"Who goes there?"
'Twas the voice of a man who had suddenly halted in the clearing, half-way between the woods and the crest of the bluff. The snow on the ground enabled the two to descry each other. Winwood saw the man raise a musket to his shoulder.
"A word with you, friend," said Philip, and strode swiftly forward ere the sentinel (who was a loyalist volunteer, not a British regular) had the wit to fire. Catching the musket-barrel with one hand, Winwood clapped his pistol to the soldier's breast with the other.
"Now," says he, "if you give a sound, I'll send a bullet through you. If I pass here, 'twill bring you no harm, for none shall know it but us two. Let go your musket a moment—I'll give it back to you, man."
A pressure of the pistol against the fellow's ribs brought obedience. Philip dropped the musket, and, with his foot, dug its lock into the snow, spoiling the priming.
"Now," he continued, "I'll leave you, and remember, if you raise an alarm, you'll be blamed for not firing upon me."
Whereupon Philip dashed into the woods, leaving the startled sentinel to pick up his musket and resume his round as if naught had occurred. The man knew that his own comfort lay in secrecy, and his comfort outweighed his military conscience.
Through woods and fields Winwood proceeded, skirted swamps and ponds, and waded streams, traversing old familiar ground, the sight of which brought back memories of countless holiday rambles in the happy early days. Margaret's bright face and merry voice, her smiles, and her little displays of partiality for him, were foremost in each recollection; and that he was so soon to see her again, appeared too wonderful for belief. He went forward in the intoxication of joy, singing to himself as a boy would have done.
He knew where there were houses and barns to avoid, and where there were most like to be British cantonments. At length he was so near the town, that he was surprised to have come upon no inner line of sentries. Even as he wondered, he emerged from a copse into a field, and received the usual challenge—spoken this time in so quick, machine-like a manner, and accompanied by so prompt and precise a levelling of the musket, that he knew 'twas a British regular he had to deal with.
He made a pretence of raising a pistol to shoot down the sentry. This brought the sentry's fire, which—as it too was of a British regular of those days—Philip felt safe in risking. But though the shot went far wide, he gave a cry as if he had been hit, and staggered back into the woods. He was no sooner within its cover, than he ran swiftly Eastward with all possible silence. He had noted that the sentry had been pacing in that direction; hence the first of the sentry's comrades to run up would be the one approaching therefrom. This would leave a break in the line, at that part of it East of the scene of the alarm. Philip stopped presently; peered forth from the woods, saw the second sentry hasten with long steps Westward; and then made a dash across the latter's tracks, bending low his body as he went. He thus reached a cover of thicket, through which he forced his way in time to emerge toward the town ere any results of the alarming gun-shot were manifest.