The time the redcoats ran away.’”
Dicky remained prudently silent and wished he had not sung his Bunker Hill song.
The sergeant, who was a powerful fellow with a good-natured face in spite of his bluff words, reached up, and lifting Dicky off the horse as if he were a baby, set him down on the ground and proceeded to search him. The first thing he ran across was the letter. “Come now,” said the sergeant, “the lieutenant must see this. From Squire Stavers to Josiah Barton of Tiverton. Both of them out-and-out rebels. Young man, will you please to ’bout face and march along, while I’ll ride your battle horse?”
“‘LOOK OUT, YOU YOUNG REBEL,’ CALLED OUT THE SERGEANT.”
This was an unkind slur on Blackberry, who was unmistakably a horse who had spent his life in civil pursuits. The sergeant mounted him, and the old horse, out of whom Dicky had taken most of the spirit, struck into a slow and dejected trot.
Dicky went along silently, and appeared to be neither frightened or discomposed. Indeed after a while he rather relished his adventure, and anticipated the telling of it with the keenest pleasure, in which he meant to do full justice to his own calmness under trying circumstances. The whole party walked down the road about half a mile, when they came to a deserted farmhouse. The sergeant, then dismounting, took Dicky by the shoulder and shoved him into a room where a young officer sat at a table writing. “If you please, sir,” said the sergeant, touching his cap, “I found this boy riding along the road, singing rebel songs. I thought I’d examine him to see if there was anything suspicious about him, and I found this letter directed to Josiah Barton of Tiverton,—a rank rebel,—and the boy says it is from Squire Stavers of Newport, who is another rank rebel. So I thought it would be safer to bring him and the letter to you.”
“Quite right,” said the young officer, and taking the letter he coolly broke the seal. Both he and the sergeant were keeping half an eye on Dicky, who was perfectly quiet and composed, and gave no indications of fear.
“Do you know what is in this letter?” asked the lieutenant of Dicky after glancing at it.
“Sir!” answered Dicky, suddenly recalled from a contemplation of old Blackberry through the window.