“Boy, you are not deceiving me? You never deceived anybody. And what a heart you must have to come here to protect an old man like me, who said to you, ‘Out you go!’ And you have held no hardness against me—I have cursed you—because you have turned against the King. Come in—sit down—I am afraid. You don’t think that the Indian meant to rob me, do you?”
“I think he intended to find you in the night and beg money, and if you refused him to demand money, and if you refused him, then to find out where you hid money. If I had not turned him aside, I don’t believe that you would have been living in the morning. Bad Indians murder lone men by lonely ways. There was crime in his eye.”
“Boy, let me bar the door. I know your heart. You had a mother who had a true heart, and a boy’s heart is his mother’s heart. You only come here for a good purpose. I know that. And you have come in to-night to protect me, who turned you out.
“Boy, I have money. I am willing to tell you now where it is!”
“But, uncle, I am not seeking your money—I do not wish to know where it is.”
“But you must—you must; you are the only friend that I have on earth. What made me say, ‘Out you go!’ when I needed you?
“The money—if ever I should die, do you come back here and take all I leave, and wash and wash and wash until you find the bottom of the soap-barrel. There, I haven’t told you anything. People don’t hide money in the soap-barrel—no, no; lye eats—no, no. You know enough now. Will you stay with me until morning?”
“No; I have come to take you to the war office, for protection—to the store. One room there is almost always open.”
“To the Governor’s! He suspects me of being a Tory. What would the King say, if he were to know that I went to the rebel Governor for protection? No, no, no, no. Let the Indians kill me—I will die true to my king. You may go—you will not betray me.”
“I can not leave you until morning, and then I will see that you are guarded.”