This was the case most nearly assimilated to the
situation in which Ellen now found herself; and, with flushing cheeks
and kindling eyes, the girl began to consider, and to prepare her
slender means of defence.
She posted the larger girls at the little levers that were to cast the
rocks on the assailants, the smaller were to be used more for show
than any positive service they could perform, while, like any other
leader, she reserved her own person, as a superintendent and
encourager of the whole. When these dispositions were made, she
endeavoured to await the issue, with an air of composure, that she
intended should inspire her assistants with the confidence necessary
to ensure success.
Although Ellen was vastly their superior in that spirit which emanates
from moral qualities, she was by no means the equal of the two eldest
daughters of Esther, in the important military property of
insensibility to danger. Reared in the hardihood of a migrating life,
on the skirts of society, where they had become familiarised to the
sights and dangers of the wilderness, these girls promised fairly to
become, at some future day, no less distinguished than their mother
for daring, and for that singular mixture of good and evil, which, in
a wider sphere of action, would probably have enabled the wife of the
squatter to enrol her name among the remarkable females of her time.
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