"What d' ye think of it? Eh? What d' ye think?"
"I think it is very pitiful and sad to see these poor creatures leaving their little farms to face the British regulars--and starvation."
"Face the devil!" he snorted. "Nobody forces 'em!"
"The greater honor due them," I retorted.
"Honor! Fol-de-rol! Had it been any other patroon but me, he'd turn his manor-house into a court-house, arrest 'em, try 'em, and hang a few for luck! In the old days, I'll warrant you, the Cosbys would have stood no such nonsense--no, nor the Livingstons, nor the Van Cortlandts. A hundred lashes here and there, a debtor's jail, a hanging or two, would have made things more cheerful. But I, curse me if I could ever bring myself to use my simplest prerogatives; I can't whip a man, no! I can't hang a man for anything--even a sheep-thief has his chance with me--like that great villain, Billy Bones, who turned renegade and joined Danny Redstock and the McCraw."
He snorted in self-contempt and puffed savagely at his clay pipe.
"La patroon? Dammy, I'm an old woman! Get me my knitting! I want my knitting and a sunny spot to mumble my gums and wait for noon and a dish o' porridge!... George, my rents are cut in half, and half my farms left to the briers and wolves in one day, because his Majesty, General Schuyler, orders his Highness, Colonel Dayton, to call out half the militia to make a fort for his Eminence, Colonel Gansevoort!"
"At Stanwix?"
"They call it Fort Schuyler now--after his Highness in Albany.
"Sir Lupus," I said, "if it is true that the British mean to invade us here with Brant's Mohawks, there is but one bulwark between Tryon County and the enemy, and that is Fort Stanwix. Why, in Heaven's name, should it not be defended? If this British officer and his renegades, regulars, and Indians take Stanwix and fortify Johnstown, the whole country will swarm with savages, outlaws, and a brutal soldiery already hardened and made callous by a year of frontier warfare!