He dooth retain my soule for His name’s sake
inn paths of justice leads-mee-quietly.
Yea, though I walke inn dale of deadly-shade
He feare none yll, for with mee Thou wilt bee
Thy rod, thy staff, eke they shall comfort mee.”
Abigail walked rapidly, glad to leave the little hut and its lonely inmate far behind.
The night was upon her. Where could she seek safety? Her anxiety increased as the shadows deepened.
Alarmed, she looked around her for the safest place in which to pass the night. At first she thought of sleeping near the sea, on the warm sands. But she could not find her way out of the woods. Suddenly, on the edge of a marsh, she spied a deserted Indian wigwam. Near by were the ashes of recent fires, and a hole in the ground revealed that the store of corn once buried there had been dug up and used. Into this wigwam she crept for protection. Terrified, she watched the night descend on the marsh, which, had she but known it, was a refuge for all gentle and harmless animals and birds. Fallen trees were covered with moss, the lovely maiden-hair fern, lichens, and gorgeous fungi. The purple flag, and the wild crab, and plum trees grew here, as well as the slender red osiers, out of which the Indian women made baskets. Ere twilight had entirely vanished, Abigail saw brilliantly plumaged birds flying back to the marsh for the night. A fox darted into the dusk past the wigwam. To her, nothing in all this was beautiful. Crouched in the wigwam, she saw through the opening white birches, like ghosts beckoning her. A wild yellow canary, with a circling motion, dropped into its nest. Abigail shuddered and breathed a prayer against witchery. Will-o’-the-wisps flashed and vanished like breaths of flame, and she thought they were the lanterns of witches out searching for human souls.
As night now settled in good earnest, a stouter heart than this little Puritan maiden’s would have quailed. The terrible howling of wolves arose, mingling with the mournful tu-whit-tu-whoo of the owls and the croaking of the bull-frogs. She was in constant dread lest she might be spied upon by Indians, who, according to the Puritan teachings, were the last of a lost race, brought to America by Satan, that he might rule them in the wilderness, undisturbed by any Christian endeavours to convert them.