"I should think the Britishers would be suspicious of your getting into town at midnight."
"Bless you, lad, I've done the same thing for the past three months, and been stopped by the patrol so many times that now they all know me. It no longer excites surprise because I am so particularly attentive to my business. My explanation is that I get a better price for the marketing if I am first upon the ground."
As the journey progressed the miles seemed to Enoch to have doubled in length, and the burden on his back increased tenfold in weight; but he toiled manfully forward, repressing, so far as possible, every evidence of fatigue lest the spy should think him one easily discouraged.
As they neared their destination there was less inclination for conversation, and when half an hour had passed in silence Greene said in a cheery tone:
"Your friend Seth, with all his marching and counter-marching, shouldering and carrying arms, isn't forced to work as hard as you have been doing this night, lad."
"But I am not grumbling."
"I am well aware of that, my boy, and proud of the fact, for it shows I wasn't mistaken in my estimate of you. I know you are tired, though, for I am, and I have been over this road in the same fashion nigh on to a hundred times. It is the hardest kind of hard work; but there's a big satisfaction in doing it, for we know that it insures our safety when we are among the Britishers."
"Suppose you should meet any of the enemy who had seen me when I was in jail with Jacob? Wouldn't it cast suspicion on you?"
"Not a bit of it, lad, for I am ready in case that happens, and it wouldn't be strange if something of the kind should occur. Here is the story: You found it necessary to go to work in order to help support your mother, because in these days I don't fancy she has as many scholars, either in French or dancing, as a month ago, when times even with the enemy were more prosperous. I have hired you to help me bring in my goods."
"But doesn't it seem strange that you shouldn't come in with a wagon?"