THE FIRST REMOVE
Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded
and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies. About a mile we went that night,
up upon a hill within sight of the town, where they intended to lodge. There was hard by
a vacant house (deserted by the English before, for fear of the Indians). I asked them
whether I might not lodge in the house that night, to which they answered, "What, will
you love English men still?" This was the dolefulest night that ever my eyes saw. Oh the
roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night,
which made the place a lively resemblance of hell. And as miserable was the waste that
was there made of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, calves, lambs, roasting pigs, and fowl
(which they had plundered in the town), some roasting, some lying and burning, and
some boiling to feed our merciless enemies; who were joyful enough, though we were
disconsolate. To add to the dolefulness of the former day, and the dismalness of the
present night, my thoughts ran upon my losses and sad bereaved condition. All was
gone, my husband gone (at least separated from me, he being in the Bay; and to add to
my grief, the Indians told me they would kill him as he came homeward), my children
gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home and all our comforts—within
door and without—all was gone (except my life), and I knew not but the next moment
that might go too. There remained nothing to me but one poor wounded babe, and it
seemed at present worse than death that it was in such a pitiful condition, bespeaking
compassion, and I had no refreshing for it, nor suitable things to revive it. Little do many
think what is the savageness and brutishness of this barbarous enemy, Ay, even those
that seem to profess more than others among them, when the English have fallen into
their hands.
Those seven that were killed at Lancaster the summer before upon a Sabbath
day, and the one that was afterward killed upon a weekday, were slain and mangled in
a barbarous manner, by one-eyed John, and Marlborough's Praying Indians, which
Capt. Mosely brought to Boston, as the Indians told me.