"Have they not told ye? 'Tis braw news," he chuckled. "Whilst ye were on your back, General Greene led Lord Cornwallis a fine dance all across the prov—the state, I mean, crooking his finger at him and saying, 'Come on, ye led-captain of a tyrant king, and when I'm ready I'll turn and rend ye.' And by the same token, that is juist what he did the other day at Guilford Court House."
"A victory?" I would ask.
"Well, not precisely that, maybe; they're calling it a drawn battle. But I'm thinking 'tis Lord Cornwallis that's drawn. He's off to Wilmington, they say, and I'm fain to hope we've seen the last o' him and his reaving redcoats in these parts."
His words set me in a muse. I could never make out what he would be at, telling me all this. But he had an object, well-defined, and presently it showed its head.
"Ye're the laird o' the manor, now, Captain Ireton, with none to gainsay ye," he went on. "So I've come to give ye an account o' my stewardship. I made no doubt, all along, ye'd come back to your own when ye'd had your fling wi' the Old Worldies, and so I've kept tab o' the poor bit land for ye."
"Oh, you have?" said I, being so far out-brazened as to be incapable of saying more.
"I have that—every plack and bawbee. 'Tis ten years come Michaelmas since I took over the charge o' Appleby Hundred, and I'm ready to account to ye for every season's crop—when ye'll pay down the bit steward's fee."
"Truly," said I; "you are an honest man, Mr. Stair." Then, to humor him to the top of his bent: "Haphazarding a guess, now; would this accounting leave a balance in my favor, or in yours?"
He gave me a look like that of a costermonger weighing and measuring the gullibility of his customer.
"Oh, aye; I'm no saying there mightn't be a bit siller coming to me; a few hundred pounds, more or less—sterling, man, sterling; not Scots," he added hastily. And then, as if it were best to leave this nail as it was driven, he changed the subject abruptly. "I've brought ye that last will and testament ye signed," handing me the parchment. "No doubt you'll let it stand; but when the bairns come, ye'll want to be adding a codicil or two."