Lot had always been his dearest friend and Enoch missed him sorely, and as he could not go trapping with him this winter, he agreed to visit Westminster for a fortnight or so, some time during the idle months. It was March when he started to cross the range and although the roads were still full of snow, he went horseback. A sleigh was a luxury that few Bennington people owned, although Nuck might have hitched the old wood-sled to Dobbin. He spent one night at a farmer’s on the road, and was welcomed at supper time the next evening at the Lewis house.
“Zuckers!” exclaimed Lot, running out to drag his friend off his horse, “I tell ye, I’m glad to see ye! And so’ll marm be–if the young uns don’t bother her too much. There’s three Lewis young uns, too, besides the baby, and I tell ye, they’re a wild lot. I’d rayther tackle them wolves that you’n Crow Wing got mixed up with last winter. Seen the Injin since?”
“Not since I sent him home with more money than he had ever seen before in his life,” replied Enoch.
“Very foolish of you! We might have had some of his pelts just as well’s not.”
“You don’t mean that, Lot,” said Enoch, who knew that young Breckenridge talked a deal more recklessly than he really felt.
“Well, never mind all that,” said Lot. “Tell me the news. What’s goin’ on ’tother side the mountings? Did ye know that lots more red-coats had come to Boston? And they say–leastways, a pedlar that come through here told us so last week–that the Boston folks have got a lot of guns and ammunition stored in the country towns and the minute men are drilling day and night. Do you s’pose there’ll be war there, Nuck?”
“If the Massachusetts people feel like we do here in the Grants, there’ll be fighting,” said Enoch, his eyes flashing. “What d’you suppose would happen if troops were quartered on us?”
“I’m goin’ to Boston if there’s a fight,” declared his friend. “Mr. Lewis says I can. He’s a nice man–marm’s second husband–and he’s strong for the Grants, too. He’s got a Hampshire title. But there’s lots of Tories around here. The court’s goin’ to sit next week an’ there’ll be trouble then, mark my word. Lots of the cases these Tories have hatched up against our people are goin’ to be tried, an’ the Whigs ain’t goin’ to stand it. Judge Chandler ain’t so bad a man; but Judge Sabin and the others are dead set ag’in all our folks. They say the sheriff has sworn in a big lot of deperties. Mebbe you’ll see some fun before you go back to Bennington, Nuck.”
As Lot’s idea of “fun” was pretty sure to be a scrimmage of some kind, it can be easily seen how strained the relations were then between the Whigs and the Tory court of the district. Whereas Tories and Whigs had lived at peace before, now they became bitter in controversy and even families were divided upon the questions of the hour.
Enoch found Lot’s stepfather to be a very quiet, pleasant man, who made it a point to be at harmony with all his neighbors, yet whose personal feelings and opinions as a Whig were well known. Lot delighted in being where the older men of the community discussed the trend of public affairs and it was due to him that Enoch, the second night after his arrival, gained some little notoriety in Westminster by an encounter he had at the Royal Inn, kept by one John Norton.