“Yes,” quietly.
“I felt sure that you had. And do you recall some words which I spoke after you told me of that meeting?”
The words that had struck both himself and his uncle as veiling a threat at once recurred to him.
“You mean,” said Nat, “those regarding the disposition of some to reward a good service, and of others to repay an evil?”
“I see you remember it,” said Ezra, and he smiled into Nat’s face. “So I need not repeat it now.”
CHAPTER XIII
SHOWS HOW NAT MET ONE STRANGER AND HOW
THE PORCUPINE MET ANOTHER
Bristol was a fair-sized village upon the west bank of the Delaware, and one very well known to persons upon their way to and from New York. Consequently there was a good inn and our wayfarers at once sought it out.
“When I stopped here on my way south,” said Revere, seriously, to a hostler who came forward to receive their mounts, “you did not give my horse proper attention as I desired. It will not do to rub him down with a wisp of straw and rush him in, still wet, to a sloppy supper of bran mash.”
The hostler protested, but Revere waved his hand for silence.
“I want him brushed and combed, and rubbed with a cloth,” proceeded he, severely. “And these others,” pointing to the steeds of the boys, “are to be used likewise. Then they are to be blanketed until they are dry and cool, when they should be fed—not with mash, but with grain.”