'Twas sixteen miles to Schenectady, and night had fallen when we hailed the gate for admission. There was a parley between Corlaer and the watch before we were admitted, but in the end the huge balks of timber creaked open just wide enough for us to squeeze through.
"You are cautious, friend," I said to the gatekeeper as I set my shoulder beside his and helped him shut the gate.
"And you are a stranger, my master," he retorted, "or you would never think it strange for Schenectady folk to use caution."
"How is that?" I asked.
And he told me in few words and simply how Monsieur d'Erville had surprized the town in his father's time and massacred the inhabitants.
"But now you have peace," I objected.
He looked at me suspiciously.
"Are you a friend of Andrew Murray?" he asked.
"Anything but that."
"Then talk not of peace, sir. Peace here will last until the French and their savages are ready to strike. No longer. It may be tonight. It may not be for twenty years—if we see to it that the French do not thrive at our expense."