"Old? Why, man, you cannot be forty. Search the house!"
In a few minutes the searchers returned, leading Martha Baker, who was almost too weak to stand unsupported.
"Oh, Master Warner, I am so glad you came. I think I should have died if I had stayed another day in this horrid house."
"Tell me your story, Martha."
"I was sent by my aunt to Farmer Mervale to arrange for an exchange of eggs. You see, aunt had a lot of hen's eggs and Farmer Mervale had a lot of duck's eggs, and the two wanted to exchange. When I reached here the farmer asked me my name, and then if I was any relation of Remember Baker, and I told him that I was his sister. Then he asked me to go upstairs to help count the eggs. I did so, and the farmer told me that he was going to keep me there, because if my brother attempted to do anything to his brother, who was a soldier in Ticonderoga, he would kill me. Then he tortured me by saying that he would poison some soup and invite the rebels to dinner with him, and that when they had all eaten heartily he would kill me before their eyes."
The farmer heard the girl's statement, and, instead of denying it, declared it was all a joke, which, perhaps, it was, but it was cruel, and the perpetrator of such a joke deserved punishment.
Warner ordered his men to strip the farmer to the waist and introduce him to the "birch dance," as summary punishment was called.
Fifty good, sharp strokes across the bare back with strong beechen sticks made Farmer Mervale wish he had been less fond of joking and illegally imprisoning a girl.
Martha told how she had seen the monk, and had called to him through the open window, telling him how she had been served, and also asking him to let the Mountain Boys know of her detention.
How well the eccentric monk had fulfilled his mission we have seen.