The old adage that he who crosses a bridge before he comes to it is a fool, was proven in my case. From the moment of insisting that I should be the one to act as messenger, there had been before my mind all kinds of dangers to be encountered, and I had vexed myself with the belief that there was hardly more than one chance out of twenty that I could go through in safety, and yet I did, never seeing friend or foe until I was come, as nearly as I could judge, to within a mile of where Morgan had said the Americans were encamped.
Then suddenly, while I was half-running half-walking along the highway, dreaming no evil, came a voice from the thicket on my right, shouting:
"Halt, or I'll fire! Halt, I say!"
"HALT, OR I'LL FIRE!"
On the instant I obeyed the command, my heart standing still as it were with terror, for I made certain I had blundered upon a British scouting party, and one can well fancy the relief of mind which was mine when there came out from amid the foliage a man in the uniform of our own Virginia riflemen, who was followed by two others, and I knew I had been stopped by a friend to the Cause.
By this time, it is needless for me to say, the new day had come, and they could see me as clearly as I could them, therefore I counted on being given a friendly welcome, instead of which he who acted as commander of the squad, and I counted he was a corporal at the very least, asked as if in anger:
"Where are you from in such haste, and where going?"
"From York Town, and with a message to General Lafayette."