“One never knows that, dearest Hugh.  A marauding party of half-a-dozen might prove too much for many times their own number, when unprepared.  I do hope you will have the gates hung, at least; should the girls come here, in the autumn, I could not sleep without hanging the gates.”

“Fear nothing, love,” said the captain, kissing his wife with manly tenderness.  “As for Beulah and Maud, let them come when they please; we shall always have a welcome for them, and no place can be safer than under their father’s eyes.”

“I care not so much for myself, Hugh, but do not let the gates be forgotten until the girls come.”

“Everything shall be done as you desire, wife of mine, though it will be a hard job to get two such confounded heavy loads of wood on their hinges.  We must take some day when everybody is at home, and everybody willing to work.  Saturday next, I intend to have a review; and, once a month, the year round, there will be a muster, when all the arms are to be cleaned and loaded, and orders given how to act in case of an alarm.  An old soldier would be disgraced to allow himself to be run down by mere vagabonds.  My pride is concerned, and you may sleep in peace.”

“Yes, do, dearest Hugh.”—­Then the matron proceeded through the rooms, expressing her satisfaction at the care which had been had for her comfort, in her own rooms in particular.

Sooth to say, the interior of the hut presented that odd contrast between civilization and rude expedients, which so frequently occurs on an American frontier, where persons educated in refinement often find themselves brought in close collision with savage life.  Carpets, in America, and in the year of our Lord 1765, were not quite as much a matter of course in domestic economy, as they are to-day.  Still they were to be found, though it was rare, indeed, that they covered more than the centre of the room.  One of these great essentials, without which no place can appear comfortable in a cold climate, was spread on the floor of Mrs. Willoughby’s parlour—­a room that served for both eating and as a sala, the Knight’s Hall of the Hut, measuring twenty by twenty-four feet—­though in fact this carpet concealed exactly two-thirds of the white clean plank.  Then the chairs were massive and even rich, while one might see his face in the dark mahogany of the tables.  There were cellarets—­the captain being a connoisseur in wines—­ bureaus, secretaries, beaufets, and other similar articles, that had been collected in the course of twenty years’ housekeeping, and scattered at different posts, were collected, and brought hither by means of sledges, and the facilities of the water-courses.  Fashion had little to do with furniture, in that simple age, when the son did not hesitate to wear even the clothes of the father, years and years after the tailor had taken leave of them.  Massive old furniture, in particular, lasted for generations, and our matron now saw many articles that had belonged to her grandfather assembled beneath the first roof that she could ever strictly call her own.