“Yes, yes; but you must tell me honestly, what you came here for to-day, and who sent you, my lad?”
“Why, dad sent me to sell the apples, 'cause he wants the money to buy some rye with. But I've been all round, and aint sell'd half, they kept bothering me so. And now its time to go hum, and nobody won't buy 'em!” said the speaker, with a doleful tone, and evident signs of snivelling.
“Well, well, my honest lad,” responded the commiserating and now satisfied officer; don't mind it—nobody wants to harm you. There is half a crown to pay you for my part of the bothering.
“Why, you going to buy 'em all?” eagerly asked the other, as, with a grin of delight, he clutched the precious metal.
“No, no,” said the former, kindly. “I don't wish for any of your apples—they are too green, though they may do for cooking. You would be most likely to sell them in some of these houses.”
“Well, now, I vown! I never thought of that! jest's likely's not I mought, you!” exclaimed the fellow, brightening up. “Good mind to go right straight into this ere house and try it—will, by golly!” he added, leaping nimbly from his pony, swinging his panniers on his arm, and hurrying off round for the back door.
“Don't molest the poor simpleton any more, but disperse to your quarters,” said the officer, now waving his ratan to the scattering crowd, and resuming his walk up the street.
Waiting no longer than to hear this order, and see that it was about to be obeyed by the crowd, Sabrey hurried down to the kitchen, where she encountered the object of her solicitude standing within the door, holding up the half crown between the fingers of one hand, and snapping those of the other, with a look that needed no interpreting.
“Your disguise, Bart,” said the maiden, looking at the other with a smile—“your disguise is so perfect, or rather, the new character, in which you this time appear, has been so well acted, that had it not been the afternoon you set for your third appearance, I should have never known you. I think you make a better Quaker boy than you did a crazy man last time, or buffoon and tumbler the first one. But what have you been able to gather, to-day?”
“Pretty much all that's afoot, guess. The movement on Bennington is begun. Peters's corps of tories and Indians have gone on to Cambridge; and he, who is off to the lake, to-day, to consult with Skene and others about the expedition, is to follow some time to-morrow, as is the German regiment picked out to the service. Got at it all, think?”