“We’ll have no peace, Had, while yon Britisher’s hereabout,” muttered the old man.
“I wonder why he has come into this country, so far from New York?” was the boy’s observation. “He can’t be upon military service, though he be a colonel in his majesty’s army.”
“He’s here for no good, mark that, Had,” grumbled Jonas. “I’d rather have no guests at the Three Oaks than men of his kidney.”
“His daughter is a pretty girl, and kindly spoken.”
“That may be—that may be,” testily. “You’re as shortsighted as my old wife, Had. You’ll both let this Master Creston Knowles throw dust in your eyes because he’s got a pretty daughter. Bah!”
And Jonas stumbled back to bed, leaving Hadley Morris to retire to his couch on the loft floor of the stable.
But had these well-founded suspicions been to any purpose, the inn-keeper surely would have remained awake on the afternoon our story opens, instead of lolling, sound asleep, in his wide chair in the hall. Behind the parlor door, not ten feet away from mine host of the Three Oaks, Colonel Creston Knowles was conversing in a low tone with his serving man.
“And you say it happened twice during the night, sirrah?” queried the British officer, who spoke to everybody but his daughter with sternness.
“Twice, hand it please ye, sir. Hi’m sure the stable was hopened once hafter the time you was hup, sir, hand another ’orse taken hout. My life! but Hi thought hit thieves hat first, sir—some o’ them murderin’ cowboys; but the young lad has tends to the ’orses seemed to know them that came, hand they did not touch hour hanimals, sir.”
“It’s a regular nest of rebels!” exclaimed the colonel, his brow black enough at the report. “Such places as this should be razed to the earth. The spies who report to this Mr. Washington and his brother rebels evidently have free course through the country. They even exchange their steeds here—and Malcolm’s troop lying less than six miles away this very day. William!”