“What I say,” returned Silence, in a strained voice. “I have seen blotches of blood everywhere all day. The enemy will be upon us.” David laughed loudly, and Silence caught his arm. “Don’t laugh so loud,” she whispered. Then David laughed again. “You be all overwrought, sweetheart,” said he. “I have kept guard all the afternoon by the northern palisades, and I have seen not so much as a red fox on the meadow. I tell thee the French and Indians have gone back to Canada. There is no more need of fear.” “I have started all day and all last night at the sound of warwhoops,” said Silence. “Thy head is nigh turned with these troublous times, poor lass. We must cross the road now to Ensign Sheldon’s house. Come quickly, or you will perish in this cold.” “Nay, my head is not turned,” said Silence, as they hurried on over the crust; “the enemy be hiding in the forests beyond the meadows. David, they be not gone.” “And I tell thee they be gone, sweetheart. Think you not we should have seen their camp smoke had they been there? And we have had trusty scouts out. Come in, and my aunt, Hannah Sheldon, shall talk thee out of this folly.” The front windows of John Sheldon’s house were all flickering red from the hearth fire. David flung open the door, and they entered. There was such a goodly blaze from the great logs in the wide fireplace that even the shadows in the remote corners of the large keeping-room were dusky red, and the faces of all the people in the room had a clear red glow upon them. Goodwife Hannah Sheldon stood before the fire, stirring some porridge in a great pot that hung on the crane; some fair-haired children sat around a basket shelling corn, a slight young girl in a snuff-yellow gown was spinning, and an old woman in a quilted hood crouched in a corner of the fireplace, holding out her lean hands to the heat. Goodwife Sheldon turned around when the door opened. “Good-day, Mistress Silence Hoit,” she called out, and her voice was sweet, but deep like a man’s. “Draw near to the fire, for in truth you must be near perishing with the cold.” “There’ll be fire enough ere morning, I trow, to warm the whole township,” said the old woman in the corner. Her small black eyes gleamed sharply out of the gloom of her great hood; her yellow face was all drawn and puckered towards the centre of her shrewdly leering mouth. “Now you hush your croaking, Goody Crane,” cried Hannah Sheldon. “Draw the stool near to the fire for Silence, David. I cannot stop stirring, or the porridge will burn. How fares your aunt this cold weather, Silence?”