"An Ireton, you say? Not little Jock, surely!"
"No, big Jock; big enough to lay you on your back, though you do have a hand as thick as a ham."
He ignored the challenge and stuck to his text. "I never thought to see the son of old Mad-bull Roger wearing a red coat," he said.
"That is nothing. Many as good a Whig as I am has been forced to wear a red coat ere this, or go barebacked. But why don't you knot the halter? In common justice you should either hang me or feed me. 'Tis hard upon noon, and I breakfasted early."
"Fall in!" said the big man; and so I was marched quickly aside from the road and into the denser thicketing of the wood. Here my captors blindfolded me, and after spinning me around to make me lose the compass points, hurried me away to their encampment which was inland from the stream, though not far, for I could still hear the distance-minished splashing of the water.
When the kerchief was pulled from my eyes I was standing in the midst of a mounted riflemen's halt-camp, face to face with a young officer wearing the uniform of the colonelcy in the North Carolina home troops. He was a handsome young fellow, with curling hair and trim side-whiskers to frame a face fine-lined and eager—the face of a gentleman well-born and well-bred.
"Captain Ireton?" he said; by which I guessed that one of my capturers had run on ahead to make report.
"The same," I replied.
"And you are the son of Mr. Justice Roger Ireton, of Appleby Hundred?"
"I have that honor."