“Your Excellency,” reported General Greene, as Washington came up to the college building, “we have found a store of shoes and blankets in the college, and all of the papers of the Lord Cornwallis and General Grant.”
“Look to them, Brereton, and report to me at once if there is anything needing instant attention,” directed Washington.
Jack, tossing his reins to a soldier, followed Greene into Nassau Hall, and was quickly running over the bundles of papers which the British, with more prudence than prescience, had for safety left behind. Presently he came upon a great package of signed oaths of allegiance, which he was shoving to one side as of no immediate importance, when the name signed at the bottom of the uppermost one caught his eye.
“Oh, Joe, Joe!” he laughed, taking up the paper, “is this thy much-vaunted love of freedom?” Glancing at the second, he added, “And Esquire Hennion! Well, they deserve it not; but I’ll do the pair a harmless service all the same, merely for old-time days,” he muttered, as he folded up the two broadsides and stuffed them into his pocket.
While the aide was thus engaged, Washington rode over to inspect the prisoners. Here it was to discover the squire and Janice, the former having been made a prize of by a more zealous than sagacious militiaman. Giving directions to march the prisoners at once under guard to Morristown, the commander turned to the girl.
“Thou ’rt not content to give us thy good wishes, Miss Janice,” he said, motioning to the guard to let the two go free, “but addest the aid of thy presence as well.”
“And were within an ace of getting shot thereby,” complained the squire, still not entirely over his fright. “Egad, general, we were right between the shooting at one minute, and heard the bullets shrieking all about us.”
“But so was his Excellency, dadda,” protested Janice. “Oh, General Washington,” she added, “when you rode up so close to the British, and I saw them level their guns, I was like to have fell off my horse with fear for you.”
“Ay,” remarked the squire, for once unprecedentedly diplomatic. “The lass stood her own peril as steadily as ever I did, but she turned white as a feather when the infantry fired at you, and, woman-like, burst into tears the moment the smoke had lifted enough to show you still unhurt.”
“And now has tears in her eyes because I was not shot, I suppose,” Washington responded, with a smiling glance at the maiden.