"And I must say, Miss Dunham, if he did, it would be nothin' more than them deserves us would go for to guard them cruel British."
"But they do say, Miss Caxton, that this Capin—for Jack says he is a Capin—was better than the rest—that he took the part of our people every where when he found there wasn't any fair fight, and that he was drivin' his men to the ships when we caught him."
"Them may believe that that will, but for my part I think that it must be a poor, mean speritted American that will hold guard over one of them British——"
"Not so mean speritted as you think perhaps," said Jack's mother with a flushed face.
"Well, I must say, Miss Dunham, I never thought Jack would do such a thing—if I had——"
Miss Caxton stopped abruptly, but her companion would hear the whole—"Well ma'am, if you had—what if you had?"
"Why, then, Miss Dunham, I shouldn't have been so well pleased to see him keepin' company with my Sarah—but after this, of course, that's at an end."
"May be, Miss Caxton, you may think to-morrow mornin' that it would have been just as well to wait till the night was gone before you said that—when you see the British Capin hanging by the neck in his fine regimentals, and hear that his guard were the men that did it—as I know they've sworn to do—you may think after all they an't so mean speritted."
"Miss Dunham! if they'll do that, I'll unsay every word I've said, and proud enough I would be to call one of 'em my son-in-law—but now do tell me all about it—she's asleep you see," glancing at Mary Sinclair, "and there an't nobody to hear."
"Why, there an't much to tell. You see the Major wouldn't give way any how at all about this here man—so, as they didn't want to fight him, they agreed that some of the real true blues who an't afeard of nothin', should seem to help the Major and persuade him to keep the man here till late in the night, and that they would guard him—but they were to take care to have the key of his room, and when the Major goes there he'll find it empty, or at best only a bloody corpse there. They'll hang him if they can get him out of the window without too much noise, but if there's any danger of his waking the Major with his screeching, they'll stop his voice quick enough."