`` Get you down , woman , from the holy place which you profane , '' he said , `` Is it to the Lord 's house that you come to pour forth the foulness of your heart and the inspiration of the devil ? Get you down , and remember that the sentence of death is on you -- yea , and shall be executed , were it but for this day 's work . '' `` I go , friend , I go , for the voice hath had its utterance , '' replied she , in a depressed , and even mild , tone . `` I have done my mission unto thee and to thy people ; reward me with stripes , imprisonment or death , as ye shall be permitted . '' The weakness of exhausted passion caused her steps to totter as she descended the pulpit stairs . The people , in the mean while , were stirring to and fro on the floor of the house , whispering among themselves and glancing toward the intruder . Many of them now recognized her as the woman who had assaulted the governor with frightful language as he passed by the window of her prison ; they knew , also , that she was adjudged to suffer death , and had been preserved only by an involuntary banishment into the wilderness . The new outrage by which she had provoked her fate seemed to render further lenity impossible , and a gentleman in military dress , with a stout man of inferior rank , drew toward the door of the meetinghouse and awaited her approach . Scarcely did her feet press the floor , however , when an unexpected scene occurred . In that moment of her peril , when every eye frowned with death , a little timid boy threw his arms round his mother . `` I am here , mother ; it is I , and I will go with thee to prison , '' he exclaimed . She gazed at him with a doubtful and almost frightened expression , for she knew that the boy had been cast out to perish , and she had not hoped to see his face again . She feared , perhaps , that it was but one of the happy visions with which her excited fancy had often deceived her in the solitude of the desert or in prison ; but when she felt his hand warm within her own and heard his little eloquence of childish love , she began to know that she was yet a mother . `` Blessed art thou , my son ! '' she sobbed . `` My heart was withered -- yea , dead with thee and with thy father -- and now it leaps as in the first moment when I pressed thee to my bosom . '' She knelt down and embraced him again and again , while the joy that could find no words expressed itself in broken accents , like the bubbles gushing up to vanish at the surface of a deep fountain . The sorrows of past years and the darker peril that was nigh cast not a shadow on the brightness of that fleeting moment . Soon , however , the spectators saw a change upon her face as the consciousness of her sad estate returned , and grief supplied the fount of tears which joy had opened . By the words she uttered it would seem that the indulgence of natural love had given her mind a momentary sense of its errors , and made her know how far she had strayed from duty in following the dictates of a wild fanaticism .
`` In a doleful hour art thou XXXXX to me , poor boy , '' she said , `` for thy mother 's path has gone darkening onward , till now the end is death .
am felt gushing perish permitted provoked remember returned threw uttered