Once, sipping my claret, I thought I heard a faint clash of arms outside and in the direction of the guard-house.
And another time it seemed to me that many horses were stirring somewhere outside in the darkness.
I could not conceive of anything being afoot, because of Sir John's parole, and so presently dismissed the incidents from my mind.
The wine had somewhat heated the men; laughter was louder, speech less guarded. Young Watts spoke boldly of Haldimand and Guy Carleton, naming them as the two most efficient servants that his Majesty had in Canada.
Nobody, however, had the effrontery to mention Guy Johnson in my presence, but Ensign Moucher pretended to discuss a probable return of old John Butler and of his son Walter to our neighborhood,—to hoodwink me, I think,—but his mealy manner and the false face he pulled made me the more wary.
The wine burned in Hiakatoo, but he never looked toward me nor directly at anybody out of his blank red eyes of a panther.
Sir John had become a little drunk and slopped his wine-glass, but the wintry smile glimmered on his thin lips as though some secret thought contented him, and he was ever whispering with Captain Watts.
But he spoke always of the coming summer and of his cattle and fields and the pursuits of peace, saying that he had no interest in Haldimand nor in any kinsmen who had fled Tryon; and that all he desired was to be let alone at the Hall, and not bothered by Phil Schuyler.
"For," says he, emptying his glass with unsteady hand, "I've enough to do to feed my family and my servants and collect my rents; and I'm damned if I can do it unless those excitable gentlemen in Albany mind their own business as diligently as I wish to mind mine."
"Surely, Sir John," said I, "nobody wishes to annoy you, because it is the universal desire that you remain. And, as you have pledged your honour to do so, only a fool would attempt to make more difficult your position among us."