Captivity and Restoration | Page 8

of removing from this place, some one way,
and some another. There were now besides myself nine English
captives in this place (all of them children, except one woman). I got an
opportunity to go and take my leave of them. They being to go one way,
and I another, I asked them whether they were earnest with God for
deliverance. They told me they did as they were able, and it was some
comfort to me, that the Lord stirred up children to look to Him. The
woman, viz. goodwife Joslin, told me she should never see me again,
and that she could find in her heart to run away. I wished her not to run
away by any means, for we were near thirty miles from any English
town, and she very big with child, and had but one week to reckon, and
another child in her arms, two years old, and bad rivers there were to go
over, and we were feeble, with our poor and coarse entertainment. I had
my Bible with me, I pulled it out, and asked her whether she would
read. We opened the Bible and lighted on Psalm 27, in which Psalm we
especially took notice of that, ver. ult., "Wait on the Lord, Be of good
courage, and he shall strengthen thine Heart, wait I say on the Lord."
The Fourth Remove

And now I must part with that little company I had. Here I parted from
my daughter Mary (whom I never saw again till I saw her in Dorchester,
returned from captivity), and from four little cousins and neighbors,
some of which I never saw afterward: the Lord only knows the end of
them. Amongst them also was that poor woman before mentioned, who
came to a sad end, as some of the company told me in my travel: she
having much grief upon her spirit about her miserable condition, being
so near her time, she would be often asking the Indians to let her go
home; they not being willing to that, and yet vexed with her
importunity, gathered a great company together about her and stripped
her naked, and set her in the midst of them, and when they had sung
and danced about her (in their hellish manner) as long as they pleased
they knocked her on head, and the child in her arms with her. When
they had done that they made a fire and put them both into it, and told
the other children that were with them that if they attempted to go
home, they would serve them in like manner. The children said she did
not shed one tear, but prayed all the while. But to return to my own
journey, we traveled about half a day or little more, and came to a
desolate place in the wilderness, where there were no wigwams or
inhabitants before; we came about the middle of the afternoon to this
place, cold and wet, and snowy, and hungry, and weary, and no
refreshing for man but the cold ground to sit on, and our poor Indian
cheer.
Heart-aching thoughts here I had about my poor children, who were
scattered up and down among the wild beasts of the forest. My head
was light and dizzy (either through hunger or hard lodging, or trouble
or all together), my knees feeble, my body raw by sitting double night
and day, that I cannot express to man the affliction that lay upon my
spirit, but the Lord helped me at that time to express it to Himself. I
opened my Bible to read, and the Lord brought that precious Scripture
to me. "Thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine
eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come
again from the land of the enemy" (Jeremiah 31.16). This was a sweet
cordial to me when I was ready to faint; many and many a time have I
sat down and wept sweetly over this Scripture. At this place we
continued about four days.
The Fifth Remove

The occasion (as I thought) of their moving at this time was the English
army, it being near and following them. For they went as if they had
gone for their lives, for some considerable way, and then they made a
stop, and chose some of their stoutest men, and sent them back to hold
the English army in play whilst the rest escaped. And then, like Jehu,
they marched on furiously, with their old and with their young: some
carried their old decrepit mothers, some carried one, and some another.
Four of them carried a great Indian upon a bier; but going through a
thick wood with him, they were hindered, and could make no