“What? Where?” demanded that worthy, looking about in all directions.
“The fields, and the trees, and—”
“Can’t ye keep your thoughts from gadding off on such nonsense, Jan?” cavilled her father, fretfully, his gouty foot putting him in anything but a sweet mood. “One would think ye had never seen pasture or woodland be—Ho!” he ejaculated, interrupting his reproof, “what ’s that sound?”
The words were but spoken when the front files of a regiment just topping the hill across the brook came in view and descended the road at quick step to the bridge, their gay scarlet uniforms, flying colours, and shining gun barrels adding still more to the brilliancy.
“Halt!” was the order to the troops as they came up to the riders, and the officer took the pass that the squire held out to him. “What hour left you Trenton?” he demanded.
“Four o’clock.”
“And heard you any firing after leaving?” asked Colonel Mawhood, eagerly.
“Not a sound.”
“I fear none the less that the fighting will be all over ere the Seventeenth can get there, much more the Fortieth and Fifty-fifth,” he grumbled, as he returned the paper. “Attention! Sections, break off! Forward—march!”
The order, narrowing the column, allowed the squire and Janice to ride on and cross the bridge. On the other side of the stream a by-road joined the turnpike, and as Janice glanced along it, she gave a cry of surprise. “Look, dadda,” she prompted, “there are more troops!”