James did not see fit to answer this question. He looked at his father with surprise and then walked out on the porch again.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHEER.
When Enoch reached home it was pretty near night. He found his mother there, engaged in her usual occupation of reading the book, and without saying a word she put it down and got up and embraced her boy as though she had not seen him for long months.
"Why, mother, you must have thought I was in some danger," said Enoch.
"You failed, did you not?" asked his mother in reply.
"We failed from not surrounding the church as we ought to have done," said Enoch, in a discouraged tone. "They went straight through the house, hoisted the windows behind the preacher and so got away; and we never saw them at all until they were so far away that we could not catch them. There were seven of them there."
"I wanted to go out when they were firing at you but I did not dare. They must have hit some of you, of course?"
"They did not try to hit us. They just fired over our heads, and then got the schooner under way and dropped three miles down the bay. I wanted that the fellows should capture one of the sloops and go out there and take her, but they would not agree to it. Caleb is on that boat and he is in irons, too."