And so we started for the north, out of the bloody village where our liberty was born at the first rifle-shot, out of the sound of the British cannon, out of the land of the salt sea, back to the inland winds and the incense of our own dear forests, and the music of sweet waters tumbling where the white pines sing eternally.
I rode Warlock beside the chaise; Shemuel lay within; Silver Heels sat beside the poor, hurt creature, easing his fevered head; but her eyes ever returned to me, and the colour came and went in her face as our eyes spoke in silence.
"Good-bye," said Foxcroft, huskily.
Mount squared himself in his saddle; the Weasel, rifle on thigh, set his horse's head north.
Slowly the cavalcade moved on; the robins sang on every tree; far to the southward the thunder of the British cannon rolled and re-echoed along the purple hills; and over all God's golden light was falling on life, and love, and death.
CHAPTER XXIX
We entered Albany on the 22d of April; the town had heard the news from Lexington ere we sighted the Albany hills, the express having passed us as we crossed the New York line, tearing along the river-bank at a breakneck gallop.
So, when we rode into Albany, the stolid, pippin-cheeked Dutchmen had later news than had we, and I learned then, for the first time, how my Lord Percy's troops had been hurled headlong through Cambridge Farms into Charlestown, where they lay like panting, slavering, senseless beasts under the cannon of the Somerset and Asia. And all Massachusetts sat watching them, gun in hand.
We lay at the house of Peter Weaver, my lawyer, Silver Heels and I; Jack Mount and Cade Renard lay at the "Half Moon," where poor Shemuel could procure medicine and such medical attendance as he so sorely stood in need of.