But Barney stuffed his napkin into his mouth in order to stop his laughter.
Three days later a clean-shaven, bright-cheeked, young dandy stepped into a post chaise, at midnight, and drove off to Exeter. At Plymouth gate the conveyance was stopped; a lantern was thrust into the black interior; and the keen eyes of the guard scanned the visages of those within:
“He’s not here,” growled the watchman, lowering the light. “Drive on!”
Thus Joshua Barney rolled on to home and freedom, while the stout-bodied soldier little guessed that the artful privateersman had slipped through his fingers like water through a sieve.
Two months later—in the autumn of 1781—Joshua Barney: fighter, privateer, liar and fugitive, walked down the quiet streets of Beverly, Massachusetts, and a little fish-monger’s son whispered to his companions,
“Say, Boys! That feller is a Jim Dandy. He’s been through more’n we’ll ever see. Say! He’s a regular Scorcher!”
Many months later—when the Revolutionary War had ended—the good ship General Washington lay in Plymouth Harbor on the south coast of England. Her commander—Captain Joshua Barney—gazed contentedly at the Stars and Stripes as they flew jauntily from the mizzen-mast, and then walked to the rail, as a group of British officers came over the side. But there was one among these guests who was not an officer. He was bent, old, weather-beaten; and his dress showed him to be a tiller and worker of the soil. It was the aged and faithful gardener of Lord Mount-Edgecumbe.
“You remember me?” cried the genial American, grasping the honest servant by the hand.
The gardener’s eyes were alight with pleasure.