The younger children gathered shyly about me, their active tongues suddenly silent, as though, all at once, they had taken a sudden alarm to find me there.
The reaction of fatigue was settling over me--for my journey had been a long one that day--and I leaned my back against the tree and yawned, raising my hand to hide it.
"I wonder," I said, "whether anybody here knows if my boxes and servant have arrived from Philadelphia."
"Your boxes are in the hallway by your bed-chamber," said Dorothy. "Your servant went to Johnstown for news of you--let me see--I think it was Saturday--"
"Friday," said Ruyven, looking up from the willow wand which he was peeling.
"He never came back," observed Dorothy. "Some believe he ran away to Albany, some think the Boston people caught him and impressed him to work on the fort at Stanwix."
I felt my face growing hot.
"I should like to know," said I, "who has dared to interfere with my servant."
"So should I," said Ruyven, stoutly. "I'd knock his head off." The others stared. Dorothy, picking a meadow-flower to pieces, smiled quietly, but did not look up.
"What do you think has happened to my black?" I asked, watching her.