on the parties outside, without being yet fatigued or disabled. But at
length the upper floor became too hot, and the old man, with his wife
and daughters, retreated to the lower floor. The brothers and the tutor,
however, remained above, but doing less execution, because, when the
assailants saw the house on fire, they retreated outside the yard wall,
excepting the guard who were placed round the house, and these stood so
close to the walls that the party above had not power of injuring them,
without fully exposing their own persons at the windows.

While both parties were thus in a fearful state of suspense, the burning
roof of the house fell in on the three young men above, and immediately
buried them for ever in its destructive flames. The assailing crowds set
up a terrific shout of triumph. The floor above now began to crackle,
and so dense was the smoke below, that the old man and the woman were
in a state little short of suffocation. At last the Proctor became
desperate, and opening one of the ground windows, and taking his poor
wife by the hand, he attempted to throw himself and her out through it.
No sooner, however, had they appeared at the window, than the old man
was riddled with bullets from without, and thrown back into the now
blazing room from which he had been endeavoring to escape.

The three young men and the old man being now destroyed, a voice in the
rear of the crowd called out, in a fierce commanding them, to rescue
the women at all hazards, whereupon the sledges were applied to the
front door of the house; but while they were thus engaged, the young
women unbarred the back door, and rushing out with their mother,
uttering the most piercing shrieks, they ran into a stable which
was near, before they could be laid hold of. Here, however, the two
daughters were immediately seized on by order of the commander of the
siege, Buck English, and carried out, but not violently, until they came