Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/16

4 David. “The sky is far less red, I think.”

“Maybe ’tis but a wild-goose chase we go on,” replied his father, “and yet ’tis best  to go. David, do you slip down and set out the muskets and see that there be ammunition to hand. Doubtless in time this jabbering knave will be clothed.”

“I be ready now, master! And as for jabbering—”

“Cease, cease, and get you down!”

A .minute or two later David watched their forms melt into the darkness beyond  the barn. Then, closing the door, he shot home the heavy iron bolt and dropped the  stout oak bar as well. In the wide chimney-place a few live embers glowed amidst the gray ashes and he coaxed them to life with  the bellows and dropped splinters of resinous  pine upon them until a cheery fire was crackling there. Then, rubbing out the lighted knot against the stones of the hearth, he drew  a bench to the blaze and warmed himself,  for the night, although May was a week old,  was chill.

The room, which took up the whole lower floor of the house, was nearly square, perhaps six paces one way by seven the other. The ceiling was low, so low that Nathan