“O Lightfoot! Lightfoot!” he exclaimed; “lucky divil that you are, not now to be sprawling and kicking, like your tory brother there in the bushes! Yes, that you are, Lightfoot; and you shall have an oat-supper to-night that would make a horse, laugh, for catching up with the rapscallion.”
“Bart!” said Woodburn, in surprise; “how did you get wind of this? But no matter. You have come too late.”
“Know it—couldn't help it, though—had other fish to fry first, that musn't cool. Captain Rose and sixteen other tory prisoners are on the road here, just below.”
“Prisoners! how? By whom taken?”
“O, Captain Barney, and Bart, and I, and Mr Stratagem and one or two others.”
“What, only three or four of you to seventeen?”
“No; I was a flanking party of ten in the bushes, and sergeant of 'em—cocked all their guns for 'em, by cocking and uncocking my own—talked for 'em all, out of seven corners of my mouth at once, and kept 'em from firing till the word, you know. We heard your firing, and called you the front-guard; and—and we took 'em—every dog of 'em.”
“Bravoes! and no fool of an exploit on your part neither, Bart, if all this is so. But are the prisoners secured? Had we not better hasten to join the escort?”
“No, two or three more came up just as I left, and there's enough now to manage in that quarter; but the advance-guard here must be kept up till we get 'em out to the groat road, lest the sneaks slink away-into the woods as they pass along the road and slip through our fingers as your smart trooper did just now. Let's see—about eight strong we will have this guard, I guess. I will be rank and file, and you shall be the officer. Come, mount! They'll be poking their heads along in sight in a moment. Ay, there they come! Advance-guard!” he now added, in a loud, commanding tone, as the slow tread of the prisoners, advancing along the devious and closely-embowered path, became audible—“advance-guard! Attention the whole! Prepare to march!—march!”
And accordingly he then, as Woodburn mounted and rode slowly on behind, commenced the enactment of his assumed part, always keeping within hearing, but never within distinct view, of the prisoners; now jabbering in as many voices as the most expert ventriloquist, and now sternly commanding, “Silence in the ranks!”—now getting up a seeming scuffle among his men, and now driving them, with thwacks and curses, to their places; and now again softening his tones and cracking jokes with his men,—Smith, Johnson, &c.,—who, in as many different tones, were heard to return various sharp and comical retorts, which raised shouts of laughter and made the forest ring with the sham merriment And thus he proceeded, to the secret amusement of the victors all if whom perfectly understood the artifice, till they emerged from the woods into the open grounds on the main road, when they were met by Major Ormsbee with a small detachment of regular soldiers. The tories were then, for the first time, permitted to know the smallness of the force that had captured them when, amidst showers of gibes and shouts of laughter, at their expense, from the Green Mountain Boys, the chapfallen creatures were wheeled into the main road, and hurried on at a lively pace to the village of Manchester, to be kept as prisoners of war, or tried as spies, as the higher authorities there should see fit to decide. [Footnote: This band of tories were, the next day after their capture, marched to Arlington, where the question was raised, and sharply discussed, whether they should be considered as prisoners of war, or tried as spies, the latter being insisted on by Mathew Lyon, and some others of the more bold and ardent friends of the American cause, who declared that Captain Rose, at least, should be tried and hung as a spy. A jury, however,—Eli Pettibone, Esq., presiding as civil magistrate,—was allowed the prisoner; when, more probably, from sympathy for the manly but misguided young officer, whom they had known as a pleasant neighbor, than from want of proof, he was acquitted as a spy, and, with the rest of his band, removed to Northampton jail as prisoner of war. Considerable favor, also, seems to have been extended to the other brothers, some of whom married into whig families, through whose influence, it is said, they retained their estates, none of the extensive Rose property being confiscated, except that of Captain Samuel Rose, which is now the residence of the Hon. J. S. Pettibone, from whom these particulars have been obtained, his father being one of the captors and his uncle the magistrate, above named.]