall shield us, why should we fear them ?' 'Aye, aye!' Saxon answered impatiently, 'but the devil prevaileth at times.

Were not the chosen people themselves overthrown and led into captivity?
How say you, Clarke ?' 'One such skirmish is enough for a day,' I remarked.

'Faith! if instead of charging us they had continued that carbine fire, we must either have come forth or been shot where we lay.' 'For that reason I forbade our friends with the muskets to answer it,' said Saxon.

'Our silence led them to think that we had but a pistol or two among us, and so brought them to charge us.

Thus our volley became the more terrifying since it was unexpected.