`` Look up , child , '' said the Puritan to Ilbrahim , whose faint head had sunk upon his shoulder ; `` there is our home . '' At the word `` home '' a thrill passed through the child 's frame , but he continued silent . A few moments brought them to the cottage door , at which the owner knocked ; for at that early period , when savages were wandering everywhere among the settlers , bolt and bar were indispensable to the security of a dwelling . The summons was answered by a bond-servant , a coarse-clad and dull-featured piece of humanity , who , after ascertaining that his master was the applicant , undid the door and held a flaring pine-knot torch to light him in . Farther back in the passageway the red blaze discovered a matronly woman , but no little crowd of children came bounding forth to greet their father 's return . As the Puritan entered he thrust aside his cloak and displayed Ilbrahim 's face to the female . `` Dorothy , here is a little outcast whom Providence hath put into our hands , '' observed he . `` Be kind to him , even as if he were of those dear ones who have departed from us . '' `` What pale and bright-eyed little boy is this , Tobias ? '' she inquired . `` Is he one whom the wilderness-folk have ravished from some Christian mother ? '' `` No , Dorothy ; this poor child is no captive from the wilderness , '' he replied . `` The heathen savage would have given him to eat of his scanty morsel and to drink of his birchen cup , but Christian men , alas ! had cast him out to die . '' Then he told her how he had found him beneath the gallows , upon his father 's grave , and how his heart had prompted him like the speaking of an inward voice to take the little outcast home and be kind unto him . He acknowledged his resolution to feed and clothe him as if he were his own child , and to afford him the instruction which should counteract the pernicious errors hitherto instilled into his infant mind . Dorothy was gifted with even a quicker tenderness than her husband , and she approved of all his doings and intentions . `` Have you a mother , dear child ? '' she inquired . The tears burst forth from his full heart as he attempted to reply , but Dorothy at length understood that he had a mother , who like the rest of her sect was a persecuted wanderer .
She had been taken from the prison a short time before , carried into the uninhabited wilderness and left to perish there XXXXX hunger or wild beasts .
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