“You ask for work,” continued the Governor. “I want you to go with that man, Major, Colonel, General Putnam, and his drove of sheep to Boston, and to keep your eye out on the way, so, if needed, you might go over it again. I wish to train a few men to learn a swift way to Boston town. You may be one of them. I will have a horse saddled for you at once; follow that man to Pomfret, to the manor farm at Windham. I will write you a note to him, a secret note, which you must not open by the way.”
“Never you fear, Governor; I couldn’t read it if I did, but I can read life if I can not read messages.”
In a few minutes he was in the saddle, with his face turned toward the Windham hills.
He found General Putnam, the “Major,” on his farm.
“It is the top of the morning that I said to the Governor this morning, and it is the top of the evening that I say to you now. I am Dennis O’Hay, from the north of Ireland, and it is this message—which may ask that I be relieved of my head for aught I know—that the Governor he asked me to put into your hand. He wants me to learn all the way to Boston town, so that I may be able to drive cattle there, it may be. I am ready to do anything to make this country the land of liberty. After all that ould Ireland has suffered, I want to see America free and glorious—and hurrah, free! That word comes out of my heart; I don’t know why I say it. It rises up from my very soul.”
“You shall learn all the way to Boston town,” said the Major, “and I hope I shall not find you faithless, or give you over to the British to be dealt with according to the law.”
Putnam was preparing to leave for his long journey on the new Boston road. His neighbors gathered around him, and young farmers brought to him fine sheep, to add to those he had gathered for the suffering patriots of Boston town.
The driver of this flock knew the way, the post-houses, the inns, the ordinaries, and the Major assigned Dennis to him as an assistant.