Rising, he bent and patted the little maid’s cheek. “Take these beads, dear child, and forget not what I telled you, while I am gone to Boston Town. Yet, wait, what is your name?” “Deliverance Wentworth,” she answered. With confidence inspired anew by the kindly face, she added, “I have a brother in Boston Town, who be a Fellow o’ Harvard. Should ye hap to cross his path, might ye be pleased to give him my dutiful love? He be all for learning, and carries a mighty head on young shoulders.” Then with another courtesy she turned and fled fearfully along the path, for the red of the sunset had vanished. Far, far above her gleamed two or three pale silver stars. The gloom of twilight was rising thickly in the forest. Bushes stretched out goblin arms to her as she passed them. The rustling leaves were the whisperings of wizards, beseeching her to come to them. A distant stump was a witch bending over to gather poisonous herbs. At last she reached her home. A flower-bordered walk led to the door. The yard was shut in by a low stone wall. The afterglow, still lingering on the peaked gables of the house, was reflected in the diamond-paned windows and on the knocker on the front door. There was no sign of life. Save for the spotless neatness which marked all, the place had a sombre and uninhabitable air, as if the forest, pressing so closely upon the modest farmstead, flung over it somewhat of its own gloom and sadness. Deliverance hesitated a moment at the gate. Her fear of the witches was great, but—she glanced at the gold beads. “I will say a prayer all the way,” she murmured, and ran swiftly along the path a goodly distance, then crossed a belt of woods, pausing neither in running nor in prayerful words, until she reached a hollow oak. In it Deliverance placed the beads wrapped in their bit of silk. “For,” she reasoned, “if father, though I be no so afeared o’ father, but if Goodwife Higgins set her sharp eyes on them, I should have a most awesome, weary time with her trying to find out where I got them.” She was not far from the sea and she could see the tide coming in, a line of silver light breaking into foam. Passing along the path which led to Boston Town, she saw the portly figure of the Cavalier, the rich colours of his dress faintly to be descried. An Indian guide had joined him. Both men were on foot. Deliverance, forgetful of the witches, the darkening night, watched the travellers as long as she could see them against the silver sea. At a fordways the Cavalier paused, and the Indian stooped and took him on his back. This glimpse of her merry acquaintance, being thus carried pickapack across the stream, was the last glimpse she had of him for many days to follow. Once she thought he waved his hand to her as he turned his head and glanced behind him. In this she was mistaken. He could not have seen the demure figure of the little Puritan maiden, standing in the deep dusk of the forest edge. Chapter II Sir Jonathan’s Warning