The speaker was a stalwart young man in a continental uniform; and beside him stood another, sleek and pippin-faced and with a friendly smile.
“The leaders of this army,” laughed the latter, “seem to know an accomplished dispatch bearer when they see one. It speaks well for their discernment.”
George shook them both heartily by the hand.
“I had not expected to see you, either. I had heard,” to the stalwart one, “that you’d been sent off on a recruiting expedition through the Massachusetts towns.”
Nat Brewster nodded gravely.
“I returned only yesterday. And we had but little success. Now that their own homes are not threatened, the people seem to be losing interest in the struggle.”
The round-faced youth smiled widely at this.
“If they don’t come forward,” said he, “they’ll find themselves worse off than before. The British are swarming over seas, I’ve heard. The stories of the mess-rooms have the Atlantic black with frigates and three-deckers of the line.”
“It’s very likely not as bad as Ben paints it,” said young Brewster, “but at the same time there is good cause for alarm. Nothing is known of the expedition that sailed from Boston under Sir Henry Clinton before the evacuation. It’s a formidable force, capable of striking a crippling blow; and then the army under Howe must be hovering somewhere within easy sailing distance. To meet this and the forces which the ministers at London must now be fitting out against us, General Washington must greatly increase his force.”
“Night and day he’s at it,” said Ben Cooper, in high admiration; “you never saw such a man to work. But the recruits come in like snails. They somehow seem to dread to leave their own states. Just as though,” in disgust, “there were any more danger upon one side of a boundary line than there is on another.”