and judging
it best not to stir abroad, as it might be compromising the safety of
both parties, without leading to any beneficial result.

The horses were unharnessed and turned out to graze, whilst Chisenhall
was disposed of in an upper chamber above one of the outhouses. His
anxiety for his friend allowed him but little rest, and often he was
on the point of issuing forth in quest of intelligence; but happily
prudence prevented him from sacrificing his own and another's life to
a vain and fruitless impatience.

During Chisenhall's concealment Marian was by no means in the same
state of idleness and inactivity. She threw on her hood and kerchief;
and a clean white apron, girt about her waist, fully displayed the
symmetry of her form. Her cloak was adjusted but with little regard to
outward show; and an hour was scarcely past ere she sallied forth, as
she was often wont, to the dwelling of Gilgal Snape, a person of great
note as a preacher and leader of the faithful in these parts. He was,
in truth, a worthy and zealous man, sincerely devoted to the cause he
espoused, and the service of his Maker--one widely distinguished from
the hypocrites and fanatics of that turbulent era, which, like our
own, produced, though in a more exaggerated form, from the stimulus
then abroad, the same rank and noxious weeds of hypocrisy and
superstition; for man, like a mathematical problem, circumstances and
conditions being the same, brings out, invariably, the same results.
No form of worship, however ludicrous or revolting, but hath its
advocates and supporters; and there is nothing which the proud mind
and unsubdued heart of man will not put forth, when that heart is made
the hot-bed of unholy and unsanctified feelings--all monstrous and
polluted things ripening, even beneath the warm and blessed sun that
revives and beautifies all else by its splendour.

Gilgal had, however, his figments and his fancies, inseparable
perchance from the times and dispositions by which they were
engendered. When men, awaking as from a dream, shaking off the deep
slumber of bigotry, but not intolerance, through the medium of their
yet unpractised sense saw "men as trees walking," regarding trivial
and unimportant objects as paramount and essential, while others,
whose nature was vital and supreme, were hardly discerned, or at best
but slightly noticed or understood;--when minds long tinctured by
superstition brought the whole of their previous habits