The old man's eyes flashed with anger as he listened to this.
"It is an outrage!" he exclaimed when Hugh had finished,—"to steal stock under our very eyes. I must see Trent about the matter, and the cattle must be kept nigh the house."
"Why not take them by boatloads over to the islands till the redcoats be gone, as has been done before, for pasturage?" The suggestion came from Aunt Lettice, and was made rather timidly.
"You were never cut out for a farmer's wife, Lettice, my dear," her brother-in-law replied, a good-humored smile now breaking over his face, "else you'd remember there is no pasturage there at this time o' year. And I doubt if they'd be so safe on the islands as here, for Trent and the men would have to go each day with fodder for them, and the soldiers' spying eyes would be sure to note the coming and going o' the boats. No," he added with decision, "I shall have the flocks kept penned, nigh the house; and I shall make complaint o' this matter to the Governor. As for the rest," and he smiled grimly, "I take it our guns can protect ourselves and our property."
CHAPTER XXI
Hugh Knollys was so much a member of the household that Aunt Lettice thought nothing of going her own way when dinner was over and leaving him in the living-room with Dorothy; and the two now sat on one of the low, broad window-seats, watching Joseph Devereux as he went out of doors in search of Trent, with 'Bitha dancing along beside him.
"How fast 'Bitha is growing!" Hugh remarked. "She will soon be taller than you, Dot. Although, to be sure," he added with a laugh, "that is not saying very much."
Dorothy did not reply. Indeed it would seem that she had not heard him; and now he laid his hand softly upon one of her own to arouse her attention as he called her by name.
At this she started, and turned her face to him.