“The clothes you wear,” said Ben, as he sat down upon a log. “You threw the coat away because it was red; but the other things tell just as plainly that you are a British soldier.”
Here the cudgel was grasped firmly once more, and the sandy-haired lad took a step forward.
“Is it me that you call such a name?” demanded he. “Is it Paddy Burk that you call by so disgraceful a title? True for you, I did wear the red coat, and true again that I threw it in a ditch—because I hated it. But never was I a British soldier. I was an Irish boy compelled to wear a British soldier’s clothes, but never for a minute was I anything less.”
“You are a deserter, then,” said Ben.
“I left them just as honestly as they enlisted me. There was I at home, a raw boy, knowing nothing and listening to the tales the dragoon sergeant told of foreign parts. And when he handed me the ‘shilling,’ I took it thinking he only meant to be generous with me, and never dreaming that it made me a redcoat.”
“I’ve heard that they do such things,” said Ben.
“And then off they took me,” lamented Paddy Burk. “Off they took me to a big town and put me on board a ship with dozens more like me, and over we came to America as British soldiers—a thing we never thought to be.”
“You were with the army of Cornwallis, I suppose,” said Ben.
“Yes,” replied the other. “I was with him till he reached the place where they tried to cross the bridge, and the Americans drove them back. It was yesterday, I think. Then I got a good chance and took leg bail for it across the river on the ice. And,” with feeling, “here I am wandering about with never a bite nor sup since then; and it’s fair weak with the hunger I am.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Ben Cooper spoke.