"Do you think the men will march?"
"Yes, sir—what remains of them."
He came slowly back, motioning what was left of the company to close up. I could not hear what he said, but the men began to count off, and their voices were resolute enough to hearten all.
So presently Nick Stoner, who acted as fife-major, blew lustily into his fife, playing the marching tune, which is called "The Little Red Foot"; and the drums beat it; and we marched in column of fours to take Sir John at his ancestral Hall, if it chanced to be God's will.
CHAPTER IX
STOLE AWAY
Johnson Hall was a blaze of light with candles in every window, and great lanterns flaring from both stone forts which flanked the Hall, and along the new palisades which Sir John had built recently for his defense.
All gates and doors stood wide open, and officers in Continental uniform and in the uniform of the Palatine Regiment, were passing in and out with a great clanking of swords and spurs.
Everywhere companies of regular infantry from Colonel Dayton's regiment of the New York Line were making camp, and I saw their baggage waggons drive up from the town below and go into park to the east of the Hall, where cattle were lying in the new grass.