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THE ROAD TO PARIS
BY
R. N. STEPHENS

Works of

ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

An Enemy to the King
(Sixth Thousand)
The Continental Dragoon
(Fifth Thousand)
The Road to Paris
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY, Publishers
(Incorporated)
196 Summer St., Boston, Mass.

THE ROAD TO PARIS

"A WILD THRUST BETRAYED THAT HIS EYE WAS NO LONGER TRUE."

THE ROAD TO PARIS
A Story of Adventure
BY
ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS
AUTHOR OF
"AN ENEMY TO THE KING"
"THE CONTINENTAL DRAGOON," ETC.
Illustrated by
H. C. EDWARDS

"Hark how the drums beat up again
For all true soldiers, gentlemen;
Then let us 'list and march away
Over the hills and far away."

—Old Song.

BOSTON
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
1898

Copyright, 1898
By L. C. Page and Company
(INCORPORATED)
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U.S.A.

"D'Artagnan ... touched the earth, moistened
with the evening dew, with the ends of his fingers,
crossed himself as if at the holy-water vessel of a
church, and retook alone—ever alone—the road to
Paris."

—The Viscount of Bragelonne.

CONTENTS.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

"With our company of riflemen that marched in Arnold's army through the Maine wilderness to attack Quebec, there was a sergeant's wife, a large and sturdy woman, no common camp-follower, but decent and respected, who one day, when the troops started to wade through a freezing pond, of which they broke the thin ice coating with the butts of their guns, calmly lifted her skirts above her waist and strode in, and so kept the greater part of her clothes dry in crossing. Not a man of us made a jest, or even grinned, so natural was her action in the circumstances. I have often used this instance to show that what the world calls modesty is a matter of time and place, and I now hold that too much modesty is out of time and place when a man who has had more than a fair share of remarkable experiences undertakes a true relation of the extraordinary adventures that have befallen him. So, if the narrative on which I am setting out be marred by any affectation, it will not be the affectation of modesty.

"When I was a boy in our valley behind the Blue Mountains of Pennsylvania, I used to read the 'True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, from 1593 to 1629,' and wonder whether I should ever have any travels or adventures of my own to make a book of. When, afterwards, I did go a travelling, and adventures did come thick and fast upon me, I was too much engrossed in the travels and adventures themselves to give a thought as to what matter they might be for narration. Not till this breathing-place came in my life, did my boyhood dreams return to my mind, and did I realize that my part in battle and imprisonment, danger and escape, love and intrigue, would make a book that might be worth fireside reading. That book I now begin, and shall probably finish it if I be not interrupted by untimely death or by some new call to scenes of enterprise and turmoil,—for it is no retired veteran, but a man early in his twenties, that here tries whether with pen and ink he can make as fair a show as he has already made with implements less peaceful."

The foregoing lines constitute the first two paragraphs of a book entitled "The Travels and Adventures of Richard Wetheral, in America, England, France, and Germany, in the years 1775, 1776, 1777, and 1778," of which it happens, by strange circumstance, that I possess the only copy. The title-page shows that it was published by (or "printed for") J. Robson, Bookseller, in New Bond Street, London, in 1785. The three brown 16mo volumes first caught my glance when they lay with a heap of ragged books on a board before a second-hand shop in Twenty-sixth Street, there being attached to the board a weather-beaten square of pasteboard, bearing the legend, "Your choice for ten cents." Not until I had paid the dealer thirty cents and separated the three volumes forever from their musty companions, which were mostly of a theological character, did I discover, by parting a blank leaf from the adjacent cover, to which it had long been sticking, that the book was a treasure, for which the dealer would have charged me as many dollars as I had paid cents, had he anticipated my discovery. The long-concealed page bore on its brown-spotted surface an inscription, in eighteenth century handwriting, turned yellow by age, signed by the author of the book, and to the effect that he had caused his true narrative to be published without his wife's knowledge, thinking this book might afford her a pleasant surprise, but that the surprise with which she first perused it was so far from pleasant, she had forthwith, in the name of modesty, demanded its immediate suppression, which was at once accomplished by her indulgent husband, who had preserved only this one copy for the benefit of posterity. When I asked the bookseller how he had come by the copy, he told me, after an investigation, that he had bought it with a lot of religious books from the servant of a very old lady recently deceased. The dealer had thought, from the company in which it came, that the "travels and adventures" were those of some clergyman of a hundred years ago, and he had placed the three much dilapidated volumes among the ten-cent rubbish accordingly.

In giving this astonishing record of eighteenth century vicissitudes to the world, I have two reasons for making myself the historian, and not presenting the hero's book in his own correct and straightforward English. The first reason is, the public has been so satiated recently with novels told in the first person singular, that even a genuine autobiography must at this time be swallowed, if at all, with some nausea. The second reason is that the hero, writing only of his own doings and his own witnessings and in his own day, necessarily omitted many details, obtainable by me from other sources, and useful not only for filling in the background of his narrative, but also that they throw light on some points that were not quite clear to himself.

THE ROAD TO PARIS.

CHAPTER I.
A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS.

In the Jacobite army that followed Prince Charlie and shared defeat with him at Culloden in 1746, were some who escaped hanging at Carlisle or elsewhere by fleeing to Scottish ports and obtaining passage over the water. A few, like the Young Chevalier himself, fled to the continent of Europe; but some crossed the ocean and made new lives for themselves in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and other provinces. Two of these refugees, tarrying not in the thickly settled strip of country along the Atlantic coast, but pushing at once to the backwoods of Pennsylvania, were Hugh Mercer, the young surgeon destined to die gloriously as an American general thirty years later, and Alexander Wetheral, one of the few Englishmen who had rallied to the Stuart standard at its last unfurling. From Philadelphia, where they disembarked from the vessel that had brought them from Leith, straight westward through Lancaster and across the Susquehanna, the two young men made a journey which, thanks to the privations they had to endure, was a good first lesson in the school of wilderness life.

They arrived one evening at the wigwams of a Shawnee village on the verge of a beaver pond, and were received in so friendly a manner by the Indians that Wetheral decided to live for a time among them. Mercer, joined by some other enterprising newcomers from the old country, went farther westward; but the two friends were destined to meet often again. Wetheral built himself a hut near the Indian village and indulged to the full his love of hunting, fishing, and roaming the silent forest. Often he saw other white men, for already the Scotch and Irish and English had begun to build their cabins and to clear small fields on both sides of the Susquehanna, across which river there were ferries at a few infantile settlements. By 1750 so many other English and Scotch, some of the men having their wives with them, had put up log cabins near Wetheral's, and had cleared ground for farming all around, that the settlement merited a name, and took that of Carlisle. The Indians, succumbing to the inevitable, betook themselves elsewhere.

Wetheral, with all his love for the free life of the woods, welcomed civilization, for he was of gentle birth and of what passed in those days as good education, and had a taste for learning. His life was now more diversified. He not only hunted and fished, but also cultivated a few acres, and during a part of each year he did the duties of schoolmaster to the settlement,—for the Scotch-Irish, like the Puritans of New England, went in for book-learning. He sent the skins obtained by him in the chase to Philadelphia by pack-horse, and sometimes, for the sake of variety, accompanied them, passing, on the way, through the belt of country industriously tilled by the growing German Protestant population, and through that occupied by Quakers and other English, in the immediate vicinity of Philadelphia. In his own neighborhood the people of the best manners and information were Presbyterians, and in course of time he came to count himself as one of them, less from religious ideas than from a natural wish to associate himself with the respectable and lettered element; for, much as he loved the roaming life of the hunter, he was repelled by the coarseness and violence and ill living of a certain class of nomadic frontiersmen who doubtless had good reason to keep their distance from politer communities.

He was one of the Pennsylvanians who went as pioneers in Braddock's fatal expedition, and on that he saw Colonel Washington. He marched with his old friend, Hugh Mercer, in the battalion of three hundred men under Col. John Armstrong, of Carlisle, in 1756, from Fort Shirley to the Indian town of Kittanning, which the troops destroyed after killing most of its hostile inhabitants. During a part of that year and of the next, he served in the provincial garrison at Fort Augusta, far north from Carlisle, and east of the Susquehanna.

Returning home when his period of enlistment was up, he stopped at the large house of a prosperous English settler possessing part of a fine island in the Susquehanna, fell in love with one of the settler's daughters, prolonged his visit two weeks, proposed marriage to the daughter, was accepted, spoke to her father, was by him violently rejected and subsequently ejected, ran away with the girl, or rather paddled away, for the means of locomotion in this elopement was an Indian canoe, and was married in the settlement of Paxton, near John Harris's ferry, by the Reverend John Elder.

As the young wife, who was kind of heart and wise of head, desired to be near the roof whence she had fled, that a reconciliation might be the more easily attempted, Wetheral traded off his field and cabin at Carlisle, returned northward across the Kitocktinning mountains to the neighborhood of his wife's former home, built a log house of two rooms and a loft, near the left bank of the Juniata, a few miles above that river's junction with the Susquehanna, and there, in the month of April, 1758, he became the father of Richard Wetheral, the hero of this book.

The child's arrival was aided by his maternal grandmother, who had already melted towards the young couple, although her husband still held out against them. The surgeon whom Mr. Wetheral had summoned from Fort Hunter, which the settlers were garrisoning because of signs of an Indian outbreak, arrived too late to do more than pronounce the boy a healthy specimen and predict the speedy recovery of the mother, who was indeed of sturdy stock. The household whose different members the observant infant soon began to discriminate consisted of the father, whose dauntless and hearty character has already been slightly indicated; the mother, who was comely and strong in nature as in face and form; a younger sister of the mother's, and a raw but ready youth hired by the father to aid in working the little rude farm and in protecting the family from any of the now rampant Indians who might threaten it. For Mr. Wetheral's house was so near Fort Hunter that he chose to stay and occupy it rather than to take refuge within the stockade of the fort, which latter course was followed by many settlers of the near-by valleys when the Indian alarm came in the month of our hero's birth.

But the Wetherals were not molested by any of the Indians that roamed the woods in small parties, in quest of the scalps of palefaces, during the spring and summer of 1758. Often, though, there came news by horse and canoe, and carried from settlement to settlement, from farm-cabin to farm-cabin, of frequent depredations: how in York County Robert Buck was killed and scalped at Jamieson's house and all the rest of its dwellers were carried away; how, near at home, in Sherman's Valley, a woman was horribly killed and scalped; how, in July, Captain Craig, riding about seven miles from Harris's Ferry, was suddenly struck in the face by a tomahawk thrown from ambush, put spurs to his horse and fled from his yelling savage assailants, escaping by sheer speed of his animal, the blood flowing from the huge gash cut in his cheek by the well-aimed hatchet; how fared the soldiers who set off in search and pursuit of the red-faced enemy, and who were none other than the hardiest of the settlers themselves, accustomed to shoot Indians or bear, to burn out rattlesnake nests, or to farm the ill-cleared land, as occasion might require.

Thus the talk to which Dick Wetheral (for it was early settled that he should be called Richard, a favorite name in his mother's family) became accustomed, as soon as he knew what any talk meant, was of frightful perils and daring achievements. Such talk continued throughout all his childhood, though after 1758 the Indians were peaceful towards central Pennsylvania until 1763.

The boy early showed an adventurous disposition. His first explorations, conducted on all-fours, were confined to the two rooms on the ground floor of the house, but at that stage of his career a journey to the end of the kitchen from the extremity of the other apartment, which served as parlor and principal bedroom, was one of length and incident. New territory was opened to him to roam, on that eventful day when his aunt carried him up the ladder to the loft, which was divided by a partition into two rude sleeping-chambers, and in which he derived as great joy from being set at large as Alexander would have drawn from the discovery of a new world to conquer.

When the boy was in his second year, his world underwent a vast enlargement. This came about through his father's building a house to which the original log cabin of his birth became merely the rear wing. The new structure, made of logs covered with rough-sawn planks, destined to be annually whitewashed, provided two rooms on the ground floor, and two bed-chambers overhead. One of these lower rooms communicated by a door with the original log building, of which the ground floor was transformed, by the removal of the partition, into one large kitchen. From the new parlor a flight of stairs led to the room above, whence a low door and a few descending steps gave entrance to the old loft, so that the young explorer, by dint of long exertion, could reach the second story unaided. And now his days were full of experiences. From his favorite spot near the kitchen fireplace, to the farthest corner of the spare bedroom down-stairs, by way of the parlor (which was invariably called "the room"), was a trip sufficient for ordinary days. But in times of extraordinary energy and ambition, the crawling Dick would make the grand tour up the stairs and through the four second-story apartments, which seemed countless in number, and each a whole province in itself. So long ago was yesterday from to-day, at that time of his life, that this immense journey was full of novelty to him at each repetition, the adventures of one journey having been forgotten before another could be undertaken. And these adventures were as numerous as befell Christian in his Pilgrim's Progress. There were dark corners, queer-looking articles of furniture seemingly with life and expression, shadows of strange shapes, that made the young traveller pause and hold his breath and half turn back, until reassured by the sound of his aunt's voice calling to the chickens in the kitchen yard, his father or the hired man sharpening his sickle or calling to the plow-horse in the field beyond, or—most welcome and reassuring of all—his mother singing at her work in the rooms below.

What a great evening was that when the little indoor explorer found a fellow traveller! Dick was already in bed and asleep, having retired somewhat against his will, as he would have preferred to remain up until his father's return from a horseback journey on business down the river. When he was awakened by his mother, on whose face he saw a smile that promised something pleasant, he blinked once or twice in the candle-light, and looked eagerly around. He saw his father standing near his mother, and between the two a great black head whose long jaws were open in a kind of merry grin of good-fellowship, and from between whose white teeth protruded a red tongue that evinced an impulse to meet the wondering Dickie's face half way. The boy gazed for a moment, then threw out his hands towards the beaming face of the newcomer, and screamed with gleeful laughter. A moment later the dog was licking the youngster's face, while Dick, still laughing, was burying his fingers in the animal's shaggy black coat. Thereafter, the boy Dick was attended on all his expeditions by the dog Rover, and never were two more devoted comrades. The dog was a mixture of Scotch collie and black spaniel, and, though in size between those two breeds, looked a huge animal from the view-point of two years. If Dick required less than the usual grown-up assistance in learning to walk, it was because Rover was of just the size to serve as a support.

Dick now began to make excursions outdoors. Of course he had already spent much time in the open air, but always under the eye of some member of the household. His previous travels from the house had, by this guardianship, been robbed of the zest of adventure. The first trips abroad that he made independently were clandestine. Thus, one afternoon when the men were in the fields, and his aunt was busy tracing figures in the fresh sand that had been laid on the parlor floor, he availed himself of his mother's preoccupation over her spinning-wheel to sally forth from the kitchen door with no other company than Rover. His mother, humming a tune while she span, did not at first notice the silence in that part of the kitchen where Dick's presence was usually manifest to the ear. At last, the bark of Rover, coming with a note of alarm from a distance of several rods beyond the kitchen door, roused her to a sense of the boy's absence. With wildly beating heart she ran out, and towards the sound, which came from beyond the fruit-trees and wild grapevines that bounded the kitchen yard. She soon saw that Rover's call for help had reason. Little Dick was leaning over the edge of a deep spring, staring with amusement at his own image in the clear shaded water. Who knows but the nymphs of the spring would have drawn him in, as Hylas was drawn, had not the mother arrived at that moment, for the boy was reaching out to grasp the face in the water when she caught him by the waist?

Another time, it was not the warning bark of Rover, but the merest accident, that rescued the boy from a situation as perilous. His aunt, going into the little barn near the house, to look for eggs, saw him sitting directly under one of the plow-horses in a stall, watching with interest the movements of the animal's fore-feet, as they regularly pawed the ground. On being taken back to the house, little Dick was made to understand that solitary expeditions were forbidden, and in so sharp a manner that thereafter he rarely violated orders. He was carefully watched against the recurrence of temptation to travel. A constant source of terror to the mother, on Dick's account, was the nearness of the river, whose bed lay a few rods to the south, not far from the foot of a steep bank which fell from the piece of ground on which the house stood. This piece of ground was surrounded by a rude fence, and the boy spent many a longing quarter of an hour in looking through the rails at the river that flowed gently, with constant murmur, below. Between the river and the bank ran what some called a road, what may have formerly been an Indian trail, and what in Dick's time was really but a rough path for horses. It led from the farms farther back up the river, behind the azure mountains at the west, down to the more thickly settled country beyond the mountains at the east, and afar it joined the road to Lancaster and Philadelphia.

The boy's parents early taught him his letters, for the elder Wetheral had brought a few books with his meagre baggage from the old country, and had since acquired, from some of the settlers of the best class, a few more, two by dying bequest, two by gift, and four or five by purchase and trade. With the contents of some of these, Dick first became acquainted through his father's reading aloud on Sundays and rainy days, before the kitchen fire. One of these was Capt. John Smith's account of his marvellous achievements. Strangely enough, or rather naturally enough, the parts of this book that most interested Dick were not where Smith told of his adventures with Indians in America, but where he related his doings in Europe; for Indians and primitive surroundings were familiar matters to Dick, whereas accounts of the old world had for him all that charm which a boy reared in the midst of civilization finds in pictures of wilderness life. A few of the books were illustrated with prints, which the boy studied by the hour. One of these books was an odd volume of a history of the world, and contained mainly that part which related to France. It had crude engravings of two or three palaces, a few kings, three or four queens, a Catholic killing a Huguenot in front of the Church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, a royal hunt, and the Pont Neuf, backed by the towers of Notre Dame and flanked by buildings along the Seine. These rough pictures, thanks to some mysterious cause or other, exercised on little Dick a potent fascination.

"Who is that?" he asked his mother one day, pointing to a wood-cut that purported to portray a human being, as he lay sprawling on the floor, his favorite book opened out before him.

"That is a king," replied his mother, looking down from her sewing. The mother and the boy were alone in the kitchen.

"King David?"

"No; a king of France."

"King George?"

"No; King George is king of England, where your father came from, and your grandfather, and of America, where we are. France is another country."

"Where does this king live?" pointing to the wood-cut.

"He is dead now. He died long ago. He lived in a city called Paris, in the country called France."

"Is that a house?" The boy had turned to a supposed picture of the Louvre.

"Yes, a great, big house, a palace they call it, because it belongs to the king."

"Did it belong to that king?"

"Yes, I think so. It is in the city where I told you that king lived, Paris."

"Is this house in that city, too?" He indicated a building in the picture that showed the Pont Neuf.

"Yes." The mother laid down her sewing and stooped beside the boy. "And so is this house in Paris. And this. And this, too. All these houses are in Paris."

"Do all these people live there, the pretty ladies and soldiers?"

"They all did, I suppose."

"How many houses are there in Paris?"

"Oh, a great many thousand."

"More than there are in Carlisle?"

"Oh, yes! A hundred times more."

"Where is Paris?"

"Oh, very, very far away."

"Which way?"

"Why, that way, I think." She pointed towards the east. "Your father can tell you exactly, when he comes in."

"How far away is it? As far as Carlisle?"

"Much farther than that. Your father can tell you."

"As far as Lancaster?"

"Oh, farther. Farther than Philadelphia. Away across land and water."

"As far away as the farthest mountains yonder, the blue ones against the sky?" He had risen from the floor, and he pointed eastward through the open kitchen doorway.

"Oh, yes. If you went clear across those mountains, you wouldn't be near Paris yet."

"But if I went on and on, far enough, I'd get to Paris at last, wouldn't I?"

"Yes, at last," said the mother, smiling, and drawing the boy to her and kissing him, impelled by the mere thought of the separation his query suggested to the fancy.

When she returned to her sewing, he continued looking for awhile towards the distant east, then resumed his study of the pictures. At supper that evening he made his father laugh by asking which way a body should go, to get to Paris. His mother explained how his curiosity had been aroused. His father, laughing again, and winking at the mother, said:

"Why, boy, a body would have to start by the road that goes down the river to your grandfather's, that's certain. And if a body travelled long enough, and never lost his way, yes, he would surely get to Paris at the end."

"Would he be very tired when he got there?"

"Very tired, indeed, if he didn't rest several times on the way," replied Wetheral, Senior, keeping up the joke.

The next afternoon Dick's mother, having baked some cakes of a kind that she knew her husband liked hot, sent some of them by the boy to the two men in the field, which was not far from the house but was partly hidden therefrom by the barn and out-buildings and some fruit-trees. Dick, being now four years old, had often gone to the fields with his aunt or mother when water or food had been carried out to the men at work, and as the way did not lie near the river, there seemed no risk in sending him now alone. When, after due time, he did not return to the house, the two women supposed the men had kept him with them in the field. But this was not the case. Mr. Wetheral and the hired man, having seen little Dick tripping back towards the house, ate the cakes in the shade of a tree and returned with sickles to their attack on the wheat, with no thought of the boy but that he was now safe home. When they returned in the evening for supper, their surprise in not finding him there was reciprocated by that of the women at his not coming back with the men. The dog, which had accompanied him to the field and from it, also was missing. The men immediately started in search.

The boy by this time was some distance away. He had crawled through the fence, near the barn, descended the declivity to the horse-path by the river, turned his face eastward, and trudged resolutely on with Rover at his heels. It was some time before he would admit to himself that he was becoming a little tired, and that the stones and twigs in the way were bruising his bare feet perceptibly. At last he conceded himself a short rest, and, following Rover's example, leaned over where the bank was low and the river shallow, and drank. He was soon up again and going forward, forgetful of his former fatigue, and heedless that the sun behind him was nearing the horizon. So long a time is a day to a child! In the afternoon the doings of the morning are of the dim past, or are forgotten, while the evening is yet far away, and countless things may be done before the night comes. He could surely reach those farthest blue mountains in an hour or so, and a little walking thereafter must bring him to this strange, wonderful Paris, so entirely different from his own home and from his grandfather's place down the river. He would have to pass his grandfather's place, by the way, on his walk, and it never occurred to him how long a time it would take him to reach merely his grandfather's, so vague was his recollection of his former visits there. He could see Paris, the king and the palaces and the soldiers and the beautiful ladies and the great bridge, and return home by supper-time; and he would have so many things to tell that his father and mother would make his punishment a light one, or might even forget to punish him at all.

He came to a place where the path divided. After a moment's hesitation, he took the wider branch, which carried him from the riverside, straight into the unbroken woods. Presently this path ended abruptly, so that there was nothing before him but thick undergrowth. Rather than retrace his steps to reach the branch that he had rejected, which must be the one he ought to have taken, he started to reach it directly through the woods, moving towards where he thought it should be. He made his way cautiously, lest he might tread on some rattlesnake or other serpent, which could not be as easily seen in the dimness of the forest as in the path by the river. That dimness increased apace, and still he had not found the path. At last the boy paused, perplexed and a little appalled. The chill of evening came on. He was very tired now. He began to think of Indians, bears, and other savage things with whose existence in the neighborhood he was well acquainted, and of monsters of which he had heard from his parents, such as giants, lions, and other horrible things. Wherever his view lost itself in the dark arches of the trees, he imagined mysterious and frightful creatures were concealed, ready to appear at any moment. He summoned heart, and trudged on again. Finally it became so dark that he feared to proceed lest he might, at any step, land in a nest of snakes. Rover stopped close beside him, and looked in his face, as if for counsel. He put his arm around the dog's neck, and the two together sank down on some mossy turf at the foot of a tree. Rover curled up with his chin on the boy's shoulder, and Dick lay with his head on the dog's shaggy side. Dick would have cried, had his impulse ruled, but he was already too proud to make such an exhibition of weakness in the presence of Rover. Thus they lay while night fell. Now and then Rover raised his head a little and listened. The boy was too much overcome by his situation to think of what might ultimately befall. He could only wish, with an intensity as keen as could be endured, that he was home by his mother's side in the candle-lit kitchen, and nestle closer to the dog. The insects of the forest kept up an ear-piercing chorus of chirps, whirrs, and calls. At last reality melted imperceptibly into dreams, in which the boy was again toiling forward on the road to Paris. A terrible noise broke in upon his dream. Starting up, he found it was only the barking of Rover, a bark of eagerness and joy rather than of alarm or threat. A faint light approached slowly through the trees. It resolved itself at last into a lantern, and the huge dark object beside it became a man, who called out, as he came rapidly nearer:

"Dick, lad, are you there with the dog?"

A minute later the boy was in the arms of his father, who was striding back towards the path, while Rover ran yelping gleefully before and behind and on every side.

How short was the journey back to the house, compared with that which Dick had made from it in the afternoon! Almost before Dick had finished his explanation to his father, in somewhat incoherent speeches and a rather unsteady voice, they beheld the kitchen's open door, in which the mother stood waiting. She caught the boy in her arms, covered his face with kisses and tears, and declared he should never go out of her sight again.

"But I'll go some day, when I'm grown up," said little Dick, as he sat filling himself with supper a half-hour later. "I didn't know the road to Paris was so long."

And he didn't know his road to Paris should one day be taken with no thought of its leading him there, and how very roundabout that road should be.

CHAPTER II.
"OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY."

The next time Dick went far from home was when the hired man, John Campbell, took him past his grandfather's island, and thence on down the Susquehanna and into Sherman's Valley, whither Campbell was bent on a courting expedition. During his visit at the house of Campbell's friends, Dick attended the burning out of a snake-nest, an occasion that was participated in by settlers from all the country round. The nest was in a pile of rocks in some woods that a farmer intended to transform into a field for cultivation. Here rattlesnakes and copperheads throve and multiplied. Men with axes and sickles cleared a circle around the rock-pile, at some distance from it, and then set fire to the wood within. When the flame reached the snakes, for which there was no escape, their writhing was a novel sight. Dick, who at first enjoyed the spectacle as only a young boy can enjoy scenes of wholesale slaughter, at last came to being sorry for the victims, because they had no fair fighting chance. The loathsome odor that soon arose drove him away, so that he lost most of the rum-drinking and other jollification that followed the snake-burning.

Snakes, though he could pity those attacked with fire and at a disadvantage, were Dick's abomination. Their abundance was a chief reason why he dared not gratify his taste for roaming far from the house. As yet, when he came on one suddenly, he would act the woman,—that is to say, he would run in great fright, or sometimes stand still in greater, till help came or the snake fled of its own accord. It was several years before he had the courage, on hearing the shriek of some snake-affrighted harvesting woman in the fields, to vie with the men in running to her rescue. For a long time he envied the readiness with which his father, if confronted by a snake while reaping, would club it to death and then, sticking the point of the sickle through its head, hold it up for the other harvesters to see.

But there was a long season when the settlers need have no fear of rattlers and copperheads, nor of Indians, either; that was the winter. Dick was allowed to walk abroad a little more freely then, for the very reason that the cold was sure to bring him soon back again to the vast fireplace. There were other reasons than those of weather, why that fireplace was a magnet to Dick. There, in the time of little work, when the world outside was white and wind-swept, Dick's father would sit and read to the household, or tell of his fights and dangers on both sides of the ocean. There, when the cider went round, was great flow of joke and story and song. For Dick's father, though a man of strict standards of behavior, and outwardly stanch to his adopted sect, which in his neighborhood stood for decency and education, was a man of lively wit and of jocular turn of mind. Dick's mother, though of a severely Presbyterian family, and humbly religious, was of too kindly and cheerful a nature to be soured by piety, and too rich with the health of this pleasant earth to be constantly thinking of another world. She had sensibility and emotion, with the common sense and strength to control them. Her younger sister partook of the prevalent lightness of heart. Campbell, the hired man, whose raw stolidity was tempered by a certain taciturn jocoseness, contributed to the household mirth by the stupid wonder with which he listened to the others, the queer comments he sometimes made, and the snores with which he often punctuated the general conversation when he slumbered in his seat in the fireplace. Dick's place was opposite Campbell's, and when he sat there in the evening he could look up and see the stars through the top of the chimney. Rover's spot was at Dick's feet, whence in his dreams he would echo the snores of Campbell.

The father would tell of his share in Prince Charlie's defeat at Culloden, of his own escape and Dr. Hugh Mercer's to the Scottish port whence they had sailed; of that fatal march of Braddock's army towards Fort Duquesne, and the fearful death that blazed out from the seemingly empty woods around, and the conduct of the young Virginia colonel, Washington, and the night burial of the mistaken English general by torchlight in the dismal forest; of the march of resolute John Armstrong, the Scottish Covenanter, of Carlisle, to Kittanning, in 1756; the destruction of the Indian town, the slaughter of the Indian chiefs, and the wounding of nearly all Armstrong's officers; how Wetheral's friend, Mercer, a captain in the expedition, wounded and separated from his men, wandering for weeks alone in the forest, living on roots and berries, once repulsing starvation by eating a rattlesnake, at last came upon waters that led to the Potomac, and so reached Fort Cumberland. Wetheral told of George Croghan, the Indian trader, who had figured in Braddock's campaign; and of Captain Jack, called also the Black Hunter, the Black Rifle, and the Wild Hunter of Juniata, who with his band of hunters scourged the Indians in revenge for his wife and children slain and his cabin burnt while he was away hunting; and of other border heroes, whose names have not lived as long.

In Wetheral's earlier reminiscences, the name that oftenest reached Dick's ears, and most agreeably impressed them, was that of Tom MacAlister, a former fellow Jacobite, whom Wetheral had thought killed at Culloden, but who had turned up, to his great surprise and joy, a sergeant in Braddock's army in America, in 1755. Surviving Braddock's defeat, he had retreated with the remnant of the British army, and since then Wetheral had neither seen nor heard of him. Of all the characters that figured in his father's stories, Dick made MacAlister his favorite. This was not only on account of the warlike deeds he had done, or the jests he had perpetrated, or the comical scrapes he had figured in, or the pithy sayings that Wetheral quoted from him, or the fact that he had served as a soldier in many lands, but also for a circumstance connected with Dick's early acquired love of song. When Dick would express a liking for some particular one of the many tunes his father whistled or sang, the father would say to the mother:

"You ought to hear Tom MacAlister play that on his fiddle or pipe, Betty!"

And when the boy, pleased with the words of some ballad of which his father had remembered but a part, would eagerly demand the rest, the father would usually say:

"I don't know it, Dickie, lad. If Tom MacAlister were here, he could sing it all for you."

Thus Dick came to think of this Tom MacAlister, whom he had never seen, and could with little reason expect ever to see, as the source, of at least the repository, of all the songs that ever were written, and all the tunes that ever were composed. Dick dearly loved the sound of a fiddle, and whenever there was a wedding anywhere in the sparsely settled neighborhood he would beg his parents to take him behind one of them on horseback, or to let him go with John Campbell, that he might enjoy the scraping of the fiddles, while the rustic guests danced, and made merry with rum, hard cider, and peach brandy.

If he could only hear Tom MacAlister play the pipe or fiddle! If he could but once see that hero in the flesh, touch the hands that had performed so many acts of valor, behold the face that had been turned towards so many foes, hear the voice that had uttered so much wisdom, sung so many ballads, and could tell so many true tales of marvellous experience! To Dick, this much-talked-of Tom, who might no longer be among the living, was as a hero of legend, a Jack the Giant Killer, a Mr. Greatheart, a Robinson Crusoe.

Some of the songs sung by Dick's father, and by his mother, too, who had picked up most of her tunes from her husband, were Jacobite ballads. One snowy day, in Dick's fifth winter, his father, mending a bridle beside the fire, was heard by Dick to sing in a low voice:

"'There was a wind, it cam to me,
Over the south, an' over the sea,
An' it has blawn my corn and hay,
Over the hills an' far away.'"

Dick looked up from where he was sitting, by the legs of a skillet under which some brands were burning.

"Is that the tune it means when it says about Tom that was a piper's son, all the tune that he could play was 'Over the hills and far away?'" he asked.

"I don't know, son. There are a great many songs of 'Over the hills and far away.' Tom MacAlister used to sing them all."

Dick studied a moment, then asked:

"Who was Tom MacAlister's father?"

"A Highland man, and I've heard Tom say he was a great player on the bagpipe."

"Why, then," cried Dick, "maybe he was the Tom that was a piper's son!"

"I shouldn't doubt it in the least," replied Wetheral, with a wink and a smile at his wife.

But Dick's face, after glowing for a moment with the exultation of so great a literary discovery, soon fell.

"No," he said; "because Tom MacAlister could play hundreds and hundreds of other tunes, and Tom that was a piper's son could play only 'Over the hills and far away.'"

"Ay," said the father, "but then, you see, that song might have been about Tom MacAlister before he had learned any other tune than the one. I think he told me once that for a very long time he couldn't play any other."

Mrs. Wetheral smilingly shook her head in hopeless disapproval of the jocular deceit practised by her husband on little Dick; but the boy was too taken up with his discovery to observe her movement, and so from that day, to him, Tom MacAlister and Tom who was a piper's son were one and the same Tom.

But there came a time when neither singing nor fiddling was in season, and when reminiscences of past dangers in foreign lands gave way to fears of imminent dangers at home. This was in the spring of 1763, when Dick was five years old, but possessed of such strength and endurance as would be marvellous in a boy of that age nowadays. Almost as soon as the woods and fields were green again, and the orchards white and pink with fruit-blossoms, came news, from every side, of Indian surprises and alarms. The Pennsylvania tribes, such as the Delawares and Shawnees, once friendly to the English settlers, but rendered contemptuous of them by Braddock's defeat, had not ceased ravages against them, even after Wolfe's victory at Quebec in 1759 had made the English masters of the continent. It seemed now, in 1763, as if the redskins had mustered their strength for a decisive series of revengeful blows against the colonists. In from the west and down from the north they came, unseen, unheard, penetrating the whole frontier in small parties, striking without warning, often where least expected, destroying by rifle-ball, knife, tomahawk, and fire. No one knew when a painted band, armed for slaughter, might not suddenly appear as if by magic from the apparently solitary wilderness around. No settler's family could go to bed at night with the assurance that they might not be aroused before dawn by smoke and flames or by the unearthly shrieks of savages. Most of the settlers in the valleys south of the Juniata fled across the mountains to Carlisle. Some from the vicinity of the Wetherals took refuge in Fort Hunter, which consisted of a rectangular stockade, with a log blockhouse rising from the corner, and with cabins inside to serve indifferently as barracks for the Provincial soldiers and as temporary lodgings for the people of both sexes and every age who took refuge there.

Dick's grandfather, deciding to remain in his large and strong house on his island in the Susquehanna, invited the Wetherals thither, actuated in part, perhaps, by the consideration that his son-in-law would prove a notable addition to the home garrison. Wetheral accepted, for the sake of his family, although the reconciliation between himself and his stiff-necked father-in-law had never been more than merely formal. The Wetherals had no sooner joined the large family in the island mansion than there came word, by terrified refugees, of killings and burnings on the Juniata, quite near, as distances between neighbors then went, to Wetheral's house. Later came similar tidings up from Sherman's Valley. Houses of those who had fled were burnt, and, as summer advanced, a great deal of their grain was destroyed. When harvest-time came, several of the men who had fled returned in parties, well armed, to get in their crops. A party, strong in numbers, would go from farm to farm, taking in each harvest as rapidly, and bestowing it as securely, as possible.

At a certain time in July, one such party of reapers was working on the farm of William White, who lived not far from Dick's grandfather. This party had been reinforced by some of the men now at the latter's place, one of whom was John Campbell. The nearness of White's house, the large force of men there, and the fact that the Indians were thought to have gone out of the neighborhood, had enabled Dick to get permission to go with Campbell to this reaping, at which there was a famous fiddler from Tuscarora, of whom the boy had often heard. On Saturday evening, after the work was done, Dick revelled to his heart's content in the scraping of this frontier virtuoso. The reapers made merry so late that night, that they were quite willing to observe the ensuing Sabbath by resting most vigorously.

All the warm sunny morning, they lay on the floor of the principal room. Dick alone showed any disposition towards activity. While the men slumbered, or turned heavily over on the floor, or stared drowsily at the wooden ceiling, or stretched and yawned, Dick amused himself by climbing up the ladder to the loft overhead.

He had reached the round next to the top one, and was about to thrust his head up through the opening into the loft, when he heard a slight creak from the door of the room below. He looked in time to see it swing open, and three painted, naked, feather-crowned bodies appear in the doorway, each one behind a rifle whose muzzle was instantly turned towards some sleeper on the floor. Terrified into dumbness, Dick's gaze involuntarily turned towards the window opposite the door. The oiled paper that had served instead of glass had been swiftly and silently cut away with a knife, and three savage heads appeared above the window base, each shining eye directed along a different rifle-barrel towards one of the prostrate reapers.

Dick opened his mouth to cry out, but he could emit no sound. Before he could form a thought, the six rifles blazed forth in concert, and an instant later the room below was filled with smoke, shouts of pain, and furious curses. A terrible chorus of piercing war-screams from outside the house showed that the redskins who had crept up so silently were in large number. Dick tarried no longer, but sprang up into the loft and ran wildly to a little window at the end of it. He supposed that he had been seen and would be followed up the ladder.

He thrust out his head and looked down. This little window was over the one through which three of the savages had fired into the room down-stairs. He saw three other Indians aiming in through the lower window, while the first three were reloading their rifles. Others were shrieking their war-whoop and brandishing the knives and tomahawks with which they were to complete the work begun with the rifles. Up from the ladder hatchway, amidst the noise of heavy bodies falling and of the men rushing to their arms and yelling and swearing, came the sound of another volley, fired probably through the doorway. Dick drew his head in and waited with wildly beating heart, wondering what to do, and fearing to look back towards the hatchway lest he might see savages rushing up after him, with gleaming knives and upraised tomahawks. But none came. The noise from the room below indicated that knives, tomahawks, and guns had business enough down there.

After what seemed a space of several minutes, Dick cautiously looked again out of the window. He saw now but one savage, and that one soon disappeared through the lower window, into the room where his fellows were completing the slaughter of the unprepared reapers. The hideous shrieks of triumph that came up through the hatchway told clearly enough that victory was with the attacking party, and that the scalping-knife was already in use.

Suddenly Dick's blood turned cold. A sound of sharp, eager grunting, detached from the general hubbub below, arose immediately beneath the hatchway. A red hand appeared through the opening, grasping the loft floor against which the ladder rested.

The little window at which Dick stood was neither glazed nor papered. He went out through it, feet first; hung for a moment by his fingers to the ledge, then dropped to the ground below, fell on his side, scrambled to his feet, turned his back to the house of shrieking slaughter, and ran across the field towards the nearest woods. Though the direction in which he went took him farther from his grandfather's, he nevertheless did not stop or turn, on reaching the woods, but ran straight on, as fast as the irregularities of the ground would let him, and for once with reckless disregard of possible snakes, his only thought being to put the greatest distance between himself and the yelling murderers behind him.

After a long run, he stopped for lack of breath, and began to consider his situation, as well as the rapid beating of his heart would allow him to do. He regretted that he had not taken Rover with him to White's,—if he had done so, he might now have at least the comfort of the dog's society. At last he decided to make for his grandfather's, by a détour which would take him far from the house where the savages were now holding their carnival of blood. This détour required several hours, as his bare feet suffered from contact with stones, thorns roots, and the rough bark of fallen branches. Finally, on hearing a sound as of a horse's foot crunching into stony soil, a little to the left and ahead, he stopped and stood still. The sound continued. Could it be that he was near a bridle-path and that this sound indicated some solitary traveller? As yet he could see nothing moving through the thick forest. While he waited, a slighter sound close at hand, that of an instant's movement among bushes, suddenly drew his glance. From a mass of laurel near the ground, gleamed a pair of eyes directly at him, on a level with his own. He started back, thinking they might belong to a wildcat or some other crouching animal.

Instantly the owner of the eyes swiftly rose, and stood erect from the bush,—a naked Shawnee, daubed yellow, and carrying knife and tomahawk. Dick turned and ran, casting back one look, in which he saw the Indian hurl the tomahawk after him. The boy fell forward on his face just in time to feel the wind of the hatchet instead of the hatchet itself, which cleft the air directly over his head and lodged in a tree-trunk in front of him. The Indian, abandoning his intention of remaining in the bush, for which he had doubtless had his own reason, now glided after Dick, who had not half risen when he felt the Shawnee's fingers grasp his long hair, and saw the knife describe a rapid circle in the air in preparation for its descent upon his scalp. The boy cast one despairing look up towards the Indian's implacable face.

The stillness of the woods was suddenly broken by a loud detonation. Something dug into the Indian's breast, a horrible grimace distorted his face, a fearful cry came from his throat, his knife-blow went wide, and he leaped clear over Dick, retaining some of the boy's hair in his clutch as he went. The next moment he lay sprawling, face downward, some feet away. He stiffened convulsively, and never moved again.

Dick looked towards the direction whence the shot had come. In a little opening among the trees he saw a horse standing; on its back a tall, gaunt, brown-faced stranger, from whose rifle-muzzle a little smoke was still curling. The newcomer was apparently about forty years old; wore an old cocked hat, a time-worn blue coat, whose long skirts spread out over the horse's rump, a red waistcoat, patched green breeches, and great jack-boots that had known much service. His long brown hair was tied in a queue, and, besides his rifle, he carried before him an immense pistol. A long, projecting chin gave a grotesque turn to his features, whose grimness was otherwise modified by amiable gray eyes.

"Sure, sonny," he called out to the astonished and staring Dick, "it's the part of Providence I played towards ye that time; in return for whilk favor, tell me now the way to one Alexander Wetheral's house, if ye ken it."

Not sufficiently learned in dialects to note the stranger's mixture of Scotch and Irish with the King's English, Dick eagerly proffered his services and said that Alexander Wetheral was his father.

"What, lad! Gie's your hand, then, and it's in front of me ye shall ride hame this day. It's a glad man your father 'ull be, when he sees ye bringing in Tom MacAlister as a recruit, and no such raw one, neither!"

"THE NEWCOMER WAS APPARENTLY ABOUT FORTY YEARS OLD."

Dick almost fell off the horse, to whose shoulders the stranger had lifted him.

Such was his first meeting with Tom that was a piper's son.

The two reached Dick's grandfather's without molestation, and the newcomer was duly welcomed. Lack of occupation in Europe, and the desire to be always enlarging his experiences, had brought him again to the New World, and in search of his early friend.

He had immediate opportunity to employ his courage and prowess. A few days after Dick's adventure, there came to his grandfather's house a settler named Dodds, with an account of how the same Indians who had shot the reapers at White's had thereupon gone to Robert Campbell's on the Tuscarora Creek, found Dodds and other reapers there resting themselves, and first made their presence known by a sudden deadly volley of rifle-balls. In the smoke and confusion, Dodds had made, unseen, for the chimney, which he had ascended by great muscular exertion while the massacre was proceeding in the room below. He had dropped from the roof and fled to Sherman's Valley, where he had given the alarm, which he was now engaged in spreading.

Dick's father and grandfather, with all the aroused settlers who could be summoned, speedily organized a party to make war on the savage invaders. In the expedition this force made, MacAlister was in his element. He was one of the detachment of twelve who overtook twenty-five Indians at Nicholson's house and killed several, at the cost of five of the white men. The chasing of Indians, and the fleeing from them, continued all summer. William Anderson was killed at his own house, depredations were committed at Collins's, Graham's house was burnt, and in September five white men were killed in a battle at Buffalo Creek. Finally a hundred volunteers, including Wetheral and MacAlister, went up the Susquehanna to Muncy, encountered two companies of Indians that were coming down the river, killed their chief, Snake, and drove the others back from the frontier. In the fall, the Wetherals, with their guest, went back to their own house, but not at the first waning of summer. Too many settlers, deceived by the earliest signs of winter, had in times past returned to their houses, thinking themselves safe from further Indian ravage; but, with the brief later season of warm weather, the Indians had reappeared for final strokes, and hence that fatal season received the name of Indian summer.

Tom MacAlister, impelled by his friendship for Wetheral, and by the charm that he found in the still wilderness, took the place formerly occupied in the household by John Campbell, who had been killed at White's. If not in the field, at least at the fireside and in the dooryard, he was a vast improvement upon his heavy-witted predecessor. With a fiddle, bought from a settler, Tom soon verified all the assertions Wetheral had made about his musical ability.

As 1763 was the last year of general Indian outbreaks in the neighborhood, the arts of peace thereafter had full opportunity to thrive in the Wetheral household. From childhood to pronounced boyhood, and then to sturdy youth, Dick Wetheral grew, to the constant accompaniment of Tom MacAlister's fiddle. Dick became, in time, a fairly capable tiller of the soil, an excellent horseman, a good hunter, a comparatively lucky fisherman. He was a straight shot at a distant wild turkey, a quick one at a running deer, and a cool one at a threatening bear. He was a great reader, not for improvement, but for amusement and because books gave him other worlds to contemplate. When he had read and re-read all the volumes of his father's little stock, he took means to learn who else owned books in the neighborhood. The owners were few and far between, and fewer still were the books possessed by any one of them. But what books there were, Dick hunted down, taking many a long ride in the quest, buying a volume when he could, or trading for it, or borrowing it.

Thus he made the acquaintance of Fielding's novels, and one or two of Smollett's, and of Shakespeare's plays, and from all these he acquired standards of gentlemanly conduct and manners, and ideals of feminine beauty and charm, which standards and ideals kept him alike from close association with the raw youths of the neighborhood, and from succumbing to the primitive attractions of any of the farmers' daughters. Slowly and imperceptibly, by his reading and his thoughts, he was, if not fitting himself for a vastly different world from the one about him, at least unfitting himself for the latter. One cause of his strong attachment to Tom MacAlister, after he had come to regard that worthy in a more accurate light, and no longer idealized him as the half mythical hero of his childhood, was that Tom represented the great world of cities and courts.

Tom was the son of a Scotch father and an Irish mother, and one of the two had a sufficient streak of English blood to account for Tom's length of chin. To his mixed ancestry was due his unique intermingling of brogues and accents. It was a question which was the greater, the severity of his visage or the drollery of his disposition. It was looked upon as a caprice of nature that a man of so sanctimonious an aspect should on occasion swear so hard, and that he who could drink so enormously of liquor should retain such meagreness of body. He advocated strict morality, though he admitted having himself been a sad lapser from virtue. He testified frankly to having broken "all the ten commandments and half a dozen more." He had been a great patron of the playhouses, could perform conjuring tricks, and was able to oppose a card-cheat with the latter's own weapons. As for religion, wherever he was, he took that, as he took the staple drink, "of the country," a practice which, he said, gave him in turn the benefit of all faiths, and saved him from a deal of inconvenience where piety ran strong. He had fought in 1743 with George II. against the French at Dettingen; "been out" with the Young Chevalier in 1745; followed Braddock to defeat in 1755; served under Frederick of Prussia, at Prague, Rossbach, and elsewhere; and had been under Prince Ferdinand, at Minden, in 1759. The disbandment of his regiment at the end of the Seven Years' War had put his services out of demand.

In winter evenings, before the flaming logs in the great chimney-place, when Tom was not recounting adventures he had experienced, or some he had imagined, or playing the fiddle, or taking huge gulps of hard cider or hot "kill-devil," he was singing songs; and of these the favorite in his list was one or other of the versions of "Over the hills and far away." First, there was the song with which Dick had been familiar since his infancy, and which for a long time he thought alluded to MacAlister himself, beginning thus:

"Tom he was a piper's son,
He learnt to play when he was young,
And all the tune that he could play
Was 'Over the hills and far away,'
Over the hills and a great way off,
And the wind will blow my top-knot off."

Then there was the one which, when it was sung by Tom, Dick took to be a bit of veritable autobiography:

"When I was young and had no sense,
I bought a fiddle for eighteen pence,
And the only tune that it would play
Was 'Over the hills and far away.'"

But what was the song itself to which these verses alluded? Tom knew and sang several, but was cloudy as to which was the particular one. That mattered little, however, as all went to the same tune. There was one artfully contrived to lure recruits to the king's service, thus:

"Hark how the drums beat up again
For all true soldiers, gentlemen;
Then let us 'list and march away
Over the hills and far away."

Then there was one that Tom had heard at the play, sung by a gay captain and a dare-devil recruiting sergeant, and of which the latter half would fill Dick's head with longings and visions:

"Our 'prentice Tom may now refuse
To wipe his scoundrel master's shoes,
For now he's free to sing and play,
Over the hills and far away.

"We shall lead more happy lives
By getting rid of brats and wives
That scold and brawl both night and day,
Over the hills and far away.

"Over the hills, and over the main,
To Flanders, Portugal, or Spain;
The king commands, and we'll obey,
Over the hills and far away.

"Courage, boys, it is one to ten,
But we return all gentlemen;
While conq'ring colors we display,
Over the hills and far away."

And there was a duet, which Tom had heard at the opera in London, and which he sang, imitating the respective voices of the highwayman and the adoring Polly.

The tune took a lasting possession of Dick, and the sweet-sounding recurrent line exercised upon him a witchery that increased as he grew. He chose for his bedroom the rear apartment of the loft over the kitchen, because its window looked towards the east, and his first glance at dawn, his latest at night, was towards the farthest hill-tops. There were hills to the west, too, a great many more of them; mountain ranges, from the straight ridge of the Tuscaroras, to the farthest Alleghanies; but Dick's heart looked not in that direction, where he knew there was but savage wilderness all the thousands of miles to the Pacific Ocean. Towards the east, where the live world was, he longed to wing. Strangely enough, so had circumstance directed, he never, till he was seventeen years old, travelled as far as to the farthest mountains in sight southward or eastward. His father had turned his back on the Old World, thrown his interests heart and soul with those of the new land, built up a well-provided home on the outer verge of civilization, joined irrevocably the advance guard of the westward march of men. What little business he had with towns could be done through the pack-horse men and wagoners. So Dick had only his imagination on which to call for an idea of the level country towards the sea. What was behind the hills? How he envied the birds he saw flying towards that distant azure band that backed the green hills nearer! Should it ever be his lot to follow them?

At seventeen Dick was a strong, lithe youth, five feet eleven inches tall, and destined to grow no taller; with a thoughtful, somewhat eager face, whose sharpness of feature and alertness of expression had some suggestion of the fox, but with no indication of that animal's vices; brown hair that fell back to its queue from a wide and open brow; and blue eyes both steady and keen. Such was his appearance one sunny spring morning when he started from the house to join the men in the field, from which the sound of his father's "whoa," and of Tom MacAlister's chirping to the plow-horses, could be heard through the blossoming fruit-trees in which the birds were twittering. He returned his mother's smile through the open kitchen window, at which she stood kneading the dough for the week's baking. As he went towards the lane which ran up in front of the house from the so-called road, he could hear her voice while she half unconsciously sang at her work:

"'Over the hills, and over the main,
To Flanders, Portugal, or Spain;
The king commands, and we'll obey,
Over the hills and far away.'"

He took up the tune and hummed it, and, though the cheerful solitude around him seemed ineffably sweet, he sighed as he followed with his eyes the course of a tiny white cloud towards the high blue eastern horizon. It was Saturday, next to the last day of April, 1775.

As he leaped over the rail fence, from the houseyard to the lane, he saw a horse turn into the latter from the road. He recognized the rider, a good-looking young man, one of the few in the neighborhood with whom Dick was intimate.

"Good morning, M'Cleland," said Dick, heartily. "Where from?"

"From Hunter's Mill, and I can stay only a moment to give you the news, if you haven't heard it." He stopped his horse.

"What news?" queried Dick, wondering whether it might be of another Indian war, like that of Lord Dunmore's in Western Virginia the preceding year; or whether there had been a renewal of the old feud between the Pennsylvanians and the Connecticut settlers up in the Wyoming Valley; or whether the English government had repealed or reinforced the Boston Port Bill. These were matters in which Dick and M'Cleland had both taken interest,—especially the last one, for nowhere had the difference between King and colonies, which quarrel had been growing ever since the passage of the Stamp Act ten years before, been more thoroughly discussed than in the Wetheral household, and nowhere was the feeling for resistance to the King more ardent.

"Great news," said M'Cleland, controlling his voice with difficulty, while his eyes sparkled with excitement. "On the nineteenth the King's troops marched out from Boston to take some ammunition the people had stored at Concord. At Lexington they met a company of minutemen, and there were shots and bloodshed. The whole country around rose and killed God knows how many of the regulars on their way back to Boston. When the messengers left Cambridge, there was an army of Massachusetts men besieging the King's soldiers in Boston. There's no doubt about it. At Hunter's Mill I saw the man who met at Paxton the rider that talked in Philadelphia with the messenger from Cambridge, who had affidavits from Massachusetts citizens. Tell your people. I'm off up the river. Get up!"

Dick never went any farther towards the field. He called in his father and Tom, and there was a long discussion of the situation. Wetheral said that Pennsylvania would be organizing troops, in due time, to back up Massachusetts, and that the only course was to wait and join such a force. But Dick would not hear of waiting. "Now is the time men are needed!" was his answer to every counsel. First make for the scene of war; it would be time to join the Pennsylvania forces when these should arrive there. The father gave in, at last, and the mother had nothing to oppose to the inevitable but the protest of silent tears. To her, the whole matter was as lightning from a clear sky. It was settled; the boy should go, the father should stay. The mother had a day in which to get Dick's things ready. As for Tom MacAlister, who was subject to no man's will but his own, his first hearing of the news had set him preparing for departure. As he tied his own horse to the fence rail the next day, to wait for Dick, he bethought him how of old his motto had been always "up and away again," and he marvelled that he had remained twelve years contented in one place.

It was not yet Sunday noon when Dick, who it was decided should share with Tom the use of the latter's horse on the journey to Cambridge, according to the custom known as "riding and tying," mounted for the first stage. He wore a cocked hat, a blue cloth coat altered from one his father had brought from England, a linsey shirt, an old figured waistcoat, gray breeches, worsted stockings, home-made shoes, and buckskin leggings; carried a rifle, a blanket, and a change of shirts; and had two gold pieces, long saved by his mother against the time of his setting up for himself. Tom MacAlister was dressed and armed exactly as at Dick's first meeting with him, his clothes having been temporarily supplanted by homespun during his years of farm service.

There was a lump in Dick's throat when he put his arms around his mother's neck, and felt against his cheek the tear she had striven to hold back. The last embrace taken, he gave his horse the word rather huskily, and followed Tom MacAlister, who was already striding down the lane. Turning into the road, Dick looked back, and saw his father, his mother, his aunt, and Rover, the last-named now feeble and far beyond the age ordinarily attained by dogkind, standing together by the fence. His father waved an awkward military salute, his mother forced a smile into her face, and the old dog made two or three steps to follow, as in the past, then stopped and looked somewhat surprised and hurt that Dick did not call him. One swift glance from the puzzled dog to his mother's wistful face, and Dick's home in the Pennsylvania valley passed from his sight forever. He cleared his throat, swallowed down the lump in it, and turned his eyes forward towards the east. Tom MacAlister's grim face wore a look of quiet elation, and he could be heard softly whistling, as he trudged on, the tune of "Over the hills and far away."

CHAPTER III.
AT THE SIGN OF THE GEORGE.

As they proceeded, Dick laughingly alluded to the time when, at the age of four, he had started out on this same road, thinking it would take him to Paris in a few hours.

"And wha kens," said MacAlister, in all seriousness, "but this same road may yet lead ye there, or to Chiney, for that matter? Him that sets out on a journey knowing where 'twill land him is a wiser man nor you and me, my son!"

Presently MacAlister fell behind, and was soon lost to sight as Dick rode on. By and by Dick dismounted, tied the horse to a tree by the path, and went on afoot. When he had walked about an hour, he was overtaken and passed by MacAlister, on the horse, which Tom, on coming up to it, had untied and mounted. Walking on alone, Dick in due time found the horse tied at the path's side, and mounted to overtake and pass Tom in turn. He caught up to his comrade at the place where, it had been decided, they should cross the Juniata, which they did on horseback together, partly by fording and partly by swimming the horse. Proceeding as before, and not losing the time to cross to the island for a visit to Dick's grandfather when they reached the Susquehanna, they came at nightfall to the house of a farmer on the west bank of that river, and lodged there. At early dawn they were on their way again, and just as the sun rose Dick reached the crest of the farthest mountains southeast of his home. Who could describe his feelings as he looked for the first time over the fair wooded country that rolled afar towards the purple and golden east? Did his mother, at this moment, looking towards the farthest azure line, know he was there at last, and that he saw what the birds had seen that he had so often envied when they flew eastward? "Get up!" he cried, and urged his horse down the eastern mountainside towards his future.

Riding and tying, the two comrades came to Harris's ferry-house, whence they crossed the Susquehanna in a scow, to the small collection of low buildings—stone residence, old storehouse for skins, blockhouse for defence, and others—which then constituted Harrisburg. While they were crossing, the ferryman at the pole entertained them with anecdotes of the parents of the John Harris of that day,—how they were sturdy Yorkshire people; how the wife Esther once in time of necessity rode all the way to Philadelphia in one day on the same horse; how she was once up the river on a trading trip to Big Island, and heard of her husband's illness and came down in a bark canoe in a day and a night; how she was a good trader, and could write, and had boxed the ears of many an Indian chief when he was drunk; how she could swim as well as a man and handle firearms as well as any hunter; how she worked at the building of her brick house five miles up the Susquehanna; how she once ran up-stairs and took from a cask of powder a lighted candle that her maid had mistakenly stuck in the bung-hole; how the then present John Harris was the first white child born thereabouts and was taken to Philadelphia to be baptized in Christ's Church. Dick would have liked to see the inside of the church at Paxton, three miles from Harrisburg, because one of his acquaintances, having got a girl into trouble, had made public confession before the congregation there, praying in the usual formula:

"For my own game,
Have done this shame,
Pray restore me to my lands again."

He would have liked, also, to seek out some member of the gang of "Paxton Boys" that had killed the Conestogo Indians in Lancaster County, in 1764, and get the other side of that story, which was generally accepted as one of unwarranted massacre of friendly natives. But the impulse to press forward overcame the other, and the travellers, having followed the left bank of the Susquehanna, by the road which had been in existence from Harris's since 1736, lodged on the second night of their journey at a wooden tavern in the village of Middletown. The next morning they turned directly eastward, their backs towards the Susquehanna, and proceeded on the road to Lancaster. They now entered the band of country settled by German Protestants, whose fertile farms gave the slightly undulating land a soft and smiling appearance.

At noon, dining at a rude log hostelry, more farmhouse than tavern, they were invited to drink by two thin, middle-aged, merry fellows, in brown cloth coats and cocked hats, who said they were Philadelphia merchants returning from a view of some interior land which they intended to purchase for the purpose of developing trade. They invited Tom and Dick to drink with them, laughed so boisterously at Tom's sage jokes, and expressed so much admiration of Dick's intelligence and book-learning, that when all four left the tavern to proceed eastward, Dick and Tom, seeing that the two jolly merchants were afoot, took counsel together and agreed to share with them the use of the horse. This generous idea was engendered by a hint that one of the merchants made in jest. The horse was a huge animal and could easily bear any two of four such thin men as were those concerned. Lots were cast to determine which two should be the pair to mount first. One of the two merchants held the straws, and as a result of the drawing he and his companion got on the horse together and started. A turn in the road hid them from view in half a minute. Dick and MacAlister were about to follow afoot, when they were reminded by the tavern-keeper that the drinks taken at the merchants' invitation were yet to be paid for.

"Bedad," said Tom, "our friends were so busy laughing at my tale of the ensign's wife at the battle of Minden, they forgot to settle the score." Dick, who had been provided with sufficient silver to see him to Philadelphia, besides his two gold pieces, speedily paid the bill, and the two comrades resumed their journey. After several minutes of silence, Tom expressed some belated surprise at the fact that two substantial merchants should be travelling afoot. Dick replied that there must be some interesting reason for so unusual a circumstance. "Ay," said Tom, "we'll speer them when we catch up to them." The two trudged on. By and by Dick began to look, each time the road made a turn, for the horse standing at the side of the way, accordingly to agreement. An hour had passed since the tavern had been left behind. Another hour followed. At last Dick broke the silence:

"Is it likely our friends may have lost their way?"

Tom MacAlister drew a deep breath and replied:

"Devil a bit is it them that's lost their way! It's us that's lost our horse."

"Why, what do you mean? Two such worthy Philadelphia merchants!"

"Philadelphia nothing! I'll warrant they do be a pair of rascals from the Connecticut settlement in the Wyoming Valley, turned out of the community for such-like tricks as they've played on us new-born babes. That's the effect on me of twelve years' residence in the wilderness. My son, it's time we throwed off our state of innocence and braced ourselves to meet the mickle deviltry of the world. Richard, lad, I tell it to ye now, though ye'll no mind it till ye've had it pounded into ye by sore experience, your fellow man is kittle cattle, and your fellow woman more so!"

They might have had to walk all the way to Lancaster but that they were overtaken by a train of pack-horses from Carlisle, and paid the pack-driver to shift the horses' loads and give them the use of one of the animals. At evening they arrived at Lancaster, which then had some thousands of inhabitants and was to Dick quite a busy and town-like place. He saw the prison where the Indian chief Murhancellin had been confined on being apprehended by Captain Jack's hunters for the murder of three Juniata men the previous year. Dick went to see the barracks, the Episcopal and German churches, and a house where some of the famous Lancaster stockings were made. He gazed with wonder and hidden disapproval at the long beards of the Omish men, and enjoyed the bustle of horses and wagons before the excellent tavern where he and Tom passed the night. The next morning the two got seats in one of the huge covered wagons engaged in the trade between Philadelphia and the interior. They dined at the Duke of Cumberland Tavern, and put up at evening at the sign of the Ship, thirty-five miles from Philadelphia. This distance was covered the next day, and a little before sunset, the wagon having crossed the picturesque Schuylkill by the Middle Ferry and passed under beautiful trees down the High Street road, through the Governor's Woods and by brick kilns and verdant commons, and across little water-courses spanned by wooden bridges, Dick set his eyes on Philadelphia, whose spires and dormer windows reflected the level sun rays, and whose trim brick and wooden houses rose among leafy gardens. The town then had about thirty thousand people, and lay close along the Delaware, its built-up portion extending at the widest part about seven or eight streets from the river, not counting the alleys and by-streets. As the wagon lumbered down High Street, which was then popularly (as it is now officially) known as Market Street, Dick kept his emotions to himself, satisfying his curiosity without betraying it, and in no outward way disclosing how novel to him was the actual sight, which neither excelled nor fell short of the scene he had so often imagined, much as it differed from it in general appearance. At Fourth Street, as the wagon continued east, the houses began to be quite close together. At Third, the markets began, and ran thence down the middle of the street towards the Delaware. The wagon, with its eight horses, stopped for some reason at the Indian King Tavern, near Third Street, whereupon Tom and Dick, having settled with the wagoner, and not intending to lodge at that inn, proceeded afoot down Market Street, a part of which was paved with stones and had a narrow sidewalk for foot-passengers. This last-named convenience was one that even some of the first cities of Europe then lacked.

The animation of the streets quite put to shame Dick's recollections of the little bustle at Lancaster. The rifles and baggage of the two did not attract much attention among the citizens and tradespeople, in those days of much hunting, and especially at a time when there was already talk of new military companies forming, when the provincial militia was drilling and recruiting, and when men were coming to town to offer the colonies their services in the event of general revolt. Delegates were already arriving from other colonies to attend the Second Continental Congress, which was to meet on the tenth.

As the two comrades approached the London Coffee House, at Front and Market Streets, they saw three well-dressed citizens issue from the door and greet with the utmost respect a stocky old gentleman who had just turned in from Front Street, and whose face was both venerable and worldly, kind and shrewd, while his plain brown coat took nothing from his look of distinction, and his walking-stick seemed quite unnecessary to one whose vigor was still that of youth. He cordially responded to the three gentlemen, the first of whom detained him for the purpose of introducing the third. The name by which the old gentleman was addressed startled Dick for the moment out of his self-possession, and he stopped and stared with unfeigned curiosity and pleasure. It was his first sight of a world-famous man, and the writer of Poor Richard's Almanac, whose proverbs every Pennsylvanian knew by heart, the celebrated philosopher, the wise agent of the provinces, who had just returned from London, lost nothing in Dick's admiration from the youth's visual inspection of his face and person.

While Doctor Franklin stood talking with the three, Dick and Tom went on past Front and Water Streets, turned down along the wharves, and presently arrived at their recommended destination, the Crooked Billet Inn, which stood at the end of an alley on a wharf above Chestnut Street. The two engaged lodging for the night, bestowed their belongings, and went for supper to Pegg Mullen's Beefsteak House, at the southeast corner of Water Street and Mullen's Alley. Having devoured one of the steaks for which that house was famous, and as it was not yet dark, Dick proposed a walk about the city. But Tom demurred as to himself, and said in a low tone, turning his eye towards a party of young gentlemen who sat at a near-by table:

"Go and see the sights, lad, and ye'll meet me at the Crooked Billet some time before the hour of setting out, the morning. I've other fish to fry, for a private purpose of my own. And should ye see me in company with yon roisterers, mind to call me captain or not at all, for I'm bent on introducing myself to their acquaintance, and that'll require me belonging to the quality."

Dick looked at the group indicated, which consisted of a handsome, insolent-looking young man of about twenty-five and three gay dogs of the same age, whose loud conversation had dealt exclusively with cards and other implements of fortune. With no hope or wish of fathoming MacAlister's designs, Dick paid the bill (for his friend was almost without money), and left the eating-house. He first inspected parts of Water and Front Streets, where many rich merchants lived over their shops; then viewed the handsomer residences in South Second Street; saw the City Tavern and some of the well-dressed people resorting there; looked at Carpenter's Hall, where the Congress had met the preceding year; walked out to the State House, crossed Chestnut Street therefrom, to drink at the sign of the Coach and Horses, the old rough-dashed tavern nestling amidst great walnut-trees; loitered on the bridge to look down at Dock Creek each time he crossed that stream. When, at dusk, the street lamps were lighted (for, thanks to Franklin, Philadelphia had long possessed the best street lamps in the world), the town assumed what to Dick was a fairylike appearance. Of the people he saw in the streets, perhaps a third wore the broadbrims of the Quakers. A few of the faces were of the German type, but most were of the unmistakable English character, and from such of these as were not Quaker a trained observer might easily have picked out a Church of England person or a Dissenter at sight. On first entering the city Dick had been struck with the prettiness of the young women, but now that night had fallen and he had returned to the vicinity of the river, the few of the fair that he saw abroad were of rather bedraggled appearance.

As he walked along the wharves, listening to the lap of the tide against the piles and vessels, he heard a sharp scream of mingled pain and anger, in a feminine voice. Looking quickly towards the wharf whence it came, he saw, in the light from the corner of a small warehouse, a young woman recoiling from the blow of a sailor who was about to strike her again. She dodged the second blow, and the sailor made ready to deliver a third, but before he could do so Dick's fist landed on the side of his head and he dropped to the wharf, dazed and limp. Dick then took off his hat to the woman, who was a slender creature of about twenty, dressed with a cheap attempt at gaiety. With quite attractive large eyes, she quickly viewed Dick from head to foot.

"Rely on my protection, madam," said he, tingling with exultation at having had so early an opportunity to figure as a rescuer of assailed womankind.

"I am afraid he will follow me," said the girl, in a low tone, glancing at the sailor, after her examination of Dick's appearance.

"He will do so at his peril, if you'll accept my arm to the place where you are going," said Dick, with great gallantry and inward self-applause.

The girl took the proffered arm, cast a final look at the sailor, who was foggily trying to get on his legs, and led Dick off at a rapid gait. They had turned into an alley towards Water Street before the sailor had fully regained his senses. Up Water Street the girl went, giving Dick the opportunity to see, by a window light or a street lamp here and there, that her features, though pale, were well formed. For beauty they lacked only something in expression. After passing several streets, the girl turned into another alley that led towards the river, stopped at a mean two-story wooden house half way down, and asked her preserver to come in and accept some refreshment. He did so with alacrity, and found himself in a small room beneath the rafters, the floor bare, the single window broken in most of its small panes, a tumble-down bed taking up half the apartment, a broken wooden chair beside a dressing-table, the whole lighted by a single tallow candle that the girl obtained down-stairs. Without consulting her guest, she called to some invisible person below for brandy and water, with two tumblers. Dick sat on the chair, his hostess on the bed, both in silence, till the liquor was brought by a fat, red-faced woman with unkempt hair, who grinned amiably at Dick, and departed only after several suggestive looks at the brandy. Her fishing for an invitation to partake was all in vain, being unobserved by the inexperienced Dick.

When he was alone with the heroine of his first adventure, and the brandy had been tasted, Dick undertook to overcome her reticence, being sure that she had some story of unmerited misfortune to tell. She soon gratified him with a tale as harrowing as might have been found anywhere in fiction. She was the daughter of people of quality who had lost their all through the schemes of designing persons, and her only weapon against starvation was her needle. She had that evening delivered some sewing to the wife of a sea-captain on his vessel, which was to sail that night, and it was on her return therefrom that she had been accosted by the sailor, whose blows were elicited by the repulse she had given him. Her face became more animated as she talked, and Dick began to think her fascinating. Brandy was called for and served repeatedly, and at last the red-faced woman who brought it said she was going to bed and could serve no more that night, and her bill was ten shillings. Dick promptly paid, forgetting that he was the invited guest, and not neglecting the occasion to show in a careless way how much money he carried. The girl then told him that, as he would certainly find his tavern closed should he return to it at so late an hour, she would, in spite of appearances and on account of his character and his services to her, share her own poor accommodations with him for the rest of the night. As Dick was now in a state in which he would have solicited this favor had it not been offered, he readily accepted.

When he awoke, at dawn, he found himself alone. Taking up his waistcoat to put it on, he noticed that a certain inner pocket did not bulge as usually. A swift investigation disclosed that all his money had disappeared, silver as well as gold. There was not a sign of his hostess left in the bare, squalid room. He hastened down the steep, narrow stairs, and met, in the entry below, the red-faced servitor, of whom he inquired the whereabouts of the girl. The fat woman professed entire ignorance of all occurrences since she had left the young people the night before. From that moment to this, she said, she had slept like a top, and from her reply Dick learned that she was the proprietress of the house, and that the unfortunate daughter of people of quality was a new lodger, of whom she knew nothing. A theory formed itself in Dick's mind, and he hastened from the house to the Crooked Billet, where he was astonished to find Tom MacAlister just arrived from a night, like Dick's, passed elsewhere than at that inn. Dick rapidly recounted his adventure to Tom, over a morning glass at the bar, and ended his narration with the words:

"Do you know what her disappearance means?"

"What?" grunted Tom.

"It means that my robbers have carried her away in order to silence all evidence of their crime! Or, maybe, the sailor tracked us and procured a gang to abduct her, and robbed me in doing so, either in revenge or to pay his accomplices!"

"Huh! Ye're ower fu' of them there things ye read in the novel-books, Dickie, lad."

"By George, this proves that real life is sometimes very like the novels! I hope this affair will end like them. We must find the girl, Tom; we must rescue her!"

"Be jabers, we maun be spry about it, then, for the New York stage-coach starts from the sign of the George in an hour."

"Come, then! But I won't leave Philadelphia till I've found her, though we have to wait for another day's stage-coach. Come, Tom, for God's sake don't be so slow!"

Tom indeed walked so deliberately from the Crooked Billet that Dick had to accelerate his progress by tugging at his arm. Dick hurried him up along the wharves, without the slightest plan of action formed. "Bide a wee," said Tom, presently; "sure, there's no arriving anywhere till ye've laid out your line of march. Come wi' me into yon tavern, and we'll plan a campaign in decency and order." Dick saw the good sense of this, and turned with Tom up an alley towards a wretched-looking place, of which the use was indicated alike by its dirty sign and by the sounds of drunken merriment issuing from its windows. As Dick and Tom entered, they saw by whom those sounds were produced,—a sailor and a young woman drinking together in great good-fellowship at a table. Dick recognized both,—the sailor whom he had knocked down the night before, the girl in whose defence he had knocked him down. Both looked up as he entered, and the girl burst out laughing in a jeering, drunken fashion. "That's him," she said to her companion, who thereupon began to bellow mirthfully to himself, regarding Dick with mingled curiosity and amusement.

"Wha might your friends be?" queried MacAlister of Dick.

"Come away," said Dick, a little huskily; and when the two were out in the alley, whither the derisive shouts of the pair inside followed them, he added, "If the stage goes in an hour, we'd better be taking our things to the sign of the George."

"But your money? 'Twas a canny quantity of coin ye had in the bit pocket there."

"Damn the money! I couldn't prove anything, and I want to get away from here. But—by the lord, how can we go on without money?"

"Whist, lad! If some folk choose to spend the nicht a-losing of their coin, there's others knows how to tell a different tale the morning. Do ye mind the braw soldier-looking lad I proposed to thrust my company on, in the beefsteak house? If I didn't introduce myself as Captain MacAlister, retired on half pay from his Majesty's army, and if I didn't pile up a bonny pile of yellow boys through handling the cards wi' him and his pals in his room at the George all nicht, then I'm seven kinds of a liar, and may all my days be Fridays! Oh, Dickie, lad, a knowledge of the cards, ye'll find, comes in handy at mony a place in the journey through this wicked, greedy, grasping world!" And old Tom made one of his pockets jingle as he finished.

The two travellers returned to the Crooked Billet, paid for the lodging they had not used, got their weapons and baggage, and went to Second Street and thereon north to Arch, at the southwest corner of which the sign of St. George battling with the dragon hung before the fine and famous inn where the stage-coaches departed and arrived. The "Flying Machine" was already drawn up before the entrance, the horses snorting and pawing in impatience to start. Dick and Tom saw their belongings safely stowed in the coach, which was a flat-roofed vehicle simple and plain in shape, and loitered before the inn, watching the hostlers and enjoying the fine spring sunshine, while MacAlister gave Dick a further description of the card-playing young man from whom much of the money had been won.

"I took the more joy in winning," added Tom, "for because the young buck showed himsel' sic a masterfu', overbearing de'il and ill-natured loser, not at all like his friend wi' the French name, who dropped his round shiners like a gentleman. And mind here, now, take heed to call me captain should they fa' in wi' us on the way to New York, for, frae the talk of them, I conjecture that them and the Frenchman's sister start the morning hame-bound for Quebec, on their ain horses."

"Do they come from Quebec?"

"Ay, on business for the Frenchman and his sister, wha, it seems, cam' in for the proceeds of some estate in this town, them being of English bluid on the mother's side. That I gathered frae the Frenchman's talk wi' a man of the law wha called while his hot-headed friend and me and the others were at the cards. Ah, now I mind the friend's name,—Blagdon, Lieutenant Blagdon; for, bechune you and me, he's a King's officer on leave of absence frae Quebec, only he keeps it quiet just now, lest the mob might throw a stane or two his way."

"Then what's he doing here?"

"Bearing company to the Frenchman and his sister. It's like there's summat bechune him and the girl, though devil a bit could I find that out, wi' all my speering. But come, lad, while we ha' our choice of seats."

They entered the coach, where they were soon joined by other passengers. While Dick was watching the driver on the front seat take up lines and whip, three horses were brought from the yard, and at the same time two young gentlemen and a young lady came out of the inn and stood ready to mount. Dick did not observe them until his attention was called from the driver by some low-spoken words of MacAlister's:

"That's a sour-faced return for a friendly salutation! 'Tis the English lieutenant that gave me a scowl for my bow. Sure, the French Canadian has more civility."

By this time the three were mounted. Dick at once recognized the robust but surly-looking young man on the right as the arrogant talker of the beefsteak house, and the rather slight but good-looking and well-mannered youth on the left as one of the other's companions there. The lady between the two was partly concealed from Dick's view by the English officer, until with a crack of the driver's whip the stage-coach pulled out, when, by looking back, he had a full sight of her. The sight caused his lips to part and himself to throw all his consciousness into his eyes alone.

Catherine de St. Valier, daughter of a younger branch of the noble French Canadian family of that name, was then in her seventeenth year, tall and well developed for her age, in carriage erect without stiffness, her face oval in shape with chin full but not too sharp or too strong, nose straight and delicate, dainty ears, forehead about whose sides hair of dark brown fell in curves but left the middle uncovered, brows finely arched and high above the eyes, which were of a piercing black and never too wide open, full red lips, complexion pale but clear, with a very faint touch of red in each cheek, her countenance dignified and made doubly interesting by a slight frown ever present save when she smiled, which was rarely and then naturally and with no gush of overpowering sweetness. The slightly thrown-back attitude of her head was no affectation, but was a family characteristic, possessed also by her brother.

"What is it, lad?" whispered MacAlister, catching Dick's arm. "Sure, ye'll be leaving that head of yours behind ye in the road if ye bean't carefu'!"

"Sure," Dick murmured, as he drew his head in, "I think I've left this heart of mine back yonder under the sign of the George."

Tom gave a low whistle. "Weel, weel," he then said, "it 'ull soon catch up, for this Flying Machine, as they call it, is no match for them Virginia pacers the Canadian folk is mounted on."

This prediction was soon fulfilled. Ere the stage-coach had passed the outskirts of the city, a little above Vine Street, the three riders had cantered by at a gait that promised soon to take them far ahead.

"Nay, don't be cast down," quoth Tom. "We're like to run across them on the journey, and they'll have to wait in New York for their baggage, which goes by wagon. I mind now, frae the gentlemen's talk, they'll go up the Hudson by sloop till Albany, then by horse again to Montreal, and then by the St. Lawrence to Quebec. What a pity they don't be bound for Boston,—eh, lad! But whist, Dickie! The sea do be full of good fish, and it's mony a sonsie face ye'll be drawing deep breaths about, now ye're over the hills and far away,—and ganging furder every turn of the coach-wheels."

CHAPTER IV.
OF A BROKEN SABBATH AND BROKEN HEADS.

In those days the tri-weekly stage-coaches made the trip from Philadelphia to New York in the unprecedented time of two days, passing Bristol and several other thriving Pennsylvania villages, taking ferry over the Delaware River to Trenton, which then consisted mainly of two straggling streets and their rustic tributaries; bowling through New Jersey woods and farms and hamlets, and crossing ferries and marshes to Paulus Hook, where the passengers alighted and boarded the ferry-boat for the city whose fort, spires, and snug houses adorned the southernmost point of the hilly island of Manhattan. Several times, during the first day of their trip, Dick and MacAlister had brief sights of the three Canadians, who sometimes fell behind the stage-coach, and as often overtook and passed it again. Dick nursed a hope of meeting the party at dinner, or at the tavern where the coach should stop for the night, yet he inwardly trembled at thought of such a meeting, knowing how awkward and abashed he should feel in the presence of that girl. His hopes, however, were disappointed, for, though the riders stopped where the stage did, they ate in private rooms, and the only one of the party who came into the bar or public dining-room anywhere was the English lieutenant, Blagdon, who ignored MacAlister, and bestowed on Dick only a look of disdain.

On the second morning the Canadians, as before, started with the stage and were soon out of sight ahead. Dick kept a lookout forward, while MacAlister engaged in talk with the other passengers, with whom his narrative powers had by this time made him highly popular. For a long time Dick was rewarded with no glimpse of the scarlet riding-habit his eyes so wistfully sought. But at last, at a turn of the road, it came into view against the green of the woods. Strangely, though, it was not on horseback. The two young gentlemen stood beside the girl in the road, and not one of their three animals was to be seen. All this was quickly noticed by the others in the stage-coach, who uttered prompt expressions of wonder, while the driver whipped up his four horses.

When the coach came up, Lieutenant Blagdon hailed the driver, who immediately stopped.

"We are in a predicament," began the young lieutenant, in an annoyed and embarrassed manner. "Half an hour ago, as we were riding by these woods, several wild-looking ruffians rushed out from these bushes on either side of the road, with pistols and fowling-pieces, which they aimed at us, and demanded our money and horses. We were so completely taken by surprise, our anxiety for this lady's safety was so great, we could not have drawn our pistols before they could have brought us down,—in short, we had to yield up our horses and what little money we carried, and the robbers made off by the lane yonder, leaving us here."

From the passengers came cries of "Outrage!" "See the authorities!" and "Alarm the county!" When others had had their say, Tom MacAlister was for organizing a pursuing party of the passengers, and was seconded by a reverend-looking gentleman, who asked if one of the robbers was not blind of an eye.

"The affair was so quickly over, I for one did not notice any peculiarities of appearance among them," answered Blagdon.

The young Frenchman, standing with his sister at the edge of the road, now spoke, in perfectly good English: "One of them called another Fagan, in ordering him to keep quiet; and said 'That's right, Jonathan,' to one who said we shouldn't delay in hope of assistance, as they would shoot us at the first sound of wheels or horses coming this way."

"That makes it certain," said the clerical-looking man; "they are the Pine Robbers, as we call them in our part of Monmouth County, where they are a great curse. It is surprising, though, that they should venture so far inland and from their burrows in the sand-hills by the swamps near the coast. I can be of use in tracking them, as I live at Shrewsbury, which is not far from the swamps they inhabit and the groggeries they resort to."

But the officer, learning from further talk that proper steps for the recovery of the property might require several days, and yet fail, said the attempt was not to be thought of; that the horses were the only considerable loss, as his party had relied on money to be taken up in New York, and that therefore they could do no more than take places in the stage-coach for that city.

As the inside places were all filled, and one of them would be required for the girl, Dick was out in the road in an instant, blushingly blundering out to the Frenchman an offer of his seat to the lady, with the declaration that he would ride outside,—which in those days meant on the flat roof of the coach. The Frenchman bowed thanks and held out his hand to lead his sister to the coach; but she stood reluctant, and said:

"But the portrait, Gerard!" As she spoke her eyes became moist.

"I fear we must lose it, Catherine," said Gerard, sadly.

"If I can be of any service," said Dick, speaking as calmly as his heartbeats would let him, and meeting with hot cheeks the first look the girl's fine eyes ever cast upon him.

"I thank you," said Gerard, "but I fear nothing can be done. My sister speaks of a miniature portrait of our mother, who is dead. One of the robbers, the one called Jonathan, seeing the chain by which it was suspended from her neck, tore it from her and carried it away."

"I will try to recover it, sir," said Dick, bowing to the girl while he addressed the brother. Hearing a derisive "Huh!" behind him, Dick turned and saw Blagdon viewing him with a contemptuous smile, which was assumed to cover the chagrin caused by Dick's undertaking a task the officer himself had shirked. Dick reddened more deeply, with anger, but said nothing and went to the coach for his rifle and baggage. MacAlister, always accepting whatever enterprise turned up for him, promptly got out, with his own belongings, as also did the reverend gentleman, who explained that he had intended leaving the coach at the next village, to go thence by horse to his home at Shrewsbury. The vacant places were taken by the Canadians, accounts were settled with the driver, Gerard de St. Valier courteously thanked Dick again, giving him a New York address but begging him to reconsider so desperate a project, Catherine sent back one grateful but hopeless look, the driver cracked his whip, the coach rolled off, and the three men were left alone in the forest-bordered road.

After a brief consultation, in which it came out that the clerical gentleman was the Reverend Mr. McKnight, the Presbyterian pastor of Shrewsbury, it was decided that the three should go back to the last village passed, which was nearer than the next one ahead, hire horses there, then return, and make for Shrewsbury by way, first, of the lane down which the robbers were said to have fled. They would stop at Freehold, report the robbery to the county authorities, and call for the services of sheriff and constable in hunting down the malefactors.

"If the loss were merely of money and horses," said the pastor, as the three trudged along with their baggage on their backs, "I should not stir far in the matter, seeing that the losers are apparently well supplied with this world's goods. But the young lady's sorrow at the loss of the keepsake was too much for me. It will be a kind of miracle if we get it back. The man Fagan is a desperate rascal, and so, for that matter, are Jonathan West and all the others. The man whom those young people heard giving orders to the rest was doubtless Fenton, who learned the blacksmith's trade at Freehold and was an excellent workman at it before he took to crime. These men will stop at nothing. When they are not at refuge in their sand-caves on the edges of swamps, among the brush, they are plundering, burning, and killing, by night, or spending their ill-gotten money at some low groggery in the pines. They will rob anything, from a poor tailor's shop to a wagon carrying grain to mill, and, though it doesn't sound like Christian charity to say so, they ought to be hanging now in chains from trees, as they probably will be some day."

At the village, so much time was lost in obtaining horses, that it was dark before the three arrived at Freehold, and therefore they put up for the night at the tavern next the court-house, which abode of justice was of wood, clapboarded with shingles, and had a peaked roof. In the tavern it was learned that Fenton and his gang had been seen passing two miles east of the court-house, that afternoon, going towards Shrewsbury, three on horseback, the others in a wagon. Mr. McKnight visited a justice of the peace, the sheriff, and the constable; but, as it was now Saturday night, those useful officers would not think of budging before Monday. Dick feared that if a day were lost, even though the miniature should be recovered, the Canadians would have left New York before he could arrive there to restore it to them. Accordingly, the next morning, the three men set out alone towards Shrewsbury, the clergyman having stipulated that his share in the enterprise should be kept secret, lest his act might serve the undiscriminating as an example of Sabbath-breaking.

"I am clear in my conscience on that score," said the minister to Tom and Dick, "and, having put my hand to the plow in this business, I will not turn back. I can guide you to a rough drinking-place in the woods, where it is most likely the ruffians will be found. To counterbalance their superior numbers, we must use strategy, and we have in our favor the fact that most of them are likely by this time to be helpless with liquor."

"'Oh, that men should put into their mouths an enemy to steal away their brains!'" misquoted Tom, who thought it proper that he should speak piously in the presence of the minister.

"It is fortunate for us if they have done so, in this case," said the clergyman, with a smile. A moment later he sighed pensively. "My congregation will be disappointed this morning. I was expected to arrive home last night and to preach to-day. I have my sermon in my pocket."

"What is the text, sir, if I may be so bold?" asked Tom.

"Leviticus, sixth chapter, fourth verse: 'Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away.'"

"By the powers," cried Tom, forgetting himself, "ye're like to get more results putting that text into action the morning than by holding forth on it frae your ain pulpit!"

Under the pastor's guidance, the party turned presently from the road into the pine forest, through which their horses passed freely by reason of the complete absence of undergrowth. MacAlister and Dick had left their baggage at Freehold, and Mr. McKnight's was so light as to encumber him little. Dick and Tom had their rifles, while the minister carried Tom's pistol. They proceeded in silence some miles, now and then emerging on clear places, skirting swamps, and advancing over ground that became more and more sandy. At last, in the midst of woods, the minister held his finger to his lips, and all three stopped. From a distance came the sound of a coarse voice singing in maudlin tones a tuneless song. The three dismounted, tied their horses to trees, and walked cautiously forward in single file, Mr. McKnight leading. A low, one-story log building came into view among the trees. At one end of it, under a shed roof, stood four horses and a wagon. The bawling of the song came through a small, unglazed window, of which the oiled paper was torn.

"They take their pleasure in security now," whispered the minister, halting a moment, "because the officers of justice will not break the Sabbath to attack them. On other days they would not be so unguarded. I will look through the window, and see how the land lies; then we shall decide what to do."

He led the way to the groggery and applied his eye to a slit in the oiled paper, while Dick and Tom stood on either side. In a moment, the preacher crouched down beneath the window, and, motioning Tom and Dick to do likewise, whispered:

"There has evidently been a fight. Fagan and another are lying on the floor with their heads bound in bloody rags. Another is lying near them, dead drunk, as his position shows. Jonathan West is sitting on the floor, also drunk; it is he who is singing. Fenton and Burke are playing cards, Fenton's back towards the door, Burke facing it. The keeper of the place is lying asleep on the bar, and his wife is behind it paring potatoes. If we are speedy, two of us shall have only Fenton and Burke and the woman to deal with, while one goes through West's clothes in search of the miniature."

"Then let us go in at once," said Dick.

"Softly," quoth the minister; "let us all understand what each is to do. You, lad, perhaps should search West—"

"Nay," put in Tom; "trust me for that. I've plied my fingers on the battle-field, and can do the thing so quick I can tak' my ain fu' share of the fighting, too."

"You are right," said the pastor. "The door is unbarred. Let us all three burst in at once. You, lad, who look the strongest, deal with Fenton, the man sitting with his back to the door. Strike him down with the butt of your rifle, and be ready to shoot if he attempts to rise. I shall take care of the other card-player. You, Captain MacAlister, search Jonathan West for the portrait, and keep your eye on the woman behind the bar. If I am not mistaken, she will prove the worst foe of all."

At MacAlister's suggestion, he and Dick each looked through the slit to get a view of the chosen field of battle. Then the three stepped softly around to the door. Each grasped his weapon tightly, and the minister pushed the door open. All made a move to rush in,—but started back on being confronted by Fenton and Burke, who stood, each with pistol raised, doubtless put suddenly on their guard by the sound of footsteps.

Old Tom was the first to recover from surprise. He made a swift lunge at Burke, which caught that person in the neck, almost breaking it, and sent him flying back into the room. Tom leaped after him, and was followed by the minister. Fenton turned to shoot the latter with his pistol, and Dick availed himself of this movement to bring down his rifle-butt heavily on the rascal's unkempt head. Fenton did not fall, but, after staggering a moment, during which Dick reversed his weapon, turned to shoot the latter, uttering a savage curse the while; he thus opened his mouth wide, and Dick thrust the muzzle of the rifle therein, and forced Fenton rapidly backward into the groggery, to the very farthest corner thereof, pinning him therein with the rifle-muzzle in his mouth. "Drop the pistol, or I'll fire," cried Dick; and Fenton, perceiving his disadvantage, did so. Dick kicked the pistol towards the minister, who picked it up. The gentle McKnight had been raining blows on the head of Burke, who now succumbed and lay without protest, leaving the minister free to draw the woman's attention from Tom. She had run around the bar and threatened with her knife the deft-fingered MacAlister while the latter was going through West's clothes, an operation preceded by a quieting blow on the robber's skull from Tom's rifle-butt. Of the four prostrate men, the drunkest one slept on through the fray, the two gory-headed rascals opened their eyes and looked on with apathy, while the proprietor got down off the bar and looked around for some weapon with which to take a hand. At this moment Dick, who continued to hold the ferocious but speechless Fenton against the wall, felt something smooth slipped into his left hand, heard from Tom the words, "'Tis yours to guard, lad," saw at an instant's glance that it was the miniature portrait of a woman, and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket. The proprietor of the place had now picked up a fowling-piece from a corner and was aiming it at Dick. It was knocked up by MacAlister, who then fell on its holder and was in a fair way to beat out his brains, when the woman, having seen her spouse in danger, abandoned her contest with the minister, and bounded panther-like at Tom. She lodged the point of her knife in his cheek, and drew it out for a second blow, whereupon the minister, putting a pistol in each of his coat-pockets, ran up behind her, caught her by the long hair, and dragged her out of the house. He did not stop until she was on her back on the ground. Before she could rise, Tom had sent her husband reeling with a final blow, and had come to aid the minister, knowing that the latter had more than a match in the woman. Tom placed his feet on her hair, which was lying about her head, and, digging his heels into the sandy earth, put the muzzle of his rifle against her forehead, and told her it was his custom, as a soldier, to make short work of cutthroat she-devils of camp-following buzzards. So she lay still, glaring and panting. Mr. McKnight reëntered the groggery, aimed both his pistols at Fenton, and told Dick to release that worthy and back out of the place with rifle kept ready to shoot. Dick obeyed, and backed out side by side with the minister. A minute later, the three thief-hunters were running for their horses. They mounted, and made their way back to the place where they had turned into the pines from the road.

"And won't ye stand in danger of retaliation from the devils?" queried MacAlister, as Mr. McKnight turned to take leave.

"I think they were so drunk, and the thing was so quickly done, they did not know me from a stranger like yourselves. They would not suspect a minister of such work on a Sabbath day."

"Begorra, if more such work was done by ministers on Sabbath days, more of the wicked would get punishment in this world! By the Lord, 'twas a fine illustration ye gave of the penalties that follow wrong-doing, and none the waur for that ye thumped a rascal's head instead of the pulpit, and made the way of the transgressor hard instead of merely saying it was."

"That's the grandest minister I ever saw, and the only sermon I never went to sleep at," said MacAlister to Dick, as the two rode back towards Freehold, Mr. McKnight having taken his way towards Shrewsbury after a friendly farewell and a tender of his compliments to the young lady to whom Dick was to restore the miniature.

That night they slept at the village where they had hired their horses. They had to lose another day in waiting till the stage-coach came along, and so it was Tuesday morning when they found themselves again on a "Flying Machine" bound for New York. This time MacAlister's face was tied up in cloths, the wound in his cheek being not serious, but vastly inconvenient for the time being. "Another war-scar, bedad!" quoth he. "A mark of the battle of Shrewsbury Pines."

The greater part of the journey was dampened by a series of April showers, but when they arrived at Paulus Hook and descended from the coach, the sun reappeared for a brief display before setting. As they crossed in the ferry to New York, that English-Dutch-Huguenot seaport town, in the midst of its hills and trees, seemed to smile upon them. Looking out towards the bay, with its backing of green heights, Dick got his first hint of the ocean beyond, and was deeply stirred thereat. In those days a beach ran at the foot of bluffs that were crowned by gardens and other grounds behind the spacious residences on the west side of Broadway. There was no commerce along the North River, all the Dutch Hudson sloops and the New Jersey boats rounding the point to make landing in the East River. Dick's gaze, coming in from the bay, past the green islands, close at hand, rested successively on the fort whose walls rose from sloping green banks, the governor's garden, the water ends of crooked streets, the little forest of masts in the East River, the tiny village of Brooklyn nestling at the foot of the heights on Long Island, and finally on the ferry landing-place, on which he and Tom presently set foot. On the recommendation of a fellow passenger on the ferry, they took lodgings in a small tavern near the Whitehall slip. During supper Dick was absent-minded and perturbed. He was all afire to return the miniature to Miss de St. Valier. Tom advised him to wait till the next day, as it was now quite late. But Dick was fearful the Canadian party might depart before he could see them. Moreover, the prospect of again beholding the entrancing Catherine and receiving thanks from her own lips, although a delicious one, was also disquieting, and Dick was anxious to face the interview at the earliest possible moment. He therefore put himself and his clothes into the best possible appearance, and, while Tom sought the Coffee House, found the way to the boarding-house in Queen Street at which Gerard de St. Valier had told him the party would stay. At the door, where he inquired with much concealed trepidation, a black servant told him the Canadians had left. His heart sank, but rose again a moment later, when the mistress of the house, Mrs. Carroll, having overheard, told him the St. Valiers and Lieutenant Blagdon had gone to the King's Arms Tavern for their last night in New York, intending to take sloop the next morning for Albany. It was now dark, the street lamps having been lighted for some time, and Dick decided that, after all, the morning would be the more suitable time for approaching the Canadians. Being very tired and desiring to rise early, he went to bed, and dreamt of the eyes of Miss de St. Valier.

The next morning he made a hasty breakfast, and was already on the way to the King's Arms when it occurred to him that he might make himself ridiculous by intruding on the peerless Catherine too early. He therefore walked about the town awhile, viewing the markets near the East River; then going up Broad Street from the Exchange to the City Hall of that day; then admiring the marble image of William Pitt in a Roman toga, at Wall and William Streets; the great dry goods shops in William Street, up to Maiden Lane; the fine broad red and yellow brick residences, some with many windows, double-pitched and tile-covered roofs, balustrades and gardens, in William Street, Queen Street, Hanover Square, and elsewhere: finally crossing to the Broadway, and beholding the leaden statue of King George, in the Bowling Green or parade-ground before the fort. At last he entered the King's Arms, which was next but one to the fine Kennedy house at the foot of the west side of Broadway, both facing the Bowling Green and fort. In the public room he saw Tom, who sat reading the New York Gazette, and who now merely winked at him, being of no mind to figure with him in the restoration of the portrait. Dick put on a bold face and asked the man in charge to announce him to Mr. and Miss de St. Valier.

"And, pray, what do you desire of them?" queried an insolent voice at Dick's elbow. He looked around and encountered Lieutenant Blagdon, who stood eyeing him with a manifest resentment that betrayed an uneasy divination of Dick's purpose.

Dick was on the point of answering hotly, but contented himself with a defiant look and the quiet reply:

"I wish to restore the portrait of which Miss de St. Valier was robbed while in your company last Saturday."

Blagdon's wrath was now mingled with chagrin, at the confirmation of his fear that another had accomplished for the lady the task he had not offered to undertake. After a moment's pause, controlling his expression, he said:

"Miss de St. Valier and her brother left New York yesterday. As I sail after them on the next Albany sloop, you can give me the portrait. I'll carry it to them."

Dick looked the other in the face for a moment in surprise, then said, with a contempt as genuine as the lieutenant's was affected:

"You lie, you know they are still here."

"What!" gasped Blagdon, and turned to an Irish officer in whose company he was,—for there were still a few British troops in New York, the last of them not leaving the barracks in Chambers Street for Boston until June 6th. "By God, did you hear that?" And with great fury, Blagdon, who was himself unarmed, grasped the other officer's sword, drew it from the sheath, and would have thrust it into Dick's breast, had not the Pennsylvanian quickly leaped aside. Furious in turn, at so sudden and violent an onslaught, Dick caught the sword with both hands near the guard, wrenched it from Blagdon, and struck the latter heavily on the head with the hilt. The lieutenant fell, leaving a curse unfinished, and lay quite motionless on the floor.

After a moment, during which every one in the room stood startled, the Irish officer stooped over Blagdon, felt his head and chest, and said, looking up:

"He's done for! The blow has killed him!"

Dick heard a whisper in his ear, "Run for your life, lad!" and felt himself pushed aside by old Tom, who gave no sign of knowing him, and the seeming purpose of whose violent movement was to get a look at the prostrate man.

Mechanically, as in a dream, Dick took the hint and sped out of the tavern. As he issued forth, a picture of the Bowling Green with its statue and locust-trees, the green and gray fort and the one linden and two apple-trees that stood on the city side thereof, was imprinted lastingly on his memory, heedless as he was of it at the time. Still holding the officer's sword, and with no course determined on, he ran up the Broadway. He had not gone far, when he heard a shout behind him, doubtless from some witness of the blow, "Murder! Murder! Stop that man!" On he went, while the hue and cry gathered behind him. Up the roughly paved Broadway, steering wide alike of the house-stoops at the side and the gutter in the middle, he ran. Once, as he neared Trinity Church, he glanced back. The pursuing crowd behind him now looked a multitude, and at its head, crying "Stop that man!" louder than any other, but giving him a quick gesture to hasten on, was Tom MacAlister.

CHAPTER V.
FROM BROADWAY TO BUNKER HILL.

Despite the circumstances, Dick had a brief feeling of mirth at the ludicrous appearance of his comrade, who led the chase with such well-simulated zeal and a face still circumscribed by the white cloth used to keep in place the bandage on his cheek. Determined to resist capture to the last, now that he had adopted the course of flight, Dick plunged forward and on past Trinity Church. Broadway was not then a business street, and the few people whom Dick passed or who emerged from the residences or cross streets did not know what was the matter until it was too late to head him off, so great a start he had of his pursuers. Before he had reached St. Paul's Church, he looked back again, whereupon Tom, with his hand before his body so that the pursuers behind him could not see it, motioned to turn off into the next cross street. Dick obeyed, and was thus for a time lost to the sight of the party in chase. Presently the loud voice of Tom showed that he, too, had deviated into the cross street. Dick turned his head and saw that Tom was the only one who had yet done so. MacAlister now violently gesticulated to the effect that Dick should turn into some yard or other hiding-place. Dick immediately ran through the open gateway of what proved to be a yard used as a repository for tan. He took refuge behind a high pile of this article, and sank to the ground, breathless and half-exhausted. There was no one else in the tan-yard. As he lay panting, he heard Tom stride by, still hoarsely bawling, "Stop that man!" The direction taken by the voice indicated that its owner had turned from this street into another, and soon the sound of the crowd running by was evidence that they had seen Tom make this last turn and had supposed he was still on the trail of the hunted man. Their voices and footsteps died out presently, and Dick was left to ponder on the situation.

He dared not venture out of the yard, lest he be seen by one of those who had engaged in the chase. He knew that Tom, having led the hue and cry on a false track, would at the proper time come back for him. Therefore he could only wait. Meanwhile, as he was led to consider by the approaching voices of some boys at play, what if he should be discovered in the tan-yard? Swiftly choosing the remotest and highest pile of tan, he crouched behind it, hastily scooped out a hole with both hands, backed into this extemporized burrow, laid Blagdon's sword beside him, and then, with his hollowed palms, drew in after him sufficient of the previously removed tan to conceal himself from any but the most minute observer. Thus buried in the tan, with barely enough space open about his head to admit a little dim light and a small quantity of dusty air, he made himself as comfortable as might be. By and by his ears told him that the small boys had entered the tan-yard; then that they were having a sham battle, playing that the tan-pile next his own was Ticonderoga. History was soon reversed, and the English drove the French from Ticonderoga, whereupon the French properly fell back to Quebec, which was no other place than the tan-pile in which Dick lay entombed. He felt the tan shift above him, and saw it slide down before him and cut off more of his meagre supply of light and air, while the shouts of Quebec's defenders came to him from overhead. Finally the English charged Quebec and tumbled the French back from the heights, an operation that resulted in Dick's having a series of heavy weights alight on his head, a foot thrust into his eye, his opening entirely closed up, and himself almost choked. Regardless of consequences, he thrust his head out through the tan, and saw, to his unexpected joy, that the last small warrior was scurrying away from behind Quebec. After awhile the boys left the tan-yard, and Dick found some relief in a change of position, though he did not emerge from his cave. Now and then, as the day advanced, he could hear steps and voices of people passing the tan-yard, and would lie close in fear that some of them would turn in. He amused himself by imagining what would follow should the tan in which he lay be loaded on some cart or wagon. So passed an interminable day, beautiful outside with New York's incomparable sunshine, but to Dick an age of numbness and pain, due to his long retention of each cramped position he assumed; of hunger and thirst, of alarms and conjectures, and of frequent thoughts of the man he had felled, thoughts which he invariably put from him in his horror of regarding himself as a slayer. At nightfall he came out of his hole, but remained behind the tan-pile, listening for a familiar step. At last it came, cautious but unmistakable. Dick rose, saw a gaunt form in the gateway, and bounded towards him.

"Whist, lad!" said Tom, grasping Dick's offered hand. "Sure ye sprung up like a ghaist. The coast is clear now, though eyes will be kept open for ye in the city and about, for mony a day to come. Let us sit down and wait a minute or two, till it do be just a wee bit darker. 'Twas a grand chase I led them, mon, was it not, now?"

"'Twas the best trick I ever saw played. But where did you pass the day?"

"Why," said Tom, as he sat on a tan-pile, "that's just it. If ony of them had caught up wi' me, 'twould have come out sure what joke I'd played them, for, ye see, they'd 'a' found out I was crying 'Stop' at naething at all. So, for your ain skin's sake, I had to keep well ahead until I had got out of the town, and then lose myself frae the ither shouting devils, which I did by turning into the woods at a bend of the road."

"You had the devil's own endurance to outrun them all," put in Dick.

"Why, ye see, when I got near blowed, I found ither legs than my ain to help me out. In front of a tavern, ayont yonder, a horse was whinneying as I came up. All I had to do was to jerk the knot of his halter and jump on, and who could say me nay when it was chasing a law-breaker I was, in the interests of justice? And that's how I got away frae the chasing mob. What was there to do but spend the day in the woods, safe out of sight and ken of man? For, d'ye mind, if I had come back into the town, and gone to the tavern for my clothes, why, seeing that news and descriptions must have been all about by then, as word of mouth goes nowadays, I'd have been held for complicity in your escape, and then who'd have come to let you out of your ain hole,—for I ken you maun hae lodged in one of them tan-piles the day. Nay, nay, lad, never thrust yourself in the way of forcible detention; that's a rule of mine! We'll let our shirts and blankets and guns rot in the tavern, and gang on our way rejoicing."

"But Blagdon,—do you think he is dead?"

"Devil a bit! He'll have come to before they were done chasing his murderer, and the time he'll spend nursing a bloody head will enable him to reflect on his sins. But, for a' that, we'll be ganging our way, for murderous assault is nane sic a pleasant charge to face, however innocent ye be, when the other side has money and great friends and ye're a penniless stranger. Besides that, this Blagdon will have the backing of the soldiery and the lieutenant-governor, and the tavern people will naturally swear to onything on his side, even to attempted robbery or the like. Come, Dickie boy, that sword ye retain, as your proper spoils of war, is worth in money all we leave behind at the tavern."

The two friends went from the tan-yard and by obscure streets to the Bowery lane, and followed that till it became the Boston highroad, along which they then proceeded northward through the country. When they had passed a few suburban mansions, some fields and swamps and wooded hills, Tom said, "Whist a bit!" and turned aside into a little copse. In a moment he emerged, leading a large horse.

"This will save expense of transportation, lad," said he, as he came into the road; "and moreover 'twill further compensate us for the loss of our guns and baggage. Bedad, 'twas a lucky blow ye struck that there lieutenant, to make me lead a chase in front of the tavern where the good horse here called my attention by a loving whinney."

"What?" cried Dick. "You don't mean to say you are going to keep the horse you found at the tavern!"

"And wha better should keep him? Do ye see what horse it is? Lad, there's the hand of Providence in all this! Sure, your eyes ain't used to starlight if ye couldn't make out auld Robin at the first glance."

Dick stood in joyful amazement. The horse was indeed the one that had disappeared beneath the self-styled merchants with whom Dick and Tom had agreed to ride and tie, on the road to Lancaster. The comrades now went on in the darkness, taking turns at riding, but keeping together and holding the horse to a slow pace. Dick felt in his pocket the miniature whose restoration he had failed to effect. When, now, might he hope to place it in the hands of the charming Canadian girl? He put the question, but in other words, to his companion, as they rode by the dark Murray mansion and began to descend towards Turtle Creek.

"If there is war," he added, "there's little chance of my getting to Quebec for many a day to come."

"Don't presume to read the future, lad!" said MacAlister. "Wha kens what turn of the wind of circumstance may blaw ye to Quebec? The older ye grow in the ways of this precarious world, the less ye'll pretend to say what to-morrow will bring forth. 'He started east and he landed west,' as the auld song says."

It was near dawn when they passed the Blue Bell Tavern, but, hungry and tired as both were, Tom advised that there be no stopping till they should have left the island of Manhattan behind. "When ye're an auld hand at the business of this warld," said he, "ye'll no tak' ae chance in a hundred, of trusting yersel', e'en for the time being, in the arms of justice. Law and justice, my son, are fearfu' things for an honest man to have aught to do wi'. I'd rather trust my case to the decision of auld Nick himsel', putting it to him in my ain way, man to man, and perhaps over a good glass of spirits or two, than to ae judge or jury in Christendom."

Giving Hyatt's Tavern also the go-by, they crossed the Harlem by the Farmers' Bridge and continued on the Boston post-road; presently took the left, where the road forked, and so arrived betimes at East Chester, which stood invitingly in its pleasant valley, its church tower and belfry rising among the locust-trees. At the tavern there Tom casually threw off a brief story to account for having ridden all night, and the two speedily possessed themselves of a stiff drink, a hot breakfast, and a clean bed. In the afternoon, being anxious to get out of the province of New York, lest some extraordinary effort might be made to detain them, they again took horse, passed through the Huguenot village of New Rochelle, stopped later at Mamaroneck to rest the horse, crossed the Byram River to Connecticut at evening, and put up, before night was well advanced, at Stamford, which wound irregularly along an undulating and stony road. When they took the road for Norwalk the next morning, they were thoroughly refreshed, and Dick, having got all the tan-dust out of his ears, nostrils, and pores, was able to enjoy fully the beauty of Long Island Sound where it was visible beyond the coves that here and there indented to the road. That day and the next two days were uneventful. Between Norwalk and Fairfield they met a courier from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety to the Continental Congress. He tarried no longer than to tell them the New England army was increasing daily and holding the King's troops tight in Boston. At Stratford and Milford the tavern talk was all of the war; of how the Connecticut troops already started would acquit themselves, and how many more would be needed; how this village farmer or that would behave when faced by a British grenadier; of what steps the Continental Congress would take, what dark plots the Tories might be weaving in New York, and what might occur should the British war-vessels bombard the coast towns.

In New Haven, which they entered on a bright, sunny forenoon, a newly formed company was awkwardly drilling on the green, in sight of the churches and the college building. While the horse rested, Dick got into conversation with a young gentleman who stood watching the crude man[oe]uvres. Learning that he was Mr. Timothy Dwight, a tutor at the college, Dick obtained the favor of a view of the college library, and had the delightful sensation of handling copies of Newton's works and Sir Richard Steele's, presented by those authors themselves. The scenes of military preparation witnessed here and at Brentford increased Dick's eagerness to be at the scene of action. Riding on Sunday through Seabrooke and to New London, he and Tom had difficulty, by reason of the strict observance of the day, in obtaining tavern accommodations. But, as Tom remarked, the rule of not letting the left hand know what the right one does may work both ways and concern the receiving as well as the giving of money, and their coin at last found takers. At New London, where the New York and Boston stage-coach was resting over Sunday, they learned from its passengers that both the British and the provincials had barriers on Boston Neck, that the provincials barred Charlestown Neck as well, and that no one could come out of Boston without a pass from General Gage, while the American army allowed no one to enter Boston without a permit. The Connecticut Gazette was full of war tidings. All these signs of the times made Dick glow with delightful anticipation. The two comrades crossed the Thames, by ferry, to Groton, the next morning, and in the forenoon they passed by fair green slopes and blossoming orchards to the village of Stonington, which lay drowsily on a point of land that jutted out into a beautifully surrounded bay.

While they drank a pot of ale together at the tavern, they left the horse Robin tied by the trough in the roadway, where he was viewed with some admiration by two or three villagers and a well-dressed gentleman who appeared to be a stranger in the place. Drinking rum and water, near MacAlister and Dick, sat a sea-captain, who, after overhearing a part of their talk, asked them why, inasmuch as they were in haste to reach Cambridge, they did not take passage on his schooner, which was about to sail that afternoon and would land at some port near Boston within the territory under the provincials' control. Not waiting for their answer, he asked them to drink with him, toasted the Continental Congress so heartily, damned the King and Parliament so valiantly, and proved so stout a patriot and jolly companion, that Dick, allured also by the prospect of a sea-voyage, soon declared that for his part he would prefer going by the schooner, and Tom offered no objection. When the bargain had been made, a mild, pale-eyed old farmer came in, called Tom and Dick aside, and asked if they would sell him their horse, or trade it for another, as he was in need of just such an animal for his farm work. He made so good an offer that Tom, foreseeing little use for the horse on his joining the army, consented after very little haggling; whereupon the farmer went home to get the coin from his strong-box.

"Whist!" said Tom to Dick, with sparkling eyes and a grim smile. "'Tis the intervention of Providence again. No sooner do we plan to go by sea than this honest farmer offers to take our horse off our hands, and names a price I'd nae be sic a fool to ask, mysel'. 'Tis a sin and shame to profit by sic innocence!"

They rejoined the sea-captain, whose convivial society made time so rapid that the farmer was soon back with the money, which he emptied from a stocking to the table. Tom rattled each piece and found it good, then went out and untied the horse and placed the halter in the farmer's hands,—saddle and bridle having gone into the bargain. Tom then returned to the tavern, where he and Dick had dinner with the sea-captain. When, after dinner, all three set forth to go aboard the schooner, they saw the horse Robin being ridden up and down the road by the well-dressed strange gentleman, who was apparently trying the animal. The sea-captain saluted the rider as an acquaintance and asked him when he was going back to Providence. In the short conversation that ensued, it came out that the gentleman had just bought the horse from the farmer who had owned him. "When I came here this morning, I had no intention of buying a horse, though I really needed one," the gentleman added. "I saw this beast in front of the tavern yonder, and said to the farmer, who I didn't then know was the owner, that I would give so much for it. I went about my business then, and when I got back, there was the owner, offering me the horse at the price I had named."

"Begging your pardon," queried Tom MacAlister, with a queer look, "might I inquire without offence what that price was?"

"Certainly," replied the Providence gentleman, and he mentioned an amount once and a half as large as that for which the innocent farmer had bought the horse from Tom.

Dick looked up at the sky, while MacAlister heaved a deep sigh, shook his head dismally, and walked towards the schooner.

It was already laden, and the crew were busy with ropes and sails, under the direction of the mate. The gentle lap of the waves, the creak of the timbers, the straining of the ropes, and the flapping of canvas, had their due effect on Dick in the lazy, sunny afternoon. When they had cast off, and the little wharf and still town and green slopes swiftly receded, while the creaking schooner sped under a light wind towards the open ocean, Dick felt as in a kind of joyous dream. When that green cape, the "Watch Hill" of the Indians, in fact and name, had been some time passed, the wind changed both in quarter and force, and the mate opined possible sudden bad weather from the east. Dick felt inward threats of seasickness, but repressed them. Tom, the piper's son, showed no sign of the slightest qualm. At nightfall, having feasted his stomach with fresh-caught codfish, for he had promptly taken on a sea appetite, and his eyes on the far-reaching billows, Dick retired with Tom to a bunk beneath the hatches, and soon slept. When he awoke, he was in pitchy darkness.

"Whist!" said a voice in his ear. "What do ye think, lad? For why did I pinch ye then? Because, sticking my head out the hatchway for a taste of air, I heard the rascal captain prattling with the scoundrel mate. This vessel's bound straight for Boston, lad, and their cursed intention is to hand us ower to General Gage for a pair of treasonable rebels! How d'ye like that, now?"

"Let's scuttle his damned vessel first!" quoth Dick.

"Softly, Dickie boy! Aiblins it 'ull come to that, and aiblins we'll find ither means. Devil a bit let him know we've spied their dirty trick, mind! Providence is mostly our friend,—saving in the matter of horses."

So the two kept their own counsel. Going on deck at dawn, they found the captain so sharing the mate's fears of a bad blow,—that he had decided to put back to Block Island. MacAlister sent Dick the faintest hint of a wink. When the old harbor in the east side of that green rolling island whose Indian name was Manisses was made, MacAlister said he and his friend would like to go ashore to stretch their legs a bit. The captain, doubtless deeming it not yet wise to arouse their suspicions, called a fisherman's boat, which landed them from the schooner's place of anchorage. They walked up from the landing to some fishermen's shingle houses, well back from the beach, and speedily closed a bargain with a sea-browned islander to take them to the mainland in his smack.

The fisherman, allured by the large price offered, and having less to risk than the captain of the laden schooner, promptly embarked, under the astonished eyes of the anchored captain, whom Tom gravely saluted by placing thumb to nose and wiggling his fingers. The captain replied by vociferously hoping to God the gale would blow the two travellers to hell. The gale, however, continued to remain in abeyance, though the sky was filled with clouds and the sea had an unaccountable choppy look and feel. Tom, having questioned the fisherman regarding localities, now proposed that the latter should take them to Newport, and doubled his offer of pay. Induced by greed and by the confidence born of previous good luck in all weathers at sea, the islander consented, regardless of the capricious behavior of his sail and the sudden ominous quiverings of his boat. Yet the storm held off.

Making clever use of the wind when it was brisk, the skipper had his boat at evening off the precipitous southern coast of the island on which Newport lies. As he was about to tack, in order to round the point and so reach the town, which then occupied only a spot on the island's western side, the storm came, almost without a moment's warning, and bringing with it a pelting deluge of rain. Before the mariner could regain any kind of mastery of his little craft, it had been dashed close to the corrugated land. Dick and Tom escaped being thrown out of the boat only by grasping its timbers and holding on with all strength. The vessel was tossed about, for a time, like a cork. Once it seemed in the act of hurling itself into a gaping chasm which rent the rough sea-wall from the height of forty feet to unknown depths,—a cleft as wide as a man is tall, and cut back into the land a hundred and fifty feet. But the boat fell short of these grinning jaws and in another minute was far away from them.

From the time when the storm first broke upon them to the time when, by some strange freak of wind and sea, the smack was riding in a broad bay east of the threatening sea-wall,—a direction therefrom exactly opposite to that which the elements seemingly ought to have borne it,—no one aboard spoke a word. But now the skipper, whose nasal voice and distinct New England enunciation easily cut through the tumult of wind and water, briefly expressed his intention of letting the sea carry the boat straight towards the smooth beach ahead, there being one chance of safety therein. Tom and Dick awaited the issue with more of curiosity than of aught else, MacAlister looking exceedingly grim, as always in times of peril, and Dick, as always in similar times, wearing a kind of droll smile, as if the joke were on his courage for having got into such a plight. Before either's senses had caught up to the passing occurrence, there was a sudden tremendous shock underneath them, a grinding through some gritty yielding substance, a rolling away of the sea from the nearly overturned boat; and they found themselves high on the beach, out of reach of the next wave, that rushed angrily in as if to clutch them back again.

"'Twas the big brother did it," shouted the skipper, starting to draw his craft farther up on the beach, and motioning for the aid of the others.

"What's the big brother?" shouted Dick.

"The third wave. It be always the highest. We'll make the rest of the voyage to Newport in these here craft," and he pointed down to his boots.

They moved off through the rain accordingly, and, after a walk of a mile and a half, arrived at the town, then a busy seaport with a goodly commerce and a lively trade to the African coast. "For a cold wetting outside, a hot wetting inside," said Tom, heading for the first tavern sign; and the three rain-soaked voyagers promptly put his prescription to the test, taking it in the shape of a steaming punch of kill-devil, and looking the while through the tavern windows at the rain pouring down upon the wharves and the vessels safe in harbor.

Next day's weather deterred the two travellers from taking the sloop through Narragansett Bay for Providence, but they arrived at that town on the 18th, and lodged in a tavern in the street that ran at the hill's foot on the eastern side of the Cove, occupying a room that looked up towards the street crossing the hillside and towards the college on the summit beyond. Leaving Providence the next day, and going afoot with a newly recruited body of troops bound for the provincial camp outside Boston, they passed through Attleboro and other places where the signs of war's proximity were increasingly plentiful, lodged for the night at Walpole, and on the evening of May 20th reached the outskirts of the camp of Rhode Island troops at Jamaica Plain.

Dick thrilled as his eyes ranged over the field dotted with tents, and as they rested on the muskets and cannon,—for the Rhode Island men had a train of artillery, and were well equipped, though as yet an insubordinate lot. Wishing to be nearer the heart of affairs, Dick hastened on to Roxbury, followed by the unobjecting MacAlister, and there found several Massachusetts and Connecticut regiments quartered in tents, log and earth huts, barns, taverns, and private houses. So well did MacAlister know what steps to take, that on the following Monday the two were accepted as volunteers, and quartered with Maxwell's company in Prescott's regiment; were comfortably lodged in a dispossessed horse's stall, and had traded off Dick's Irish officer's sword for a fiddle, with two fowling-pieces thrown into the bargain.

On the previous day, Sunday, which was the day after that of the arrival of Dick and Tom, a vessel had taken some British troops to Grape Island, in Boston Harbor, to get the hay there stored. An alarm of bells and guns had brought out the people of Weymouth, Hingham, and other towns, and they had landed on the island with three companies sent by General Thomas from Roxbury, driven the British away, burnt the hay, and taken off a number of cattle. This un-Sabbath-like exploit was the talk of the camp on Monday, and Dick deplored his not having heard of it in time to have sought a part in it.

Captain Maxwell's men proved excellent hosts, and, though not on its rolls, Dick and Tom shared the company's service and experiences in every way. Colonel Prescott's regiment was soon ordered to Cambridge, where was stationed the centre of the New England army, consisting of fifteen Massachusetts and several Connecticut regiments, one of the latter being General Putnam's. Here were the headquarters of General Ward, the commander-in-chief, in a fine wooden residence near Harvard College, and here was Colonel Gridley, the chief engineer, with most of the artillery. Here were also most of the Yankees' fortifications, these being yet in process of construction, and consisting mainly of breastworks in Cambridge and on the road near the base of Prospect Hill. Further north and northeast was the army's left wing, consisting mainly of Colonels Stark's and Reed's New Hampshire regiments, and stationed at Medford, Chelsea, and near Charlestown Neck.

It was the lot of Dick and MacAlister, as participants in the fortunes of Maxwell's company, to occupy part of a log hut near Cambridge Common and in sight of the college, and to have no share in the enterprises of May 27th and 30th, in which American detachments went to Noddle's Island, near Chelsea, and drove off sheep, cattle, and horses, on the first occasion killing and wounding several British marines and capturing twelve swivels and four four-pounders from a British schooner. There was a skilful removal of sheep and cattle from Pettick's Island also, on May 31st; and on the night of June 2d Major Greaton took from Deer Island eight hundred sheep and a lot of cattle, and captured a man-of-war's barge and four or five prisoners. Dick pined and chafed that circumstance kept him out of all these interesting proceedings, but Tom the Fiddler (a name promptly bestowed on him by Prescott's men) consoled him with many a "Whist, man, bide a wee; there'll be bigger business a-brewing!"

So Dick bided, with eager anticipations, although, in his inexperience, heeding the grumbling of others, he thought the conviviality between certain American and British officers on the man-of-war Lively, on the occasion of an exchange of prisoners, June 6th, did not look much like war. He was better pleased at the derision with which the raw troops received General Gage's proclamation of June 12th, which somehow promptly found its way into camp. In that document the British commander pronounced those in arms and their abettors to be rebels and traitors, and offered pardon to such as should lay down their arms, excepting Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Continually there came exciting rumors that the British intended to sally out of Boston to attack their besiegers. But Dick did not know what the American commanders knew, on June 13th,—that General Gage intended to take possession of Dorchester Heights on the 18th; hence it was with surprise and a keen thrill that, on Friday evening, the 16th, he obeyed the order to fall in, and marched beside MacAlister with the company to Cambridge Common.

There he found that Maxwell's men were part of a detachment which included other companies of Prescott's regiment, a part of Bridge's, a part of Frye's, and a number of Connecticut troops under Captain Knowlton, of Putnam's regiment. There was also some artillery, with Colonel Gridley himself. And there stood the tall, powerful figure of Colonel Prescott, wearing a long blue coat, his strong, stern face shaded by the slightly turned up brim of a great round hat. The air was charged with expectation, with a sense of great events at hand. The force paraded on the Common, and then stood with heads bared and hands resting on the guns, while a venerable-looking gentleman, whom a whispering comrade named to Dick as President Langdon of Harvard College, raised his hand heavenward and uttered a tremulous prayer for the aid of the Lord of Hosts. There was a period of waiting, during which the colonel consulted quietly with Gridley and the other officers, while the suppressed excitement of the men made some appear moody and abstracted, some nervous and sharp in their whispered speeches, others extraordinarily calm in tone, others oddly jocular. Dick was one of the last, in mood and countenance, but was so filled with emotion that he dared not trust himself to speak. Tom was placidly grim and patient, keeping his wits about him and exhibiting no change in tone or manner. The fallen darkness gave the human figures, the distant trees and scattered houses, the rolling landscape, a mysterious look. At last, at nine o'clock, in low, quick tone, the order was given to march.

First went two sergeants, carrying dark lanterns; then strode Colonel Prescott, at the head of the detachment. Behind the infantry and the cannon, the shovels and other tools were borne, with which to make entrenchments. Keeping strict silence, as they had been ordered, the men trailed past Inman's Woods, Prospect Hill, and Cobble Hill, crossed a level space (another common), and halted at Charlestown Neck. Here, in the darkness, General Putnam rode up, and they were joined by other officers also.

Presently Captain Nutting's company and a few Connecticut men separated from the detachment and marched to the lower part of Charlestown, to act there as a guard. The main force was soon on the march again, and followed the road over a smooth round hill (the real Bunker's Hill), at the base of which it halted again. Prescott gathered the officers around him, and quietly made known the orders he had come to carry out. Watching the group alertly, Dick saw the officers look or point, now at the hill just crossed, now at the hill ahead, as if discussing which to use for the purpose in hand. Finally the men were marched to the hill ahead, from which Boston on its hills and hillsides could be seen sleeping, across the wide mouth of the Charles River.

As soon as the men halted, Colonel Gridley began to move rapidly about the summit of the hill, marking out lines and angles in the earth as he did so. Guns were stacked by all but certain designated men, of whom Dick and Tom were two, who remained under arms. Spades were distributed to the others, who were soon turning up the earth along the lines traced by Colonel Gridley. As General Putnam started to ride back over the road they had followed, Captain Maxwell received an order from Colonel Prescott, and in turn gave the word of march to a party of his men, in which were numbered Dick and Tom.

This little force followed the captain down into Charlestown, whose commodious houses among the trees were now deserted. When the party neared the Old Ferry, which led to Boston, the men were assigned to different posts along the shore, to watch the motions of the enemy, on their men-of-war in the river and in Boston opposite, during the night. With what delicious feelings did Dick pace the shore, to the sound of the lapping water, in sight of the dark looming vessels of the foe, in hearing of the British sentinel's voice who passed the "All's well" on to his comrade! Twice during the night Colonel Prescott came down with another officer to see what might be seen from the shore. It was almost dawn when Tom and Dick were marched back to the hill, where the men had been doing beaver work in the night.

A great change had been made in the appearance of the hill. Mounds of earth six feet high now enclosed the crest on three sides and most of the fourth. A rough breastwork had been thrown up as if in continuation of one of the sides of this redoubt. On the inner side of these works rough platforms of wood and earth were being made, and Dick and Tom were now assigned to aid in this duty, the rule of the night having been that men should dig and mount guard alternately. Dawn came, calm and clear, while the men were working at the spades. As both mounted a pile of earth, to level it, Dick took the opportunity to look down over the parapet, towards Boston. At that instant there came a flash of fire and a belch of smoke from the port-hole of a vessel in the river, a sullen boom, and a spattering of earth and dust in the near hillside.

"Bedad," said old Tom, looking down towards the man-of-war, "that vessel's called the Lively; and frae the way she says good morning I'm thinking we're like to have a lively day of it!"

CHAPTER VI.
THE WIND OF CIRCUMSTANCE.

It was a fine, clear morning, promising a hot day. Looking across the earthwork, Dick could see people on the housetops and hills of Boston and the near-by country, attracted by the sound of the Lively's firing and by the news that the Yankees had fortified the hill. Dick and MacAlister were presently relieved, whereupon they rested at their rifles, while others went on working at the platforms. The firing from the river ceased, but the calm which followed was so like that which precedes a storm, that Dick was not even startled at the louder booming that soon arose, from a hill-battery in Boston as well as from the war-vessels in the river. The men around Dick made jokes about the enemy's fire, and about what fate might befall one another within a few hours. The prevalent spirit accorded with the half tragic, half comical feeling that thrilled Dick's breast and showed in his face.

There came a slight shock and a general sensation when the word went around that one of the British cannon balls had struck and killed Asa Pollard, of Stickney's company in Bridge's regiment; and there followed some ado over the matter of his burial, Colonel Prescott commanding that he be buried immediately, a chaplain insisting on performing a service over the body, and Prescott thereupon ordering dispersed the crowd of men that gathered to hear the service. At this a number of men rebelliously left the hill. To shame the timid and encourage the brave, Prescott stepped to the top of the parapet and walked calmly around thereupon, coolly giving orders, in perfect heedlessness of the balls that plowed the hillside near at hand. A captain did likewise, and thereupon the men took to cheering defiantly at each notable specimen of British marksmanship.

Keyed up to the pitch of recklessness, the men could laugh at the British fire, but the intense heat of the sun, the fatigue of their labors, and the hunger and thirst due to the neglect of many to bring provisions, were foes not as easily disdained. Thanks to Dick's respect for orders, and to Tom's wisdom of experience, these two had enough to eat and drink; but many, as they perspired or lay exhausted, growled or cursed, and thought war a useless, uncomfortable business.

During the morning, while the men worked with the spades, or waited idly and wondered when, if ever, their first shot would be fired, there were frequent consultations of the officers, frequent despatchings of messengers from the hill, or from one part of the hill to another, frequent signs that seemed to promise action but brought none. There was a moment of interest for Dick when he became aware, first by sound, and then by sight, that the cannon in a corner of the redoubt had begun to reply to the British fire, which had gained in severity and in the number of its sources.

At about eleven o'clock the men were ordered to cease work on the entrenchments, and their tools were piled in the rear. General Putnam now rode up, evidently from Cambridge, and had some discussion with Prescott, and, apparently as a result thereof, a large party took up the tools and started off towards Charlestown Neck. Some of this party stopped at the next hill, to which Putnam rode, and there they began to throw up breastworks under his orders. Thus the morning passed, in tedious expectancy.

The burning noon found Dick and Tom again at the parapet, which was now manned with waiting musket-men. Dick's wandering gaze rested on two war-ships that were moving up the river towards those already firing. "Begorra, there's a thing or two doing, yonder in the town," said MacAlister, with a slight revival from a tone of languor. Dick looked across to Boston. Through some streets and towards the wharves, trailed a long, wide line of scarlet, flashing at countless points where the sunlight fell on polished metal. The line was of British regiments, doubtless coming to attack the Yankee redoubt.

An oppressive silence fell for a moment on Dick and all his comrades, while their eyes glistened; then, simultaneously, they raised a wild, half hysterical cheer, and many a man grasped his weapon tighter, and sent towards the scarlet line afar an unconscious smile of defiant welcome.

The thunder of the British batteries and ships all at once swelled to tremendous volume. The fields by the river, below the redoubt, were deluged with cannon-shot. "To hinder us frae ganging doon to stop their landing," explained MacAlister to Dick. Scarlet troops could be seen moving in Boston towards different wharves, from which at last they crowded into barges, a few of them hauling field-pieces along with them.

Dick thrilled at the fine sight when the barges were rowed out into the river and towards a point of land eastward from the hill on which the Yankee army waited. Passing between the belching vessels and the river's mouth, and as the wind drove the cannon smoke westward, the barges with their loads of scarlet and steel stood out clear in the sunlight.

It was one o'clock when the barges huddled together at the point, and the red-coated troops filed ashore, and began to form in lines, now on the same side of the river with the colonials who had defied them. Dick admired the precision of the three lines in which they formed, the patience with which they waited while their officers consulted and while the barges went back apparently for more troops, the matter-of-fact manner in which many of them ate their dinners while they stood.

He was drawn from this sight presently by a cheer from his own comrades, which heralded the arrival of some teams with provisions and barrels of beer. While he was partaking of the consequent good cheer, there was another outburst of enthusiasm, this time over the arrival of Doctor Warren, recently made a general, and General Pomeroy, who both came to serve for the day in the ranks, as volunteers. Soon General Putnam rode back again to the redoubt.

Now the British were seen beginning a movement from the point, and along the Mystic River, which ran by the hill's northern base as the Charles ran by its southern one. Some artillery and some Connecticut troops, detached to oppose this movement, went down the hill and began to construct a kind of breastwork of a pair of stone and rail fences and some fresh-cut hay that lay in the fields. But Dick had no attention for this business, or for the reinforcements that began to arrive over Charlestown Neck in the fire of the British ships and batteries. All his powers of sight were for the well-drilled enemy, who had ceased to move along the Mystic, and now stood near the point.

At about three o'clock the British barges came back from Boston on their second trip, and, landing short of the point, disembarked their troops at a place much nearer the redoubt than the first force was. "It's them we'll be having dealings wi'," said MacAlister, nodding towards the new arrivals. "There's a regiment that we'll ken the name of later, and a battalion of marines, not to speak of them companies of light infantry and grenadiers. Whist, lad, it's like we'll hae the worth of our labors."

While Dick waited, with his eyes on the force at the foot of the hill, in front of him, he was vaguely conscious that things were doing elsewhere; that the field-pieces of the British right wing—the force first landed—were conversing with the Yankees' cannon; that parties were being sent out from the redoubt to flank the enemy and were doing a little futile skirmishing; and that the roars of cannon were more deafening, the balls raining more thickly and incessantly on the hillside from the ships and the Boston batteries. At last the British left wing—the newly landed force, of which Tom had spoken—began to march towards the redoubt. This left wing had meanwhile been augmented by some of the regiments that had crossed the river on the first trip of the barges.

"They're coming, boy," said old Tom. "It's a general movement of both divisions. They are the best troops in the world, son, dour devils every ane of them, and they mane to tak' this hill as sure as we mane to hould it. It's a grand disputation ye're like to see this day, lad!"

Colonel Prescott strode around the platform, instructing the men upon it how to fire, the men behind it how to hand loaded guns to the first, how to reload, how to take the places of the disabled. "Remember," said he, "wait for the word before you fire. Mind you put every grain of powder to good use; there's none for wasting. Aim at their waist-bands, and bring down their officers. That musket must be lower, man, when you come to fire. You, there, with your finger ready to pull, wait for the word, I tell you!"

Warfare and orders were different with the Yankee army on the hill, from what they were with the disciplined soldiers marching up to the attack.

Dick was dimly aware of flashes from British artillery posted near some brick-kilns near the hill's foot, but all his thoughts were on the infantry, as yet distant but steadily approaching, with a precision that was proof against marshy ground, tall grass, stone or rail fences, and other impediments. On they came, at a steady walk, to the beating of their own drums, marching in silence, looking neither to right nor to left, outwardly as calm as if on parade, showing in their faces no complaint against the heat nor any fear of the fate that might await them, men patient, machine-like in response to orders, their scarlet coats blazing in the sun, their steel bayonets flashing, men perfectly groomed, lifted to disdain of death by the sense of comradeship and of the occasion's bigness and by devotion to the sun-lit flag that fluttered slightly in the faint breeze,—so they came, their faces fixed with a mild curiosity on the redoubt, and it seemed to Dick that, coming in fashion so orderly and businesslike, they could not in possibility be turned back or stayed. Thrilled with admiration, "By the Lord," he said to MacAlister, "that's the way to march to one's death! Who could be afraid to face all hell, either marching with them, or waiting here to fight against them?"

"Bedad, ye've got the feeling, lad!" Tom answered. "When great matters do be brewing, a man's ain life is sic a wee sma' thing, he'll no haggle over it!"

The British left wing approached in long files, its right composed of tall-capped grenadiers, who came towards the breastwork north of the redoubt, its centre consisting of several regiments of ordinary foot, its extreme left being made up of marines, whose commander's figure was recognized by one of Dick's comrades as that of Major Pitcairn, who had called on the rebels on Lexington Common to disperse. When the redcoats were still at a considerable distance, they deployed into line and fired at the Yankees' works, all in unison, as if each was part of a great machine. In his admiration of their movement, and of the quiet and easy manner in which the marching officers had ordered it, Dick heeded not the whizz of bullets overhead. On some of his comrades the strain was too great to resist, and they impulsively fired their pieces at the approaching scarlet lines. Prescott's voice rose in loud reproof of these, and some of the officers ran along the top of the parapet, kicking up the guns of men who were taking aim.

On came the enemy, firing at regular intervals in obedience to slight gestures of their officers. And now they were so near that man might be distinguished from man, each by his face, though all the countenances had in common the impassive, obedient, patient, unquestioning look of British veterans. With the Yankees the tension of inward excitement was such that Dick and most of his comrades would not trust their voices to speak; but some grumbled nervously, or even growled as in ordinary moods. "Bean't we ever going to give it to them?" demanded one, and "Air we going to let them walk right into the fort, 'thout our moving a finger?" queried another. It began to look to Dick as if the enemy were indeed dangerously near, and he glanced at Tom MacAlister, who was motionlessly breasting the parapet, gun-butt against shoulder, eye following out the barrel, finger bent to pull at the word. Presently all growlings ceased, and nothing was heard but the roar of the cannon, the throbbing beat of the enemy's drums, and the singing of the bullets in the air. Then the powerful voice of Prescott rang out in the single word, "Fire!"

There was flash, a crack, a belch of smoke, along the whole redoubt; and, when the smoke rose, Dick got an indistinct impression of great gaps in the scarlet lines, of red-coated soldiers lying on the ground in various positions, some writhing and grimacing, some perfectly still, some pierced and bleeding, some without visible wound. Those still afoot were looking astonished and were trying to retain or recover the regular formation of their lines. Some of them fired back at the redoubt. Dick mechanically grasped the loaded gun handed to him by a man behind the platform, and as mechanically relinquished his own emptied weapon to the same man; in another moment he was blazing away again at a scarlet coat. Then he himself reloaded, and fired a third time; and after that he saw the broken scarlet lines in front of him roll back down the hill, in a kind of disorderly order, many of the redcoats falling behind and plunging presently to the earth.

"We have actually driven them back!" was his thought, and he bounded to the top of the parapet, thrown forward by an irresistible impulse to give chase; but he was stayed by the hindering grasp of Tom MacAlister upon the seat of his breeches. He looked around in surprise, for several men had leaped over the parapet, with a cheer, to follow the fleeing foe. But officers leaped after these men and vehemently ordered them back into the redoubt. "They're beaten!" cried Dick, ecstatically.

"Maybe," quoth old Tom; "but it'll no be them, I'm a-thinkin', if they stay so!"

All the world knows they did not stay so; that the rest of that hot, eventful afternoon, until the termination of the fight, had nothing in it to give Dick an impression different from those he had already received; that the British re-formed by the shore, charged up the hill a second time, and were a second time driven back by the deadly American marksmanship; that to aid their second attempt they set fire to Charlestown, but, the smoke being driven westward, failed to accomplish their purpose thereby; that the British cannon did a little more work this second time; that the British soldiers were somewhat impeded in their charge by the bodies of dead and wounded comrades they had to step over; that their officers had to do some threatening and sword-pricking and striking to persuade them forward; that their second retreat was in greater disorder than their first, and left the ground covered more thickly with dead and wounded; that they waited a long time before they began their third attack; that on the American side there was much bungling in attempts to bring on reinforcements that arrived over Charlestown Neck; that many of the cowardly and the disgruntled slunk away; that in each charge the occurrences at the redoubt were similar to those at the breastwork and at the stone and rail fence; that the second attack left the Americans with very little ammunition. The few artillery cartridges that contained all the powder at hand were opened, and the powder was given out to the men with instructions to make every kernel of it tell.

"If they're driven back once more, they can't be rallied again," said Colonel Prescott; and his men cheered and replied, "We're ready for them!" The few men with bayonets were placed at points the enemy would probably attempt to scale. It was seen that the British boats had been sent back to Boston,—so that the British troops would not have them to flee to, as old Tom divined,—also that the British had received reinforcements from the vessels.

When they advanced in column to the third attack, they came without knapsacks, and their whole movement was concentrated upon the redoubt and breastwork, while their artillery was sent ahead and so placed as to enfilade the Americans in flank. The red lines were but twenty yards away when Prescott gave the order to fire. The columns wavered at the volley, but recovered form in a moment, and sprang forward with fixed bayonets, without firing in return. Dick, knowing he had fired his last round, and following Tom's example, turned his weapon around to use it as a club. He was now at the southeastern corner of the redoubt.

The British surged up to the southern side, like a tidal wave, their front line being lifted by the men behind. A red-coated officer set foot on the parapet, cried out "The day is ours!" and fell, pierced by the last bullet of some Yankee inside the redoubt. The whole first rank that mounted the parapet was shot down, but there was no powder left for the ranks that followed. Dick brought down his rifle-butt with all his strength on the head of the nearest redcoat. Before he could raise his weapon, he felt in his leg the violent thrust of a British bayonet. He made a wild movement to clutch it, but it was drawn out of him by its owner's hand. Dick fell forward on one knee, and a moment later toppled over the parapet and fell outside the redoubt, upon the quivering body of a dying redcoat, by whose advancing comrades he was soon trodden into insensibility.

When he opened his eyes again it was late in the evening. The mêlée was over. He lay on some hay on the hillside, with a number of other men, some wounded, some apparently whole, all under guard of sentries who paced on every side. He soon perceived that the men under guard were of the Yankee army, while those who guarded them were British, and, as he presently recognized the redoubt not far away, he knew that the British had won the day and that he was a prisoner. Before night a surgeon came and examined his wound, had it washed and tied up by an assistant, and pronounced it of no consequence. Dick passed the night in exhaustion, pain, and thirst, on his bed of hay on the hillside.

The next day, while the British were fitting the redoubt for their own service, and also beginning new works, Dick and his fellow prisoners were marched down to the river, conveyed by boat to Boston, and led through certain streets of that town, some of which were curved, some crooked, some steeply ascending, some flanked by closely built rough-cast houses with projecting upper stories, some by commodious brick or wooden residences in the midst of fine gardens; and so into a stone jail that stood with its walled yard on the south side of the way. At one side of the entrance, within this prison, was a guard-room, into which each prisoner was taken for his name to be entered in the records. Dick was the last to be directed thither. When he had been duly registered by the proper officer, he turned to follow the guard to the cell assigned him.

"So we've got you at last," came, in a slightly Irish accent, from a British officer, who appeared to be in some authority at the prison, but whom Dick had not before observed closely. "Faith, we'll take care you shall stay with us awhile, and we'll not give you a chance to murder English officers, either, as you tried to murder Lieutenant Blagdon in New York. What have you done with my sword, you spalpeen?"

Dick recognized the officer in whose company Blagdon had been at the time of the occurrence in the King's Arms Tavern. He would have made an answer, although the other's question did not in its tone imply expectation of one; but the guard hurried him away, in obedience to a sudden gesture of the Irishman.

"At least," thought Dick, "though that man, as Blagdon's friend, counts himself my enemy, he has done me the service of informing me that Blagdon is not dead. 'Tried to murder Blagdon,' he said. Tom the piper's son was right. And, thinking of Tom, I wonder where he is now. Evidently not a prisoner, for our lot seems to comprise all that were taken. Killed? I can't think that! Does he know what has become of me, I wonder? Shall I ever see him again?"

Having been conducted up a narrow stairway, he was led along a corridor and ushered into a large, bare apartment whose wooden door opened thereupon. But if this apartment was bare as to its wooden walls and floor and ceiling, it was far from empty, being occupied already by half a score of men, some of whom were of the party of prisoners that had come with Dick. The guard now closed the door and fastened it on the outside, Dick having been the last prisoner lodged.

Dick and his roommates had of floor space barely sufficient for all to lie down at once, and of light they had only what came from a single window, which looked across the jail-yard to some rear out-buildings and gardens appertaining to houses in the street beyond. The unpainted wood that encased the cell was interrupted only by the window and in certain places where the inside of the stone outer wall of the prison was visible. There were in the cell two large wooden pails, which were removed and returned once a day.

Regularly each day the door opened to admit men who brought water, bread or biscuit, and sometimes porridge or stew or other food; and the prisoners were now and then taken, singly or in small parties, to walk in the yard. They were made by their guards to suppose themselves recognized not as prisoners of war but as rebels or traitors, and to consider the slightest acts of consideration towards them as unmerited privileges. As the days passed, it became manifest that Dick received fewer such privileges than fell to any of his fellow prisoners. He promptly attributed this to the influence of the Irish officer.

Did that officer, Dick asked himself, know the story of the miniature? Probably not, or he would have made some attempt, on Blagdon's behalf, to obtain it. Such an attempt would doubtless have failed, however, as was shown in the search made of Dick's person on his capture, a search which had not disclosed the picture. For Dick, to be ready against the chance of war, had encased the keepsake in a tight-fitting silken bag, which he had then concealed in his plentiful back hair, fastening it by means of tiny cords entwined with locks of hair and with the ribbons that tied his queue. There it remained during his imprisonment.

Of the thirty prisoners taken by the British in the battle, only a few were in Dick's cell, the others being confined in other apartments in the jail. Among Dick's roommates were some citizens of Boston, in durance for various alleged offences against the royal government. One was charged with having drawn plans of British fortifications, another with having given intelligence to the rebels by means of correspondence smuggled through the lines, another with having had firearms concealed in his house,—the people having, on unanimous vote of town meeting, delivered up their weapons on April 27th. A printer was held under the accusation of having published seditious matter, and one childlike old gentleman pined in the cell because he was said to have made signals to the rebels from a church steeple.

This last-mentioned person, a mild, bewigged individual, his features rendered sharply angular by age, spent his time sitting in a corner of the cell, his eyes fixed distressedly on vacancy, his lips now and then opening to utter a childish whimper of protest against his situation. The printer knew this old gentleman, and gave Dick an account of him. He was, it appeared, a retired merchant and ship-owner, who, at a time when people were frequently ascending to roofs to view the doings of the besieging Yankees, had climbed to a church steeple, on being bantered by some jocular fellows who had cast doubts on his ability for such exertion. The gesticulations with which he had called attention to his success were taken by some prominent Tories to be designed for the information of the rebels outside the city. Denunciation and imprisonment had speedily followed. The printer, although he had no sympathy for the old man, whom he pronounced a rank Tory, said that the charge was all the more absurd for the very reason of the prisoner's Toryism, which captivity had not extinguished. When the old gentleman came out of his state of staring and moaning, as he infrequently did, it was to deplore articulately the rebellion that had got him into trouble, and to curse the rebels who were responsible. "Though he has enemies among the Tories," said the printer, "he has friends among them also, and it is quite likely he will be released as soon as General Gage takes time to consider his case."

But July came and went, and the old Tory still lingered in prison, growing constantly more fretful in his active moments, more trance-like in his passive ones, more feeble and more attenuated. Meanwhile, Dick suffered exasperatingly from the heat, confinement, vile air, want of sleep, and lack of exercise. His wound, slight as it was, was slow in recovery, because of the bad conditions of his prison life; yet he scarcely heeded it, so insignificant it was in comparison with the wounds and other ailments of some of his fellow prisoners. One of these, in whose thigh a grape-shot had torn a hideous gash that finally became insupportable to more senses than one, was declared by the surgeon to require amputation, and the operation was consequently performed in the prison, little to the sufferer's immediate relief, although he ultimately recovered. Accounts came, through guards and surgeon's assistants, of similar operations in the jail, not all of which were as successful as that performed on Dick's cell-mate.

Fevers and numerous internal disorders assailed Dick and his comrades, and their cell, in its half light by day and in its black darkness by night, was the lodging of enfeebled wretches who sat or lay in close contact on the floor, thrown by pain or restlessness into every conceivable attitude. Accustomed as he was to outdoor air, and deprived, as he came to be, of a breath of it, as well as of all exercise, Dick began early in August to lose vitality with alarming rapidity. He became as thin and as sharp of feature as the old Tory himself. His exclusion from the occasional outings in the prison yard became a theme of general talk in the cell.

One day the surgeon examined Dick's wound, assuming as he did so a kind of grave frown, and uttering certain ominous ejaculations to himself, his manifestations having, to Dick's keen intelligence, the appearance of being put on for a purpose. Later, the same day, through a good-natured guard, the prisoners received two pieces of news. The first was that the new commander-in-chief of the rebels, Washington, who had arrived at Cambridge early in July, had threatened retaliation for any ill-treatment of American prisoners, and was taking measures that must eventually result in the exchange of those now in the jail. The second was that the old Tory's friends were working vigorously on his behalf, and that an order of release from General Gage might soon be expected. To every one's surprise, the old gentleman heard this information with stupid indifference.

The next day, the surgeon returned, accompanied by the Irish officer, and made another examination of Dick's wound. This done, the surgeon turned to the officer, and said, in a kind of forced tone and shamefaced manner, as if he were acting a part he despised, "Amputation will be necessary in this case, sir."

"Indeed?" said the officer, without even a serious pretence of surprise. "Then let it be done immediately."

"Immediately, the devil!" cried Dick. "Cut my leg off? Why, there's nothing the matter with it! I walked on it all the way to this prison!"

"My good man," said the officer, loftily, "you don't know what is best for you. It's our duty to care for you, even against your own will. Don't double up your fists! You'll only hurt yourself by resisting. We shall use force, for your own welfare, if need be." The officer left the cell, and the surgeon briefly told Dick to be ready to be taken down-stairs in half an hour, by which time preparations would be made for the operation in the room used for such purposes; then he followed the officer.

Before Dick could recover from his bewilderment, or his comrades could offer other than expressions of indignant amazement, the cell door again opened, and the friendly guard came in and whispered to the printer that some of the Tory's friends were down-stairs with a coach and with an order for the old gentleman's release. The guard had been sent up-stairs to break the news to the Tory and to make him so presentable, if possible, that his friends might not have too much cause to complain of the effects upon him of his imprisonment. The guard, knowing the old gentleman's state, preferred to entrust the news-breaking to the superior delicacy and tact of the printer, and, having easily engaged the latter to perform it, went from the cell to wait in the corridor.

The printer, glancing at the old man and supposing him to be asleep, rapidly confided to his fellow prisoners what the guard had said, and then stepped over to the Tory and shook him gently by the shoulder. After a pause, he repeated the shaking, then stooped closer to the old man and grasped his body. A moment later, the printer turned to the expectant prisoners, and said in a loud whisper, "By God, I think they're too late with their damned release! If I know anything, the old man's dead!"

Meanwhile, the Tory's friends, three gentlemen of middle age, sat down-stairs in the guard-room, talking with the Irish officer, who explained that the prisoner would take a few minutes to make his toilet. When ten minutes had passed, the officer went to the corridor, and called up the dim stairway, "Mr. Follansbee's friends are impatient to see him," a speech meant as a signal for the guard to conduct the old gentleman down-stairs. The officer then stood at the side of the stair-foot, while the three gentlemen waited just within the guard-room door, opposite the officer.

In a minute the guard appeared at the head of the stairs, followed by two armed comrades, and supporting by the arm a bent, trembling, heavily wigged, sharp-featured, blinking person, whose clothes, of rich texture, were the same the old Tory had worn into the prison, but were now sadly soiled.

Slowly and painfully their wearer descended from step to step, in the half light of the stairs and corridor. When he reached the foot, the Irish officer stepped back to make more room for the Tory's three friends. These now came from the guard-room, and stood with half smiling, half shocked faces, to give the old man greeting. When he reached the lowest step, they held out their hands to him, but, to their astonishment, as the guard let go his arm, he darted forth between two of them, strode past the sentries at the outer prison door, and, ignoring the waiting coach, plunged down the street with an alacrity miraculous in one so enfeebled, and turned off at right angles into the first street that ran southward.

"His imprisonment has crazed him!" cried one of the three gentlemen.

"Hell and damnation!" cried the Irish officer, rushing up the stairs and motioning the guard to follow. Entering the cell, he stepped over the prostrate bodies of several prisoners to a figure that lay motionless in a corner. The clothes on this figure were Dick Wetheral's, but the face was that of the dead old Tory. With a curse, and a gesture of threat at the prisoners in the cell, the officer bounded back to the door, fastened it, and leaped down the stairs to order a pursuit.

At about the same moment, Dick, tossing the old man's wig back towards the prison from which he ran, thus conversed jubilantly and defiantly with himself:

"Cut my leg off, eh? Not if it and its comrade serve me properly to-day! The printer was right,—'twould have been a shame to waste that order of release on a dead man!"

As he ran, he divested himself of the old Tory's cumbersome coat, throwing it over a gate into an alley-way between two houses, and he also mentally justified his apparent selfishness in consenting to be the one who should use the opportunity of escape. As the printer and others had argued, in the few moments available for discussion, Dick's leg was at stake, he had been singled out for the harshest treatment, there was an evident intention to persecute the life out of him, and the others might be presently exchanged, which Dick could not hope to be as long as the machinations of his enemy could hinder.

When the vital resources called forth by excitement were used up, and Dick fell back to his weakened and wounded condition, his gait became a walk. Fortunately, until that time, his way had been mainly through a deserted street, so that his running had attracted no attention. Reaching a more populous thoroughfare, on which he saw more soldiers than citizens, he proceeded southwestwardly in a preoccupied manner, his coatless condition being easily accounted for by the heat of the season. At last he sat down to rest on the steps of a large brick church, at a corner where the street opened to a great, green, hilly, partly wooded space, which he knew, from previous description and from the military tents now upon it, to be the Common.

While he was viewing the scene, and gaining breath, and wondering how he should ever get out of the town, he became conscious of a hurried movement of men, at some distance back on his own route. Standing on the highest church step to look, he saw a squad of soldiers led by an officer whom he took to be the Irishman. Other people about had noticed this movement, which was rapidly nearing.

To get out of the way inconspicuously, Dick descended from the church steps, and started at a walk up the steep street that ran by the side of the church and which bounded the end of the Common. As he tugged up the hill, he knew by cries and footsteps that the soldiers were making good speed towards the corner he had left; and just as he reached the top of the hill he heard a shout from the foot of it.

"Stop that rebel!" were the words, and the voice was that of the Irish officer. Dick turned into the street that went along the upper side of the Common, and thence he bounded through the first open gate on the right-hand side, into a flowery garden before a broad residence whose wide door, flanked by glass panels and surmounted by a great fan-light, gaped hospitably from a spacious vine-embowered porch. As he made for this porch, for the time hidden from his pursuers on the up-hill street by the trees at the corner of the Common, a young lady came idly from the door. She first halted at the approaching cry, "Stop that rebel," and then stepped back in surprise as Dick, tripping on the steps that led up to the porch, fell prone at her feet.

"Dear me, what's the matter?" she said, breathlessly; then quickly stooped and picked up something from near Dick's head.

"That belongs to me!" he said, hoarsely, rising to his knees, and reaching out for it greedily. It was the precious miniature, which had in some manner worked from its fastenings in Dick's queue.

"Who are you?" asked the girl, who was slender, blue-eyed, and fair, still retaining the portrait.

"Stop that rebel!" came the cry from around the corner of the Common.

Dick's mind worked quickly. "I'm the man they're hunting," he said.

The girl frowned, murmured the word "rebel," and looked down at him with an expression of dislike. From this he knew she was a Tory, hence friendly to his pursuers and at bitter enmity with his cause.

She looked mechanically at the portrait, which had escaped from its silken bag. "Is this a lady who is waiting for you to come back from the fighting?" she asked, with sudden softness of tone and countenance.

"Yes," lied Dick, promptly; "as you also doubtless wait for some one!"

The girl blushed, and looked sympathetically at the portrait, then at Dick.

"Stop that rebel!" The voice had turned the corner of the Common, but its owner was still concealed from view by the trees and bushes of the garden. "The open gate yonder," it added; "search that place!"

"Sit down," quickly whispered the girl to Dick, handing him the portrait. "There,—under that bench!"

Dick obeyed, from lack of other choice, at the same time losing hope, for the space beneath the bench was open to the view of any one entering the porch.

A moment later he felt and saw himself closed in from sight, by the skirts and petticoat of the young lady, who had taken her seat on the bench immediately over him.

In this novel hiding-place he lay, half stifled, while the girl politely answered the questions of the Irish officer, whom she directed to a rear alley, whither, she said, the fugitive must have betaken himself; and when the last soldier had gone from the premises she blushingly arose and faced her equally flushed guest, who stammered the thanks he could better look than speak. Not waiting for talk, she immediately conducted him to the garret of the house, where he passed the rest of the day, and the ensuing night, on a pile of old bedclothes behind some barrels. Next afternoon, she brought him a pass obtained from Major Urquhart, the town-major, permitting one Dorothy Morrill to pass the barriers at Boston Neck. She gave Dick a maid-servant's frock and cap, showed him how to put up his hair in feminine fashion, and led him out of the house and grounds by a back way while the family sat at supper.

"'Tis all for the sake of the lady who is waiting for you," were her last words, and Dick, bowing low so as to avoid her eyes, took the way she had described, to Boston Neck. In the streets he was chucked under the chin by certain jocular soldiers, which demonstrations he took as evidence of the excellence of his disguise.

His heart was in his mouth when he showed his pass to the sergeant of the guard, at the gate in the barriers, for failure at the last moment is a sickening thing. But he was passed through without special question, and went on his way rejoicing to Roxbury, past the George Tavern, and so to the American lines, where, taking off his woman's garb before the astonished sentries, he was recognized by one of General Thomas's officers, and allowed to proceed through Brookline to Cambridge.

There he found things greatly changed since he had been taken prisoner, as he had found them at Roxbury also. The camps were larger, better equipped, and more orderly. Everywhere manifest was the presence of the new commander-in-chief, whose headquarters were at Cambridge, where the army's centre lay. Best of all, to Dick, companies of riflemen had arrived from Virginia and Pennsylvania, one from his own county, Cumberland. He knew its captain, Hendricks, by reputation, and, learning from Captain Maxwell that Tom MacAlister had regularly joined this organization, he hastened to follow the last-named hero's example, much to the said hero's unconcealed delight, although not to his surprise, for nothing ever surprised him. Dick found him quartered on Prospect Hill, in a hut of boards, brush, stones, and turf, and just returned from a day spent with a rifle in picking off British soldiers in Boston.

Dick was warmly welcomed by Captain Hendricks, and speedily mustered in. He doffed his prison-worn clothes for a rifleman's suit, which had belonged to a man who had died in camp; renewed acquaintance with his friend, M'Cleland, who was now a lieutenant in the company, and with Lieutenant Simpson and others from his own part of the country; and passed his days, like the other riflemen, on the hills, blazing away at British soldiers afar in the town, even bringing down a redcoat near the camp on the Common now and then.

He counted as a great event his first sight of Washington, as the commander-in-chief rode along the lines when the regiments were assembled for morning prayers. The large, soldierly figure, the mien of dignity and simplicity, the self-contained countenance, quite equalled all Dick's previously formed impressions of the Virginia hero, and would have done so without aid of the buff-faced blue coat over the buff underdress, the epaulettes, the small sword, and the great, warlike cocked hat with its black cockade.

On a fine September morning, the 8th of the month, Dick and Tom took note of these general orders of the commander-in-chief: "The detachment going under the command of Colonel Arnold, to be forthwith taken off the roll of duty and to march this evening to Cambridge Common, where tents and everything necessary are provided for their reception. The rifle company at Roxbury and those from Prospect Hill, to march early to-morrow morning, to join the above detachment. Such officers and men as are taken from General Green's brigade, for the above detachment, are to attend the muster of their respective regiments to-morrow morning, at seven o'clock, upon Prospect Hill; when the muster is finished, they are forthwith to rejoin the detachment at Cambridge."

"And what do ye think of that, now, sonny," said old Tom, softly. "Do ye mind a word I spoke to ye once, about the wind o' circumstance?"

"Why, what do you mean?" queried Dick.

"Nothing," said the piper's son, "only that order includes us, and maybe it's well ye keep it guid hauld of the bit picture, for this detachment will be bound for nane ither place than Quebec, lad!"

Quebec! Dick reached back and clutched the portrait, which had been restored to its former hiding-place; and only in a vague, distant way he heard the next ensuing words of MacAlister:

"It's ever over more hills and farther away, boy; and wha kens but the road will lead to Paris yet, afore all's said and done?"

CHAPTER VII.
THE MARCH THROUGH MAINE.

It was on Monday morning, September 11th, that Dick and Tom marched with their fellow riflemen from Prospect Hill, bound first for Newburyport, thence by sea for the mouth of the Kennebec River, and thence through the Maine wilderness into Canada and to Quebec.

The little army of 1,100 men, consisting of the two Pennsylvania rifle companies,—one from Cumberland County and one from Lancaster County,—Captain Morgan's company of Virginia riflemen, and two divisions of New England infantry, set forth in gay spirits. Its commander, Col. Benedict Arnold, of Connecticut, had recently arrived in Cambridge from his achievement with Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, his deeds on Lake Champlain, and his capture of St. John's. He was a short, stout, ruddy, handsome man, with a face complacent but resolute. His soldiers admired his bravery, and the most ungovernable of them yielded to his great persuasiveness.

Dick found himself more immediately under the command of Capt. Daniel Morgan, who led the division composed of all three rifle companies; a large, strong man, whose usually severe mien softened on occasion into a singularly kindly one; a rigid disciplinarian, impetuous yet sagacious, easily aroused but soon calmed. Dick's own captain, William Hendricks, was tall and noble-looking, gentle and heroic in face and heart. The two lieutenants, John M'Cleland and Michael Simpson, were both old acquaintances of Dick's, the former being notable for his openness of character, the latter for his gaiety and his skill as a singer. Sergeant Grier was a faithful, reliable man, whose stout and intrepid wife accompanied him on the campaign and without difficulty kept the respect of the soldiers. The Lancaster company's captain, Matthew Smith, was soldierly and good-looking, but unlettered and turbulent. Two of his best men were a pair of adventurous youths no older than Dick,—Archibald Steele and John Joseph Henry.

Of the two New England divisions, one was under Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Greene, of Rhode Island, the other under Lieutenant-Colonel Enos, of Connecticut. But Dick, on the march, came little in contact with the Yankee troops.

Sleeping by the way on the first night of the expedition, the army reached the little town of Newburyport on Tuesday, and camped here several days, completing its equipment. It was joined here by several volunteers, including two young men named Aaron Burr and Matthew Ogden, and Colonel Arnold attached these two to his staff. On Monday afternoon, September 18th, the army embarked on ten transports, which set sail in the evening, and which, under a fair, strong breeze, reached the mouth of the Kennebec at dawn. Continuing on the transports a short distance up this river, to Gardiner, the army left them at Colonel Colborn's ship-yard, and proceeded in two hundred bateaux to Fort Western,—on whose site the city of Augusta was later built,—reaching that place on Saturday, September 23d, having camped by the river during the nights.

Here Colonel Arnold sent forward a pioneer party to explore the river and to blaze a way through the wilderness at each place where boats could not navigate and where the men would have to go by land. Dick openly envied the lucky fellows selected for this duty,—Steele, Henry, four more of Smith's men, and three of Morgan's. As, from the camp on a pine-clad slope, he watched them set out, he would have given much for a place in one of their two light birch-bark canoes, each of which was partly laden with pork, meal, and biscuit.

"Hoot toot, lad!" said MacAlister, divining the boy's feelings. "It's work enough ye're like to have, whether ye gang before or behint, ere ye set eyes on the inside of Quebec town!"

It was Dick's lot not to go behind. The rifle companies constituted the van of the army, and set out from Fort Western in their bateaux a day in advance of the second division, Greene's, which in turn by a day preceded Eno's division, the third and last. This order was to be maintained until the army should have gone some way up the Kennebec, marched to that stream's branch, the Dead River, proceeded thereon, and made thence to the Chaudiere, where all should unite for the advance on Quebec. Colonel Arnold waited at Fort Western till the last division was off, then took a canoe, with Indians at the paddles, passed the third and second divisions, and overtook the advance at Norridgewock Falls, in the country of the moose deer.

Dick now found himself in a wilderness more solitary and picturesque than his own Pennsylvania forests. The last cabin of white settlers had been left behind. Civilized habitation would not again be seen until the army should reach the French settlements in Canada. The river, pursuing a turbulent way among rocks and over cataracts, was set amidst solitudes of fir-trees, hemlocks, birch, and other species, and these crowned the eminences that rose now gently, and now abruptly, on every hand. Within sound of the eternal tumult of Norridgewock Falls, were the ruins of a deserted Indian village, and as Dick lay at night under his blanket on his bed of evergreen branches, listening to the noise of the waterfall, and of MacAlister's snoring, he would look through his tent opening and imagine the ghosts of bygone red men, or that of the good French priest, Father Ralle, who had come to this village in 1698, and been killed when a party from Massachusetts suddenly attacked the place in 1724.

It was the task of Dick and his fellow riflemen to open the way, remove impediments from the streams, learn the fords, explore the portages or carrying-places where, the waters not being navigable, the boats had to be carried over land, and free these last of obstructions. For this work their attire was more suitable than was such garb as Dick had discarded on joining them; it consisted of hunting-cap, flannel shirt, cloth or buckskin breeches, buckskin leggings, moccasins, and outside hunting-shirt of brown linsey-woolsey, with a belt in which a knife and a tomahawk were carried. Each of Morgan's men wore on his cap a front-piece inscribed with the words, "Liberty or Death." This ever present reminder to the men, of the cause for which they toiled and suffered, came not amiss. It was not from the rifle companies that the desertions occurred, which united with swamp-fever and fatigue to reduce the army to fewer than a thousand able men before October 13th.

Dick soon realized the truth of old Tom's prediction concerning hard work. At the times when some of the men marched along the river banks, while some forced the bad and heavy bateaux, with their loads of provisions and other supplies, up the rapid stream, the lot of the former, struggling through thickets and swamps and over rocks, was no worse than the lot of the latter, wading and pushing against the current, which oftentimes upset or swamped their boats, and damaged provisions, arms, and ammunition. More than once a whole day was spent in getting around some single cataract, the men unloading the cargoes, carrying them—and sometimes the boats also—on their shoulders, then relaunching and reloading for another tug against the swift stream. Before the Great Portage, from the Kennebec to the Dead River, had been traversed, Dick was inured to the life of an amphibious being, as well as to that of some swamp-infesting animal or of some inhabitant of the underbrush. His breeches and leggings were torn almost from his legs by thickets, which spared not the skin under them, and below the hips he was thoroughly water-soaked. But he still slept and ate well, there being at this time plenty of trout and salmon in the ponds and streams, with which to eke out the diet of pork, meal-cakes, and biscuit. As yet the weather, though cold at night, caused no suffering to a youth of Dick's hardiness, or to a veteran as well seasoned as MacAlister.

"I prophesy that will be the langest fifteen mile ye'll often gang over," said Old Tom, when he and Dick came to a halt at last on the bank of the Dead River, having put behind them the Great Portage and its three intervening lakelets, after days of dragging and pushing of boats over a rough ridge, and through ponds and bogs. "I gather from offeecial sources," continued the Fiddler, "that we're like to reach the Chaudiere River in eight or ten days, though I hae my doots, seeing it's mony a mile up this river we'll be ganging, and then over God knows what kind of country after that. Weel, weel, lad, it's Quebec or nothing now, if ye hauld out, for devil a bit will ony mon of us gang willingly back over the road we've come by!"

So jubilant were the men at having overcome the difficulties of the great carrying-place, that they whistled and jested as they launched their boats on the sluggish waters of the Dead River. They acted as if the end of their journey were in sight. Colonel Arnold had already sent an Indian messenger to General Schuyler, whose army from the province of New York had in August started under Montgomery from Ticonderoga to enter Canada below Montreal and eventually unite with Arnold's force before Quebec. The colonel thought to receive an answer to this letter on arriving at the Chaudiere.

"It's a blithe lot of men, true for ye, wi' their whistling and capering," said old Tom, in an undertone, as he and Dick stood recovering their breath after much pulling and shoving of boats. "All looks weel and bonny the day, but ye maun put nae trust in appearances. Do ye moind, ayont Curritunk, afore we left the Kennebec, how ye steppit sae merrily on the green moss that seemed to cover level ground for sae lang a stretch, and how ye found 'twas rotten bog beneath the surface, and full of them snags that tripped ye up and cut your feet in the devil's ain way? Mony's the mon like that,—and woman, too!"

Up the Dead River for eighty-three miles the army proceeded, the riflemen still leading. Seventeen times they had to unload their boats and carry the loads past places that were not navigable. On this part of the journey the men were assailed by rains and cold weather. Lieutenant M'Cleland, more fragile in body than in spirit, was one of many whose constitutions began to yield to these assaults. With a cold in the lungs, he toiled on, performing his duties and refusing aid, until his increasing weakness compelled him to relinquish the former and accept the latter, on his comrades' insistence and his captain's orders. When the chosen route departed from the Dead River, to cross a mountain, M'Cleland was placed on a litter and so carried forward.

"If I can only hold out till we enter Quebec!" he said from his litter, one bleak, drizzling day, while Captain Hendricks, Dick, MacAlister, and others bore him up the wooded mountain-side,—for the captain took his turn at the litter with the others.

Captain Hendricks cheerily said there could be no doubt of that, and Lieutenant Simpson, who happened to be walking immediately behind the litter, predicted that the sufferer would begin to mend as soon as the troops should reach the Chaudiere, and reminded him, for the tenth time, that a boat was being carried across the mountain purposely to take him down that river while his comrades should march along the banks.

The lieutenant brightened up at this reassurance that he was not to be left behind,—as more than one ailing man had necessarily been,—and, turning his eyes to Dick, said:

"Do you remember the morning, Dick, when I galloped up to your house with the news of the beginning of this business? How long ago that seems, and how far away!" His voice had sunk, and he was silent and thoughtful for a moment. Then he resumed, with as much cheerfulness as his weakened state would allow him to show, "We didn't imagine ourselves, that morning, marching into Quebec together, as we shall be before many a day!"

Dick's answer was prevented by a fit of coughing on M'Cleland's part, after which the sufferer closed his eyes and went into a feverish doze. Old Tom glanced down at him, and for a moment looked grimmer than usually.

Before starting to cross this mountain, which was one of the great snow-covered chain running northeastwardly, Colonel Arnold and the first division had camped at the base to rest. The tents had been flooded by heavy rains and by sudden torrents from the mountains. The inundation had upset several boats, destroyed provisions, and dampened the spirits as well as the bodies of the men. Rations were shortened, and the dejecting news went round that there remained a journey of twelve or fifteen days in a wilderness devoid of supplies. After consulting with the officers on the ground, Arnold sent orders back to Colonel Greene and Colonel Enos to bring forward as many men as they could furnish with fifteen days' provisions, and to send the rest of their forces back to Norridgewock. These orders despatched, Arnold and the riflemen started on their march across the mountain.

Drenched with rain at the outset, they were soon chilled by wintry winds, and presently impeded by snow and ice. But at last the crest of the mountain no longer crossed the bleak sky ahead. Valleys, set with icy streams and frozen lakes, came into view, their sombreness not lessened by the color of their dark evergreens. The down-hill and cross-country march of the scantily fed men brought them at last to Lake Megantic, the source of the Chaudiere. Here they met a courier whom Colonel Arnold had sent ahead to the valley of the Chaudiere to sound the French habitans, whose humble farms would be the first human abodes reached in Canada. This emissary said that the peasants would give the American army a hospitable reception. Colonel Arnold thereupon chose to precede the army down the Chaudiere, with a foraging party, that he might obtain and send back supplies and also have provisions collected for the army's use on its arrival at the habitations. He therefore caused the little remaining food to be given out equally to the companies, ordered them to follow as best they could to the Chaudiere settlements, and set out with a birch canoe and five bateaux. In the colonel's party was Archibald Steele, with whose pioneer force the riflemen had reunited at the Dead River, and whom Dick, compelled as before to remain behind with the main advance, again had reason to envy.

"Whist, lad!" quoth old Tom. "The post of honor, ye'll find, is back where the starving will be. There'll be low spirits henceforth, I'm thinking, and waurk for the fiddle, hearting up the men when they've leetle dourness left to fa' back on and it's devil a bit of difference whether they live or die. Lord, Lord! It's a gang of living ghaists we are, Dickie. Wi' the clothes of us torn to flinders by the stanes and briars, and wi' nowt left to our shoes but the tops, we'd do fine to scare away the crows from the corn fields in a ceevilized country. Sure, the wind is like to pull the tatters frae our backs, and make us a shocking sight to the ladies when we march in triumph into Quebec!"

"If we ever get to Quebec," said a soldier, dismally, who had overheard Tom's last words.

"We'll get to Quebec!" said Dick, positively; and he involuntarily put back his hand and felt his queue.

Dick now went to speak to his friend M'Cleland, who had been placed in a boat, which was to be navigated across the lake and down the Chaudiere by Sergeant Grier and several others.

"Mind you land him safe!" called out the sergeant's buxom wife, as the boat moved off; and the sergeant replied he would do his best.

"I'm afraid the poor lieutenant finds it a long way to Quebec," said Mrs. Grier, taking place in the line of riflemen as it started for the Chaudiere by land.

"It's a lang way for some more of us," replied Tom MacAlister, who marched behind her. "There's that puir blind Shafer, the drummer in the Lancaster company. Look at him now, yonder. It's ten to one he can't see a dozen foot ahead of his nose, yet he's always in his place, next man to one ahint Captain Smith,—except when he fa's into a bog, through lack of eyesight. It must be the sense of hearing keeps him sae straight after the heels of young Henry afore him. Sure, if every man was like him, Captain Morgan would never have to look black and curse inside because of stragglers from the camp."

"It's a sin," said Mrs. Grier, "the tricks the men play on him, stealing his cakes away from under his very eyes. Och! there he goes now, tumbling off the log into the gully, drum and all! You're right, MacAlister,—the way to Quebec is a long one to Shafer, the drummer."

"Yet I'd wager a pound or two, if I had it," said Tom, "the puir, blind, naked, hungry body will be beating his drum at Quebec, when mony a stout rascal that laughs at him now will be sleeping here in these gullies wi' the bitter wind for bed-covering."

The troops came presently to a pond, which would require so wide a detour to skirt, that the far shorter way was to cross it. Trying the ice that covered it, the men found that too thin to bear their weight. With dogged resignation, they began to break the ice with their guns, and waded in. Mrs. Grier raised her skirts above her waist and followed the man ahead, through the chilling water, to the opposite shore. Dick and Tom waded immediately after her. No one offered either smile or comment. On the tired troops marched, in Indian file, hungry, shivering, aching, each man feeling that the next step might be his last.

When they reached the Chaudiere, many of the riflemen did not wait for the order to halt, but exhaustedly sank to the frosty ground in line. Tom, always respecting discipline, trudged on till the word came, followed through force of example by Dick; and then these two also dropped in their places.

"Chaudiere," said MacAlister, glancing down that stream. "That means caldron, and frae the look of things down yonder I won't gainsay the fitness of the name. It's unco' wild navigation we're like to have, down that there boiling torrent, I'm thinking!"

And so it proved, when an attempt was made to launch boats. Every one that was put into the river was stove in by rocks, on being hurled forward by the rapids. But Captain Morgan persisted, until he had lost all of his boats. The ammunition, arms, and other equipments were thereupon taken up by the men, who proceeded along the banks of the turbulent stream.

It happened that Dick and Tom were at the front of the division, when they turned the corner of a projecting rock, and came unexpectedly on a group that stood around a fire, beside which a man was lying. It required but a glance to inform Dick that this group consisted of Sergeant Grier's party and that the man on the ground was Lieutenant M'Cleland. The sight of a damaged boat, and of a rock near the verge of a cataract, told the story,—that the boat had lodged on the rock, and that the men had managed to bring the feeble lieutenant ashore in time to save him from speedy death. In a moment Dick was kneeling at his side, whither he was soon followed by Captain Hendricks and Lieutenant Simpson.

"It was a foolish thing to let you go by the river," said Hendricks to the prostrate man, whose breath came in quick, feeble movements, and whose weather-browned features had an ashy pallor.

"We'll carry you on as we did over the mountain,—all the way to Quebec," said Dick, pressing M'Cleland's hand.

But the lieutenant merely smiled faintly, took on a look of drowsy resignation, essayed to shake his head, and whispered the word, "Farewell!" Dick had to yield the hand he held, and his place by his friend's side, that his captain and certain of his comrades might clasp the hand once ere it should be cold. Even as Dick was thinking of the sunny April morning when his friend had ridden up, all life and animation, with the news of Lexington, the soldier sighed his last farewell.

When the troops took up their march and left the dead man there, as they had left many another in those bleak wilds, Dick had a moment of heart-sickness, when all seemed dark before him, and when he wished that he and M'Cleland might be back in their Pennsylvania valley, and that there had never been a war.

"Heart up, lad!" came over his shoulder, softly, the voice of old Tom. "It's mony a friend ye'll leave cauld by the wayside ere ye come to lie there cauld yoursel'. Ye'll learn to keep looking forward, as ye gang over the hills and far away. Sae hauld up your head, and swallow your Adam's apple, and fasten your mind's eye on Quebec!"

And Dick braced himself and did so.

By the 29th of October the last mouthful of meat was eaten and the last biscuit gone. A little flour remained, and this was divided equally, each man receiving five pounds. This they boiled in kettles of water, without salt, into what they called a bleary, subsequently eating it out of the wooden bowls around each one of which several half-numb fellows sat or lay at meals. At such times, those who were not reduced to a state of wretched apathy or speechless despair, discussed the probabilities of their ever receiving food from Colonel Arnold's advance party, or of their perishing in the chill wilderness. Many were the growlers and foreboders of evil.

"Bedad," said Tom MacAlister, after two or three of these had been having their say, "ye put me in mind of the complaining children of Israel, though it's far waur than them ye be, for they had forty years in the wilderness afore ivver they set sight on the Promised Land."

"Ay," replied one of the malcontents, "but the Lord sent them manna from heaven, whereas he sends us only rain and snow and wind. And who can say for certain when we shall catch sight of our Moses again, eh, boys?"

Suspicions like this, real or pretended, that their leader had deserted or even betrayed them, were plentiful among these troops, as they were, indeed, throughout the American armies during most of the war for independence. It was by making men forget these thoughts, or ashamed of them, that the example of uncomplaining endurance set by Dick, and the soldierly conduct and musical performances of old Tom, were of great use to the officers in holding the troops to their weary task. At night an immense fire was made, and, while the men lay around it to warm their bodies, MacAlister fiddled and Lieutenant Simpson sang for them. The lieutenant had a rich, manly voice, and as many songs at command as Tom had tunes,—songs of war, comic songs, songs of love,—and his voice and that of Tom's fiddle, rising above the crackling of the fire, made sounds unwonted in that wintry wilderness accustomed only to the murmur of waters and the howling of winds.

The last pinch of flour found its way into the pot and thence into some half famished stomach. The men's lives now depended entirely on the arrival of supplies from Colonel Arnold's foraging party before starvation could complete its work. After going a day unfed, MacAlister and Dick boiled their leather cartouch-boxes in the pot, drank the broth, and afterward chewed up the leather. The next day they discussed the advisability of following the example of some of the other riflemen, who had boiled their moccasins and leggings. Wandering through the camp, while off duty, they came to a startled halt, at sight of a number of men actually eating some roasted meat. Partaking speedily of this feast, on invitation, Dick, not recognizing the flavor of the flesh, asked what it was.

"Whist, lad," said old Tom, tearing the meat from a bone with his teeth, "be content with what Providence sends, and discipline your curiosity. Ye'll no relish your supper the better for speering."

But the men's talk soon disclosed that the meat was of Captain Dearborn's Newfoundland dog, which had been an army pet. Dick ate no more that evening, but the next day, drawn irresistibly to the same mess, he accepted a ladleful of greenish broth, which, the men told him, had been made of the dog's bones, these having been pounded up for the purpose.

"He's all gone now, poor fellow," said one of the men; "even the insides of him, and Lord knows when we'll eat next!"

On the march, the troops came to a place where the Chaudiere swept a smooth beach, through which protruded parts of sand-roots. At sight of these, many of the men broke madly from the file, dug out the roots with their fingers, and ravenously ate them on the spot.

Captain Morgan, sharing without exemption the sufferings of the men, was no less severe against insubordination during this starving time than he had formerly been. His rigid yet fair rule, and the kindly and tactful authority of Hendricks, kept the men moving along towards the distant goal, however listlessly and hopelessly some of them went. As for the Lancaster company, if Captain Smith was unduly boisterous, his men had before them such examples of unquenchable spirit as young Henry, and of unwearying patience as Shafer, the half blind drummer. But it was, on the whole, a despairing band of haggard and half naked men that moved at crawling pace along the rocky Chaudiere.

"The farther we march, the farther away seems the Promised Land," muttered the man whom old Tom had once likened to the murmuring children of Israel.

MacAlister, who had begun to limp, for the once made no answer, and Dick, toiling heavily along behind him, had to clench his teeth and think of the girl in Quebec, to keep from succumbing to the general despair.

Suddenly, from the tree-hidden distance in front, came a sound that made every man's head go up in eager, half-incredulous joy. It was the lowing of cattle.

The troops pushed rapidly forward, every ear and eye alert. When a clear space was reached, and a few men of Colonel Arnold's party, with some Canadians and Indians, were seen coming up the river with a herd of cattle, several of the soldiers shrieked wildly, others laughed like lunatics, many wept like women, and some rushed forward and threw their arms around the great brown necks of the cattle. Dick smiled and cheered and waved his hat, and old Tom's face warmed for a moment into a gratified grin. In after years both often used to say that the joyfullest sight of their lives was that of these cattle coming up the river on that wintry day in the wilderness.

While they ate, around their camp-fire, they heard how Arnold's party had fared, how three of its boats had been dashed to pieces on the way down the Chaudiere, the cargoes lost, the crews put in great peril of their lives, one boat-load of men nearly thrown over a cataract; how the party was cordially received at Sertigan, the nearest French settlement, whose first house Arnold had reached on the night of October 30th, and how he had started provisions back towards the army early the next morning.

It was two o'clock on Saturday afternoon, November 4th, when the riflemen, having swiftly waded mid-deep through a wide stream that flowed from the east, came in sight of the first house they beheld in Canada, a small, squat, wooden building, which, with its barn and little outhouses, had a look of snugness and comfort all the greater for the bleak surroundings. The men rushed forward to it joyfully, and found that Colonel Arnold had laid in a great quantity of food.

Stared at curiously by the wool-clad Canadian family of seven persons, the famished troops ate voraciously, cramming their throats with boiled beef, hot bread, and boiled or roasted potatoes. Warned by MacAlister, Dick restrained his appetite and fed but moderately. Within a few hours he realized the value of old Tom's admonition, for many of the men sickened from the sudden repletion and some died of it. The army now had not only supplies but also a reinforcement, which consisted of the Abenaqui chief, Natanis, with his brother, Sebatis, and several of his tribe, all these Indians having distantly accompanied the troops, unseen, from the Dead River. They had feared that, in the wilderness, the army might receive them as enemies. These allies were welcomed as compensating slightly for the defection of the entire third division, which, through the misunderstanding or disobedience of Enos, had gone back in its entirety, with the medicine-chest and a large stock of provisions, when Arnold had ordered its incapacitated men returned to Norridgewock.

The army made a halt at the French settlements, while Colonel Arnold distributed among the Canadians a printed manifesto furnished him by General Washington, of which the purpose was to enlist Canadians to the cause of the revolted colonies. On the 7th of November the two divisions, now together and numbering only six hundred men, were four leagues from the St. Lawrence. Hope and expectation had reawakened. Around the camp-fire that night there were conjectures as to how and when the attack on Quebec would be made; as to how it was at present garrisoned and fortified; as to what the army from New York, under Schuyler and Montgomery, must have done by this time in the vicinity of Montreal; as to when Colonel Arnold should receive replies to the messages he had sent by Indians to those commanders; as to when the two armies would unite; as to which side would be taken by the different elements of Canada's population,—the old French aristocracy, the Catholic priesthood, the French peasants, the few British and Irish immigrants who had come in since the English had taken the country from the French. Thus far, the humble habitans, at least, had given the Americans kindly welcome, calling them nos pauvres frères and refusing payment for lodging and food in their little farmhouses. Again and again was told the story of Wolfe's victory in '59, and it was questioned whether the American commanders would ascend to the Heights of Abraham to attack, as he had done, or would assail the city on some other side.

Arnold's boldly outlined, resolute countenance, with the fire in the eyes, and the look of inward planning, had the prophetic aspect of victory, and throughout the little army confidence grew apace. Lieutenant Simpson's voice and Tom MacAlister's fiddle now sounded out blithely. Even the cold was less heeded. A deeply thrilling expectancy glowed in Dick, making him view things about him as in a kind of dream.

"Sure, the Promised Land seems to be coming into sight, after all," said old Tom, to the grumbler who marched ahead of him. The army had broken camp and was marching towards the St. Lawrence.

"Who said it wasn't?" queried the other; but he added, a moment later, "Though we haven't set foot on it yet, and as for what's in sight, all I can see ahead is woods, with a parcel of ragged walking corpses trailing through."

They were, indeed, a procession of sorry-looking creatures. Unkempt, ill-shaven, limping from footsoreness, bending forward from the habit induced by fatigue, sunken of cheek, haggard of eye and feature, half naked, many of them barefoot, bearing their rifles and baggage as heavy burdens, they were an army more fitted to appall by their ghastly aspect than by military formidableness. So they plodded through the forest.

On Thursday, November 9th, blinking their eyes at the sudden light as they emerged from the shades, Dick and MacAlister stepped out in file from the woods, presently came to a halt, drawn up in line with the little army, and stood staring in a kind of stupid wonder at the scene before them,—first a clear space sloping gradually, next a wide river flowing tranquilly, a few vessels moored in the river, then some houses and walls massed irregularly at the base of high cliffs, and finally, at the top of these cliffs, a huddle of fortifications, towers, spires, and roofs, and, over all else, the flag of England.

"'Tis Quebec, lad!" said old Tom, in a singularly dry tone, little above a whisper; "the Promised Land!"

Dick made no answer, but stood gazing with moistened eyes, unable to speak for the emotion that stirred within him.

CHAPTER VIII.
WITHIN THE WALLS OF QUEBEC.

To be in front of Quebec was one thing, but to be inside of it was another. Dick could only bide in patience, depending on the doings of those in authority, and on circumstance, for his hoped-for entrance into the city and meeting with Catherine de St. Valier.

There was neither any visible sign of the army from the province of New York, nor any news from it. Dick was promptly assigned to duty with a party sent to look for boats, that the army might at the chosen time cross from Point Levi, near which it camped, to the Quebec side of the river. Neither Dick nor any of his comrades found craft of any kind; instead, they got, from the habitans, the information that the British at Quebec had recently removed or destroyed all the boats about Point Levi. So the coming of the American army had been expected! The inference from this fact, and from the non-arrival of word from the New York army, was that Arnold's Indian messengers had betrayed his purpose to the enemy in Quebec, and time proved this conclusion true. There was naught to do but remain at Point Levi and search the riverside afar for boats.

In a short time this quest resulted in the assembling of forty birch canoes, obtained from Canadians and Indians, with forty Indians to navigate them. But now came windy, stormy weather, in which the roughness of the river made impossible a crossing in such fragile craft.

During this period of discomfort in the camp, intelligence began to come, through the inhabitants, of the state of affairs in Quebec. General Carleton, the governor, was away, up the St. Lawrence, perhaps directing movements against the army from New York, somewhere in the vicinity of Montreal. But the defences were being strengthened and the garrison reinforced, under the direction of the lieutenant-governor, Caramhe, and of the veteran Colonel Maclean, who had returned from Sorel with the Royal Highland Emigrants, three hundred Scotchmen enlisted by him at Quebec. Recruits had come also from Nova Scotia and elsewhere. Quebec had observed the colonial troops camped between woods and river, and the military and official people despised and laughed at them. The merchants and business folk disliked Governor Carleton for his affiliation exclusively with the official and military classes and the old French aristocracy, but would nevertheless stand stanchly for English rule and the defence of the city. The French seigneurs, reconciled to the treaty of 1763, had no reason to desire a change of government, and it was likely that the priesthood, the artisans, and the peasants would be neutral save when favoring the winning side.

Such reports helped to furnish camp talk, and Dick was as interested in it as any one was, but the walled town that loomed high across the wide river had for him another interest. He would stand gazing at it by the hour, wondering in what part of it she was, and what would be the manner of his first sight of her. When he saw young Burr, of Arnold's staff, set forth in a sledge, and in a priest's disguise, from a friendly monastery, at a distance from the camp, with a guide, Dick promptly guessed the mission, the bearing of word from Arnold to the New York army; and for once Dick did not envy another a task of peril, for Dick preferred now to remain near Quebec.

Four days after the army's arrival at Point Levi, there came at last a messenger from General Montgomery, whom Schuyler's illness had left in supreme command of the expedition from New York Province. His news set the camp cheering. The town of St. John's, which the British had retaken after Arnold's capture of it, had fallen to Montgomery on the 3d of November, after a siege of seven weeks. The New York general was to have proceeded thence to Montreal, capture that town, and come down the river to join Arnold. On top of these inspiriting tidings, came the joyfully exciting orders to make ready for an immediate crossing of the river.

At about ten o'clock that night, Monday, November 13th, the troops paraded noiselessly on the beach near a mill at Point Levi. Dick's heart exulted as he found himself still in the van when the riflemen, directed in the gloom by the low-spoken orders of Morgan, stepped into the canoes that awaited them at the edge of the dark river. Silently, at the word, each boat pushed off, the Indians dipped their paddles, and the men found themselves in the swift current. Dick looked over the shoulder of old Tom towards the distant frowning heights, and recalled the story of how Wolfe, traversing the same river towards those same heights, on that fateful night sixteen years before, to find death and immortal fame on the morrow, had recited some lines from Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and said he would rather be their author than take Quebec. Dick's emotion on realizing that he was where great history had been made, mingled presently with the one image that dominated his mind whenever his eyes or thoughts were on Quebec.

But now and then an incident occurred to disturb his contemplations. The canoe behind him upset, and there was excitement, with loss of time, in rescuing its occupants, some of whom had to cross the river half submerged in the chill water, each holding to the stern of a canoe. Dick's boat, overcrowded, spilt a few of its passengers without entirely overturning, but no man was lost. The course lay between two of the enemy's war-vessels, a frigate and a sloop, yet the riflemen passed undiscovered. The transit seemed interminable, much to Dick's wonder, for from Point Levi the opposite shore had not appeared to be half as far as it was.

At last the canoe glided along the shore of Wolfe's Cove, at the base of a steep ascent a mile and a half from the town, and Dick leaped ashore after Lieutenant Simpson, on the spot where the English general had landed on that September night in '59. The little landing-place was soon thronged with the dark figures of the men from the first boats, and Dick, ere he had taken time to look around, was stealthily scurrying up the slanting path, one of a party quickly sent in different directions by Morgan to reconnoitre the town's approaches.

Clambering up the way by which Wolfe's army had ascended, he looked back and saw the dark river dotted in a long line with the boats of the crossing army. The continued silence testified either to the skill or good luck of his comrades, or to the blindness of the watches on the British vessels and on the guard-boats that patrolled the river. Reaching the top of the precipice and standing at last on the Plains of Abraham, Dick made sure that the head of the ascent was unguarded, and he thereupon, in obedience to his orders, descended back to the landing-place, and reported. More of the army had now arrived, and in an uninhabited house at the Cove a fire had been made, at which Dick went to warm himself and found old Tom.

At four o'clock in the morning, a sudden angry booming in the river proclaimed that the British had discovered the boats then crossing. But the bark was not followed by a bite, and at last the entire army was safe on land at the Cove. The men were in eager expectation of an immediate attack, which Captain Morgan openly showed himself to favor; but Colonel Arnold probably supposed from the firing that the garrison would be on the alert, and so, with guards set, the troops passed the night, as best they could, at the Cove.

On Tuesday the gaunt army marched up the precipice and stood where Wolfe's regiments had formed on the day they took Quebec from France. Far in front lay the town, behind its walls and bastions, and by them cut off upon its promontory. Old Tom knew the place from description, and pointed out, to Dick, Cape Diamond at the right, and the citadel crowning that height; at the left, close to a bastion, the open gate of St. John's, where Montcalm fell; between these two, the St. Louis Gate, the towers of churches, and the roofs of official residences. The soldiers waited, while the officers held council.

Suddenly, from the wall-encircled city, came the sound of drums beating to arms, and soon the walls became thronged with troops and citizens. At the same time the gate of St. John's was closed. Colonel Arnold thereupon marched his men towards the town and paraded them within a hundred yards of the walls, ordering them to give three cheers, which they did heartily, Dick tingling with the expectation of battle.

But the enemy stayed behind his walls, even though presently the Americans fired a few taunting volleys at him; and, after awhile, their demonstration being answered from the ramparts by a large piece of artillery, they marched back to a safe distance and encamped. That evening Colonel Arnold sent a flag, demanding surrender, but the Highlanders guarding the city gate fired on it. Then ensued more days of waiting.

The officers quartered in some now abandoned country residences and farmhouses, and many of the men were lodged in peasants' cottages and barns. During these days of inaction, riflemen were sent to the suburbs, outside the walls, to annoy the enemy, as they had annoyed him in Boston from the hills about Cambridge. While engaged in this, in the suburb of St. John's, Dick and MacAlister, by crawling away betimes on knees and elbows, narrowly escaped the capture that befell one of the Virginians who lay concealed with them in a thicket, a party of the enemy having made a sortie from the gate.

When they got back to camp, they learned that fresh news had come from Montgomery,—that Montreal had capitulated to him on the 12th, but that Governor Carleton had contrived to elude him and was supposed to have fled down the river, bound for Quebec. Orders were now given to be in readiness to march, it having been decided to retire up the river to Point aux Trembles, to await Montgomery at greater distance from the enemy. Dick's heart fell at thought of going, even for a short time and a score of miles, further from Quebec. Before he had time to brood over the matter, he was summoned to wait on Captain Hendricks, whom he found sitting with Colonel Arnold and Captain Morgan at a table in the chief room of a stone farmhouse. Hendricks returned his salute with a friendly look, Morgan with an approving one, and Arnold with a pleasant but piercing gaze and the words: "How would you like to go into Quebec, and learn the exact strength of each battery there and of each force of men in the garrison?"

When Dick grasped the full sense of this question, which he was delayed in doing by his mental notice of the present harmony between Arnold and Morgan after an open quarrel over the short allowance of flour to the riflemen, he waited a moment for breath, then answered:

"I should be delighted, sir!"

"It is necessary," Arnold went on, "that we have information more reliable than the reports we are getting from the inhabitants, for no two of these reports agree. There is a method just now by which a shrewd man may easily enter the city, without arousing suspicion there. This method requires that our man shall play a part. I am told you have ability in that direction."

Dick recalled his Boston escapes, and bowed.

"Here," said Arnold, handing Dick a sealed missive from the table, "is a letter from General Carleton, who is now somewhere up the river, to Colonel Maclean in Quebec. The messenger who carried it has fallen into our hands. It was so carelessly sealed that we were able to open and refasten it without seeming to have broken the wax. You are to personate the messenger, carry the letter to Colonel Maclean, get the information we want, and send it in a way I shall tell you of,—for you will probably be kept in the city, and any failure in your own attempt to get away might keep your information from reaching us. After that, you may escape when you best can. You understand, your report to me is not to be put to the risk that your body will doubtless undergo in getting back from the enemy."

"I understand."

"As General Carleton's message doesn't contain any description of the bearer, but merely tells Maclean to enroll him into service, you may assume what character you please. The messenger was a Tory hunter, from the province of New York, dressed much like you. So it may be well to pretend that character, wearing your own clothes. Captain Hendricks tells me you know enough of Montreal and the intervening country, from description, to answer knowingly if you should be questioned about it. Sit yonder, and read this letter from General Montgomery to me, and this copy of General Carleton's message to Colonel Maclean. They will let you know how matters were at Montreal, and with General Carleton, when the messenger left."

Dick glanced down at the papers pushed towards him, and resumed heed of Arnold's instructions, which continued while the speaker now and then jotted down a word or two on a piece of paper:

"You will leave the camp with this pass, on the side farthest from the town, so it may appear you are going to reconnoitre up the river; for your destination must of course be a secret, lest some informant of the enemy's might follow and expose you. You will go around the camp by land, and reach the city after dark. The letter you carry will get you admittance without delay. Once within the walls, obtain the information as you are best able to. Put it in writing, and take it to a woman called Mère Frappeur, who keeps a wine shop in the upper town, near the Palace Gate. She is an Irish woman, the widow of a French fish-monger, and she has a boat in which she sometimes goes fishing herself. When you meet her, if no one else is about, whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,'—do you know the tune?"

Dick, who had heard Tom fiddle it a thousand times, softly whistled the opening part. Arnold nodded, and went on:

"If you look at her in such a manner as to show that the tune is a signal, she will soon come to an understanding with you. You will ask her, in my name, to take your written message, in her boat, at night, close to the shore immediately on this side of the British stockade near the foot of Cape Diamond. There she will whistle 'Molly, my Treasure,' and will be answered with the same tune by a man whom I shall have in waiting there each night, from to-morrow. She will give him the message and afterwards report to you. When you are sure the information is safe in that man's hands, you may escape and report to me, when you find opportunity or create it. I have made some notes here, that you will fix in mind before you start; but destroy that paper and my pass, as soon as you are clear of the camp, so that you will carry no papers to Quebec other than General Carleton's letter."

Dick took the sheet handed to him, and read the words: "Strength of each battery,—number men in each force,—Mère Frappeur,—wine shop near Palace Gate,—Molly, my Treasure,—boat,—each night,—shore this side stockade near foot Cape Diamond." While the three officers discussed in low tones at one end of the table, Dick sat at the other end, and memorized every circumstance mentioned in the letters of Montgomery and Carleton. He then rose, and, being noticed by Colonel Arnold, returned those two letters, and took his leave, retaining the pass, Arnold's brief notes, and the genuine letter from Carleton to Maclean. He was followed from the room by the kindly smile of Captain Hendricks.

It was now almost nightfall. Dick returned to his quarters, in a barn loft, put from his pockets and attire whatever might betray him, and saw with satisfaction that his clothes, now mended by old Tom and replenished from the stock of a dead comrade, no longer bore striking evidence of his march through Maine. He assured himself for the thousandth time that the miniature was still in its hiding-place; made a hasty supper with his mess on the barn floor below; called MacAlister aside and told of his coming absence on reconnoitring duty; shook the old fellow's hand, and was gone.

"Guid luck, and a merry meeting in this waurld or some ither!" was old Tom's farewell.

Dick tore up his pass as soon as it had been honored at last by the outermost picket; for in his zeal to respect his commander's every wish he was determined to make so wide a detour in rounding the camp that he could not possibly come near another sentry. The night was well advanced when he strode finally between the colonial army and the frowning city. Skulking past Mount's Tavern, giving a wide berth to every farmhouse or suburban residence that might perchance shelter some American force on special duty, he stood at last between the suburb of St. Louis and that of St. John's, and hesitated as to which gate to approach. He chose that of St. John's, and, hastening up to it with an air of importance and fatigue, was challenged at some distance by a sentry on the wall. His prompt account of himself got him speedily through the wicket, and soon a guard officer was escorting him to Colonel Maclean, who was for the time quartered in a house near the bastion of La Potasse, in order to be close to the barracks and St. John's Gate.

Maclean sat in a room on a level with the street, holding vigil with some officers. Dick faced him across a table on which were a candelabra, writing materials, and a great mass of papers. The British commander, Scotchiest of the Scotch, was rugged, frowning, and sharp-speaking, but seemed to have a solid substratum of good-nature. He read Carleton's letter in silence, then scrutinized Dick with gray eyes as hard as granite, and pelted him with a succession of gruff questions, to which Dick replied with quiet readiness and a steady return of look. The questions were all on matters covered by the letter, which, Dick could easily see, the sagacious Scot did not suspect of having been opened. Dick's answers evidently convinced the colonel that the letter had not changed bearers since leaving General Carleton's hand. For the colonel's address was a little less gruff, when he presently asked:

"What is your name, my guid mon?"

"Tammas MacAlister," replied Dick, under a prompt inspiration, and added, in imitation of the Fiddler's manner of speech, "Ye maun hae kenned my fayther, and his fayther afore him, that baith piped ahint the heels of Charlie Stuart in '45, though the present generation is loyal, soul and body, to the powers that be. I oft heard them tell of the Macleans, and what a grand family they are,—begging your pardon."

"I dare say," answered the colonel, his face having lost its rigor. "Though I don't mind at the moment, I maun hae kenned your forebears in days lang syne. 'Tis strange I didn't heed your Scottish tongue sooner. Ye're the build and face of a true Caledonian, and ye'll mak' a braw recruit for the Royal Emigrants. Captain, let MacAlister mess and quarter with your company for the time being, and see that he reports to me to-morrow at ten o'clock." The officer addressed sent an attendant for a sergeant, in whose charge Dick was placed, and by whom he was soon assigned to a bunk in the adjacent barracks, his mind in a whirl of emotions, thoughts, and plans, all regarding his military mission and his intended visit to Catherine de St. Valier.

The next morning, at breakfast, Dick studied carefully each man of the mess. Pretending to a previous knowledge acquired through a seafaring uncle, he asked an old Quebec man whether there were any St. Valiers still in the city. He soon learned that Gerard and Catherine were the last of their branch of the family, that it was an impoverished branch, and that they were now living with their unmarried uncle in the latter's house in Palace Street, near the street that led from the St. John's Gate.

Dick next, observing that a certain prating corporal affected expert knowledge of the town's defences, and had a truly Scotch tenacity of assertion, lured him subtly into an argument regarding the present state of Quebec as compared with that in Wolfe's time; and thus elicited, as to the disposition of artillery, a statement so exact and full that, to be relied on, it required only to agree with some report from another source. Dick secretly assigned each section of a piece of biscuit to represent some particular post named by the corporal, and on that section he made tiny finger-nail scratches equal in number to the cannon said to be at the post. Being under orders to remain with the sergeant, he found, by using his eyes skilfully while about the barracks, that the corporal's account was correct as far as concerned certain guns in the vicinity of St. John's Gate.

During the morning there came to the barracks a barber who had customers among soldiers stationed at different parts of the town. Now that the troops remained near their posts when off duty, ready to respond in case of sudden attack, this practitioner, instead of keeping shop as usually, made the rounds to visit the customers who could not visit him. Dick was shaved by him, and, during the operation, led him to discourse upon those parts of the city to which duty called him. The observant barber incidentally let fall numerous bits of information that confirmed, if they did not augment, certain details of the knowing corporal's disclosures.

This barber and the corporal had the knack possessed by small boys and dogs, of nosing into every opening whence anything might be seen, and had come by far more and far other information than they were properly entitled to possess. Dick had begun the day with the knowledge, won in his own experience, that in every score of people there are two or three such investigating persons. Keen observation had enabled him to single out the two such from the host of men he met in the barracks, and by the closest attention he had picked out, from the chaff of their talk, the few grains that were to his purpose. It was not, therefore, mere good luck that had brought him so promptly a better approximate account of the city's heavy armament than he could have obtained in hours of suspicious loitering around the various batteries.

At ten o'clock he reported to Colonel Maclean at the latter's temporary headquarters. He had to give an account of his supposed journey from Montreal and of how he had contrived to pass the American camp. Maclean said it would be useless to send him back with a message to General Carleton, as the latter's whereabouts would doubtless remain unknown until his arrival at Quebec, which might occur at any time. He proposed, therefore, that Dick should enlist in the Royal Highland Emigrants.

Dick, who had borne in mind from the first that his task must be done ere the arrival of Carleton, as the governor would know him from the genuine messenger, replied that to serve in the Emigrants was the ambition of his life. The colonel asked Dick what soldiering he had seen. Dick replied, "Nane, afore the fighting between the Lakes and Montreal. But, considering the stock I'm of, I should tak' well to the profession, seeing that I hae done weel at most things I've put a hand to, from the rifle to the quill pen." At the last words, the colonel looked at the mass of papers on his table, as Dick had designed he should do, and said, "If ye have skill at pen waurk, there's a task of copying ye might set to, before we mak' a Royal Emigrant of ye. My secretary is more useful at the new fortifications these times, having the gift of construction in works as well as in words; yet I'm sore wishful for a copy of these letters, for my ain keeping."

Dick repressed his elation, and it was soon arranged that he should forthwith write out a copy of some correspondence that the colonel set before him. Maclean then left the office, to make his usual rounds, and Dick was left alone with an adjutant, a door-attendant, and two guards at the entrance. The adjutant sat writing at one side of the table, Dick at the opposite side, both using ink from the same receptacle.

To his disappointment, Dick found the correspondence to concern a bygone question of misappropriated supplies, and hence to be of no value as information for his commander. While he wrote, his eye ranged the table, at intervals, and took in every visible bit of writing thereon, making note of such sheets, wholly or partly in view, as contained matter arranged in columns. He acquainted himself with the exact location of three such sheets among the countless others that encumbered the table. He then waited the opportunity that would come with the adjutant's departure from the room.

But the adjutant, whose work was behind, through his having accepted more than his regular duties, continued to write. Shortly after noon, the colonel returned, with some of his staff, and had dinner in the adjoining room. Dick was sent to dine with his mess. He made short work of dinner, and hastened back, hoping he might arrive at the office table before the adjutant, who was to have dined with the colonel's staff. But Dick found the adjutant already at work, an odor of wine about him telling that he had finished his dinner. The colonel and the other officers presently went out, as they had done in the forenoon. The afternoon passed on as the forenoon had, with the difference that, outside the window, snow began to fall. Dick utilized some of the time by transcribing, on a bare sheet of paper, the statement he had recorded on his piece of biscuit, which he now set before him on the table as if intending presently to eat it. He then adroitly slipped the sheet of paper from the table to his lap and thrust it carefully beneath his jacket with his left hand while continuing to write with the other.

When the gray afternoon began to darken, Dick resolved on a desperate measure. As if his hunting-knife galled him, he took it from his belt and placed it on the table, with its point thrust under the inkstand. A few minutes later, as if to remove it out of the way of his paper, he lifted it suddenly in such manner that it overturned the inkstand, deluging one of the adjutant's hands with ink. That officer arose with an expression of disgust, darted an angry look at Dick, called the attendant to mop up the ink, and went into a closet to wash his hand.

Dick, with a pretence of rescuing the papers from the spreading pool of ink, swiftly grasped the three sheets he had singled out and placed them, each on top of a different pile, within range of his eye. The adjutant, returning to his delayed work, did not notice what rearrangement Dick had made of the papers. While the two wrote silently on, Dick scanned the farthest of the three papers. He soon saw that it was a list of provisions, and of trivial consequence. The next one of the three turned out to be a statement of arms needed to complete the equipment of a certain militia company. Dick turned his eye, with diminishing hopes, to the third and last. This is what he saw there, and copied in feverish haste, with trembling fingers:

In garrison at Quebec, November 17th.
70 Royal Fusileers.
230 Royal Emigrants.
22 Artillery, fire-workers, etc.
330 British militia.
543 Canadians.
400 Seamen.
50 Masters and men of vessels.
35 Marines.
120 Artificers.
———
1800

The copy of this return, deluged with sand in Dick's impatience to dry the ink, followed the artillery account to concealment, and Dick, casting a peculiar smile across the table at the busily writing adjutant, went on copying the colonel's correspondence.

Presently candles were lighted by the attendant. Then in came Colonel Maclean, shaking off the snow and blustering at the cold, and accompanied by two officers, one of whom said, hastening to the fireplace:

"I'll wager this is the kind of weather they've been waiting for, though, to be sure, one never knows when they may melt away in the night, as—who the devil's that?"

The colonel turned to look where the speaker did, but saw only a flying figure that darted through the door, plunged past the guards, and was gone in the falling snow and gathering gloom. The figure was Dick's, for the man who had spoken was Lieutenant Blagdon.

Dick had been minded for an instant to stay and outface him. But on the heels of that impulse had come the thought that Blagdon knew sufficient that differed from the name and nationality and other particulars Dick had given Maclean, to prove the imposture, and that the word of a well-known British officer would of course be taken against Dick's. Hence the timely bolt for the street.

He had turned naturally in the direction that led towards Palace Street, at which thoroughfare he arrived without having attracted attention, his rapid pace being that which a soldier might use in carrying a hurried order. He knew Palace Street by its width and the rich appearance of its houses. Not looking back to see whether a pursuit had yet been started, he turned leftward and hastened on, now changing his gait from a run to a rapid stride. Duty required that he should first make safe his information by finding Mère Frappeur and entrusting it to her. He asked an artisan where her wine shop was, but the artisan was French and shook his head in sign of not understanding. A short distance farther on, Dick picked out an English face among the snow-pelted passers-by, and repeated his question.

"About the fifth or sixth house in the second little street to the right," replied the Englishman, who had the look of a merchant's clerk; "the street that turns off beyond the St. Valier house,—the house with the large garden."

The St. Valier house! Dick would have to pass it, then, on his way to Mère Frappeur's wine shop! He sprang forward, barely taking time to thank his informant, and ran plump into a begowned priest, who, thrown from his balance, uttered a rapid series of words, as to which Dick did not know whether they were Latin ejaculations or French execrations. Dick was further impeded on his way by having to make room for a squad of soldiers, and to pass round a sledge that had come to a standstill where streets crossed. He now cast a look backward, from a slight eminence, and saw a half dozen troops turn into Palace Street where he had turned into it. One of them carried a lantern, held close to the snow. Dick knew what that meant,—they were tracing him by his footprints in the snow. He blamed himself now for having, in his desire to avoid collisions, kept so clear of other walkers.

At last he reached the street indicated by his informant. He readily recognized, by its location and the great garden in whose midst it was set, the St. Valier residence. Through the half-open gate in the wall, he saw a light in the two windows at one side of the wide front door; and the momentary sound of confused voices told him that a numerous assemblage was within. He turned into the little street that ran by the long side wall of the garden. Presently he passed a smaller gate, which also stood open and which led to the rear of the grounds. Just across the street from this gate, there was a crowd looking excitedly in through the open door of a narrow one-story house, in whose lighted window appeared the inscription, "C. Frappeur, Vins."

"The wine shop," thought Dick, and, as he ran across the street towards the crowd, he asked himself how he should go about transacting his business with Mère Frappeur in the presence of so many people and in the brief time before the arrival of the troops on his track. He edged into the crowd and elbowed his way towards the door, but so great was the curiosity of the people to see what was within, that he had considerable strife to enter the shop. The crowd resented his forcible passage, and jabbered noisily in French. The throng in the shop was as great as that without. Dick laboriously pushed his way to the front. "What the devil are you doing?" quoth the first English voice that Dick had heard here,—that of a burly subaltern of militia.

"I must see Mère Frappeur," cried Dick.

"See her, then," replied the subaltern, shoving Dick forward, and pointing to a bench, on which she lay,—a priest at her head, a surgeon at her feet. Mère Frappeur was dead from the accidental discharge of a militia captain's pistol, whose owner had been getting drunk in her wine shop.

It took Dick a few seconds to comprehend the truth and to consider what next to do. He turned and struggled out of the shop and through the crowd in the street. As he came finally free of contact, he glanced towards Palace Street, and saw the soldiers with the lantern, coming around the corner of the St. Valier garden. He dashed immediately through the gate in the side wall, crossed an open space between snow-covered evergreens, and bounded up a half dozen steps to the rear porch of the St. Valier mansion. From this porch a large door led into the house. Dick boldly gave four quick, loud knocks. As the lantern's light appeared at the gateway in the side wall, the door of the house gaped wide, and Dick stepped at once into a dim, spacious hallway, which led to several rooms and a staircase. While the servant closed the way behind Dick, and looked inquiringly at him, a door near the farther end of the hallway opened, admitting from a brilliant parlor a noise of merry conversation, and then a woman, who stopped in the centre of the hall, and looked at Dick with the surprise due to his sudden intrusion. It was Catherine de St. Valier.

CHAPTER IX.
THE INCIDENTS OF A SNOWY NIGHT.

There was a moment's pause, while Dick hastily tore open the silken bag in his queue and took therefrom the miniature. Then he advanced to her, bowing low, his hunting-cap in one hand, the portrait held out in the other. She glanced at the miniature curiously, then uttered a low exclamation of pleasure, her face suddenly assuming a faint but joyous smile, and took the portrait, her fingers touching his as she did so.

"When I said I would get it back for you, in New Jersey," quoth Dick, while she looked affectionately at the miniature, "I didn't think to take so long a time."

She now looked from the portrait to him. "Then you are the young gentleman who left the stage-coach, to go after the robbers?" she said, in a tone showing that she had not recognized him at first.

Dick bowed. "I would have returned it to you in New York, but—something hindered me." In contemplating the fine lines of her face, and the dark lustre of her eyes, Dick heeded not the possibility that his seekers might even now be on the porch.

"How can I thank you, sir?" she said, her look and tone having, from the circumstances, a tenderness such as she had not before evinced to any man. Perhaps this very exception in Dick's favor, though due to the occasion, separated him at once and forever in her mind from all other men, and made it natural that he, on whom she had scarcely even looked, should acquire in an instant a first place in her thoughts.

Dick had read enough to be able to make such fine speeches as were seriously affected and seriously taken in those days. He answered:

"By permitting me to worship you."

She looked at him a moment, at loss for a reply, but not disapprovingly. Before she could speak, there came a loud pounding at the rear door. The old servant, who had locked it after Dick's entrance, now returned to it to open it again.

"I think that is a party of troops in search of me," said Dick, quietly, to Catherine. "I came to Quebec on a secret mission for the United Colonies, and I have been discovered."

"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Catherine, suddenly showing deep concern. "Don't open the door, Antoine! Do you mean, sir," turning to Dick, "that, if you were caught, you would be—"

"Hanged, probably," said Dick, seeing out of the corner of his eye that the servant had stepped aside from the door without unlocking it.

The knock was repeated, more loudly. Catherine looked distressed and perplexed.

"They will be let in, eventually," she said, in a whisper, "for my uncle will hear them, and come to see what is the matter. You must hide till they go!"

"They will search the house," replied Dick.

She stood thinking, for a few seconds. "There is one room they shall not enter," she said. "Come!"

She went swiftly up the wide staircase, Dick following at her elbow. At the first landing, which was visible from the front part of the hall, she pushed back a door, whereupon Dick, obeying her look, stepped into a chamber that had a window at the farther end, as could be known by the faint whiteness there, and by the sound of snowflakes pelting the panes. Dick stopped at the threshold to say, "But the servant?"

"He is faithful to me," she whispered from the landing. At that moment the knocking again sounded, this time with angry violence. There came from the parlor a young gentleman whom Dick, looking through the chamber doorway and down the first flight of stairs, recognized as Catherine's brother, and who said to the servant:

"What is that knocking, Antoine? My uncle wonders why you don't go to the door."

"I have been busy elsewhere, Monsieur Gerard," said the old servant; and then he could be heard turning the lock.

A moment later there came the sound of men rushing in, and then the voice of Lieutenant Blagdon, saying, loudly and angrily:

"What the devil has come over this house, Gerard, that it opens so easily to rebel spies, and stays closed all night against the King's troops?"

Before the astonished Gerard could reply, another gentleman appeared from the parlor, attracted by the noisy arrival of Blagdon and the troops. He appeared to be about sixty, but he carried his tall figure stiffly erect, and his eyes were bright and keen. He held a hand of playing cards, and his face still wore a smile, which was rather that of heartless gaiety than of kindly merriment. Behind him, in the doorway, appeared other gentlemen and a few ladies, these last standing on their toes to see what was the disturbance.

"What is going on, Lieutenant Blagdon?" demanded the old gentleman.

"A very remarkable thing, Monsieur de St. Valier," replied Blagdon. "A rebel spy, who was discovered at Colonel Maclean's quarters, seems to have found a refuge in your house."

"What!" cried the old gentleman, whom Dick now understood to be Catherine's uncle. "My house shelter a rebel! You seem to be walking in your sleep, Lieutenant Blagdon, under the delusion of some ridiculous dream!"

"I implied no knowledge on your part, Monsieur de St. Valier, when I said the fellow had got into your house. We followed his track in the snow, and though we lost it for a moment in a crowd, before the wine shop yonder, we soon came on the same footprint, which led through the snow to your porch. The same feet left marks of snow on the porch, to your very door, and there are no marks leading away from it. Moreover, I know the man, and have reason to think he would have come to this house while in Quebec."

At this point Catherine hastened down the stairs, at first nonchalantly, but, on approaching the foot, assuming a look of wonderment at the scene in the hall.

"Why, what has happened, Gerard? What is it, uncle?" she asked.

"And now," cried Blagdon, excitedly, "I know the man has been here since I left Miss de St. Valier an hour ago!" Catherine saw, as did her brother, that Blagdon's eyes were fixed balefully on the miniature, which she had thoughtlessly retained in her hand.

"What man?" queried Catherine, turning red.

"The man who brought you back that portrait, which you didn't have an hour ago," cried Blagdon, half mad with jealousy. "Sure proof the man must have entered this house since he left Colonel Maclean's quarters, where he had been all day!"

"You are wrong, Lieutenant Blagdon," said Catherine, quietly. "Though you didn't know it an hour ago, I have had my mother's portrait since yesterday, as I meant to tell my uncle when I should see fit. It was handed to Gerard in the street by a man who did not wait for any words,—is it not so, Gerard?"

Dick, looking down from the darkness of the landing, saw Gerard bow in confirmation, and knew that the understanding between brother and sister was complete. He saw, also, Blagdon shake his head, with a derisively incredulous laugh.

"If any one came in by that door," said the elder St. Valier, "the servant should know it. You were here, Antoine. Did you admit any one?"

"Lieutenant Blagdon and the soldiers," replied Antoine.

"But Antoine could not have been minding his business," said Blagdon, "for we had to knock several times before he let us in."

"But," put in Antoine, "the door was locked before I admitted monsieur and the troops. Monsieur must have heard me unlock it. Does not that show that no one could have come in before monsieur, even if I were not at my place?"

"It shows merely that the man, after coming in, himself locked the door," said Blagdon. "He doubtless found it unlocked when he arrived. I'll wager Antoine will not take oath the door was locked at the time the man must have entered."

"Well, well," said Monsieur de St. Valier, "the question can be easily settled. I certainly don't wish to have a rebel spy lodged in my house. Let your troops search the place, lieutenant!"

"Thank you, monsieur," said Blagdon, his eyes flashing triumph; while Dick stepped back into the chamber from his doorway at the landing. Dick dared not close the door after him, lest its creak or the noise of its latch might attract the attention of the people in the hallway below. Dick had seen that some of these guests were British officers, availing themselves of a brief relief from duty.

"Neither Lieutenant Blagdon nor any other man shall search my chamber!" said Catherine, with a pretence of that capricious determination which a woman may show without visible reason and yet not excite suspicion. She ascended the short flight of stairs with dignity, and stood on the landing, her back to the door. She had the superior sense to leave the door ajar, so that her action seemed the result, not of solicitude regarding some person in the chamber, but of a whimsical antagonism aroused by the manner in which Blagdon had spoken to her.

Blagdon gave some instructions, in a low voice, to an under officer. The latter, whom Antoine accompanied in obedience to a gesture from Monsieur de St. Valier, led four men into the rooms opening on the hall, while Blagdon and two of the troops remained where they were, as a guard to the great doors at the hall's either end. The searching party next went below stairs. During these operations Monsieur de St. Valier laughed and chatted with his guests, who stood grouped at either side of the parlor doorway, while Gerard remained at the stair-foot, apart from the others, watching his sister and listening for any sign from the searching troops. These presently came empty-handed from the lower regions, and hurried up-stairs, passing Catherine and her doorway as they went. After several minutes they returned, disappointed of their prey. Every room but Catherine's had now been looked through, the searchers having doubtless been ordered by Blagdon to leave that one exempt. He had probably hoped that the fugitive might be found elsewhere, and that his own duty and inclination might thus be fulfilled without further direct conflict with Catherine. He now braced himself for such contest,—a contest doubly difficult from the fact that he was in love with her and desired her love in return.

"Search that room!" he commanded the under officer, indicating Catherine's.

Dick, in the darkness beyond the threshold, ran to the window at the chamber's further end, and tried to open it; but it would not yield to his strongest pressure. Not able in the darkness to learn how it was fastened, he despaired of finding exit by means of it. So he returned to his place near the open door, outside of which stood Catherine, who dared not communicate with him in the gaze of the people below.

Meanwhile Catherine had capped Blagdon's order with the words:

"Whoever tries to enter this room must first deal with my brother and myself!"

"Right, sister!" cried Gerard, at the foot of the stairs. "He will have to pass over my body!"

Blagdon's men hesitated. Monsieur de St. Valier looked puzzled and annoyed. Little as he loved his niece and nephew, it would not do, before his guests, either to take a stand against Catherine or to risk the possible disclosure that she was really concealing a rebel in her chamber. So he remained silent and motionless, though manifestly ill at ease within. The guests waited curiously for developments.

"Miss de St. Valier betrays the truth," said Blagdon. "Her unwillingness to have the room examined shows that the man is there."

"Mlle. de St. Valier," replied Gerard, "is not accustomed to having her chamber invaded by men!"

"She has apparently made no difficulty of admitting to it the favored man!" cried Blagdon, in a voice evidently designed to be heard by Dick. The lieutenant had been suddenly inspired with the thought that such a spirited youth as Dick, being in love with the girl, would himself come forth to resent an insult offered her. Dick, indeed, now back from the window, heard the words, and, grasping his hunting-knife, would have bounded to the landing; but at that instant came Catherine's prompt reply, also uttered for his ears:

"If a man were there, Lieutenant Blagdon, he would be wiser than to be tricked out, for your purposes, by any insult of yours!"

Dick took the hint, and stayed where he was.

"He would not have to avenge the insult," cried Gerard. "That shall be my business. I look to you for reparation, Lieutenant Blagdon!"

"As you please," said Blagdon. "I shall have time presently. But now I am serving the King. The rebel, I perceive, is content to leave such matters to other hands. 'Tis what one might expect of a fellow that hides behind petticoats. But petticoats sha'n't protect him any longer. To that room, men,—"

But Catherine's voice rose louder than the lieutenant's, interrupting the order. "Why, lieutenant," she cried, with pretended irony, "if a spy were in the room, do you think he would not have escaped through the window by this time?"

Dick knew these words also were intended for him. She was not aware he had tried the window in vain. He held his knife the tighter, and awaited events.

"That was meant for his hearing!" cried Blagdon. "Saunders, take Jarvis and MacDonald outside and guard the window of that room. Make haste, or the rascal may drop from it before you get there." The subaltern and two men hurried out by the rear door. Blagdon, who now had four men left, cast a quick glance at the officers visible among the guests, to see if they were commenting on his previous negligence in not having placed guards outside before entering the house, a negligence due to his impatience and to his certainty that the fugitive was within. "Now, men, you first two seize any one who attempts to interfere, and you others follow me!"

He started for the stairs, but at the foot he encountered Gerard, who held the way so well for a few seconds, with body and both arms, that no one could pass him, the rear soldiers being obstructed by the scuffle between Gerard on one side and Blagdon and one of his men on the other. Catherine saw that this unequal contest must soon end in her brother's being thrown down or dragged aside. She shrank at the thought that, unless she could obtain other interposition, her own person would next have to serve as barrier, in which case Dick would certainly appear, for she had heard no sound of the window being opened.

"Gentlemen," she cried to the officers in the hallway, "you've heard Lieutenant Blagdon's accusation against me. Well, if you permit, he may enter my room to search, provided he enters alone."

"But I don't permit!" cried one of the officers, running to the side of the staircase, whence he stepped up to the outer end of a stair and then leaped with agility over the baluster, landing above the scrimmage at the foot. "By gad, I won't stand idly by and see such an indignity committed against a lady!" And he drew his sword, which, being in uniform and ready for any sudden call to duty, he wore.

"Nor I!" came from three or four more mouths, and in a few moments every officer present, having followed the leader's mode of passage, stood with drawn weapon on the stairs, between Catherine and Blagdon's party.

"I say, this is not fair play!" cried one of the officers, seeing Gerard at last held down on his back by two of the soldiers. Thereupon there was a swift charge of the officers down the stairs, each impelled to risk court martial by the desire to stand well in the esteem of a beautiful woman. Those were gallant days! Men were willing to chance anything for a grateful glance from a pair of lovely eyes,—that is to say, some men were,—and women were content to be the kind of women for whom men would take the chance.

The result of this movement was that Blagdon and his men were hurled backward to the front door, and Gerard, whom the officers leaped over in rescuing him, rose to a sitting posture and regained his breath. Blagdon stood defeated, at a loss. There came a knock on the front door. At St. Valier's gesture, Antoine opened it, and in walked Colonel Maclean and a member of his staff. The colonel, who had come on invitation, to join Monsieur de St. Valier's guests at dinner, looked around in surprise.

"Colonel," spoke up Blagdon, yet half breathless, "there is resistance here. The spy has been tracked to this house and to that room. These gentlemen have hindered me and my men from going to take him."

"We consider," explained one of the officers, "that Miss de St. Valier's chamber ought not to be entered without her consent, especially when she herself stands in the way, and when violence would have to be used against her in order to pass."

"Hoot toot!" said the colonel. "Do you mean that the young lady refuses, then? It must be because the matter was gone about in a way displeasing to the sex. I'm sure she won't object to my taking just a peep inside her nest, seeing how matters lie." Maclean did not use Scotch words save when speaking to Scotchmen. "I didn't notice the outside of this house guarded, when I came in," he added, turning to Blagdon.

"There are guards beneath the window of that room," replied the lieutenant, "where 'tis certain the man is hid."

"Well," said the colonel, half playfully, "to save the lady's proper feelings, which she has full right to indulge, I'll go alone into the room. You'll not mind the intrusion of a gray-headed colonel, who comes in the cause of the King and of Quebec, my dear young lady, I'm sure." And he started up the stairs.

"Will you not take my word, colonel?" asked Catherine, in a low, unsteady voice.

"Why, yes," he answered; "but, as a matter of form, duty requires I should take a glimpse. You there with the lantern, and the next man, follow me."

Maclean and the two soldiers chosen left all the others—St. Valier and his guests, Blagdon and the two remaining privates, Maclean's staff officer and Gerard—huddled well to the front of the hall, in that part whence they could see the landing before Catherine's door. Catherine suddenly disappeared into her room. "Go behind the door," she whispered to Dick as she passed him. He did so. Maclean entered the chamber, followed closely by his two men. By the light of the lantern, the colonel could see that Catherine was standing before a door that had the look of communicating with a closet in the side of the room. Her attitude and expression were of a desperate determination to protect that door from being entered.

"So that's where the spy is?" quoth Maclean, quickly. Dick saw the ruse, and stood ready to profit by the one chance it gave him against ten.

"For God's sake, colonel, don't open this door!" cried Catherine. "I give you my word, the spy is not behind it!"

"Madam, I must!" said Maclean, gravely. "Your own conduct shows you have some one concealed there. 'Tis your kind heart makes you wish to save the life of a hunted man, but perhaps many lives of loyal subjects depend on his capture. I beg you, stand aside, madam."

"I will not stand aside! While I have the strength, I will protect this door!" said Catherine.

Completely deceived by her solicitude over the door behind which Dick was not, the colonel, with as much gentleness as he could use, caught her in his arms and drew her from before that door, she resisting and protesting with the ejaculations, "For the sake of heaven! Take my word! There's no one there! Believe me! Don't open, I beg!" He then threw wide the door, and peered through the opening.

"Why!" he said, "there's a stairway here. Men, follow me down the steps!" He strode through the newly opened doorway, the two men at his heels. Catherine instantly flung the door shut upon them, and locked it.

"Across the landing," she whispered loudly to Dick; "window at the other side of the house—no guards there!"

"I love you!" he whispered back, having emerged from behind his door. "Shall we meet again?"

"God knows! Perhaps! Good night!" she said.

He seized her hand, in the darkness, and pressed it to his lips; then dashed through the doorway, across the landing, up the little flight of stairs at his left, into the first room ahead whose door he ran against, then to a window, which at once gave way to the force he brought to bear against it. He stepped out to the roof of the porch in front of the house, slid down a corner-post, ran through the yet open gateway to Palace Street, hastened leftward to the first intersecting street, and turned, again leftward, into that street, which led him towards the wall-crowned precipice that overlooked the St. Lawrence.

Meanwhile, the people in the hallway had caught the momentary view of his figure as it leaped across the landing, but they, in their ignorance of what had passed in Catherine's room, and in the unlikelihood of the fugitive's eluding Maclean without any outcry or pursuit on the latter's part, had supposed the flying apparition to be that of one of Maclean's men, despatched by the colonel on some business to them unknown. Dick had not remained a sufficient time in sight for his rifleman's attire to be distinguished in the half-darkness of the landing. So they waited for some appearance from Catherine's chamber.

Catherine remained standing in her room. Very soon a noise at its inner door told that Maclean had returned from his false quest, which had taken him only to an unused and bolted outer door originally designed to give a side entrance to the room, that apartment having been formerly devoted to the purposes of an office. She did not heed Maclean's efforts to open the door, which she had locked on her side. These efforts soon became extremely violent, and at last resulted in the breaking of the door, and in the appearance of the now irate colonel, followed by his men with the lantern.

"Why, miss," said he, "somebody locked that door behind me!"

"Yes," replied Catherine, lightly, affecting a triumphant smile of pleased revenge; "I did! You wouldn't take my word that nobody was behind it, and I thought I'd punish you!"

With which she left the room and went serenely down-stairs, followed by the somewhat mystified and crestfallen colonel, who had left his two men to make fast the broken door.

"The young lady was right. No one was there," said Maclean, gruffly, and went immediately to Monsieur de St. Valier, who gave a deep breath of relief and returned to the parlor, whither his guests accompanied him. Blagdon, to be at a distance from Catherine and Gerard, who stood talking together at the stair-foot, went with his two men to the rear of the hall, to wait for the two who had been up-stairs with Maclean. Thus it happened that, of the people in the hall who had seen the figure cross the landing, none but Gerard saw the two privates reappear presently from Catherine's room; and, as Blagdon was in no mood for questions when those two rejoined him, the impression was not corrected that the flying figure had been one of them. Blagdon forthwith led his four men, with the three who had been put on guard beneath the window, to the barracks, dismissed them, and repaired to a drinking-place. Catherine and Gerard went back to their uncle's guests; but the sister, bearing up against the exhaustion caused by the scene she had passed through, showed an abstraction not entirely to be attributed to happiness at the recovery of her mother's portrait.

Dick plodded on through the snow, past near and distant churches, monasteries, seminaries, gardens, fine houses, and mean houses, keeping a frequent lookout behind him, and up and down what streets he crossed, and came eventually to the low rampart near the grand battery, from which the precipice fell steeply to the narrow strip of the lower town that lay between the cliff's base and the St. Lawrence.

This rampart, which could avail mainly to shield the batteries that commanded the shipping in the St. Lawrence, was easy of ascent from the inside, as it could not be expected that any one would attempt leaving the upper town by the almost perpendicular precipice of more than two hundred feet. Yet such was the wild intention that Dick had formed. The attempt, on the part of a fugitive, seemed the more preposterous for the fact that, should he accomplish the almost impossible feat of safely descending the cliff, he would but find himself in the lower town, which was defended at either end and closely guarded along its river edge,—unless, indeed, he should traverse the face of the cliff diagonally, so as to arrive at the base outside the southern barrier of the lower town. As all the world knows, the walls of Quebec encircled the upper town on its high promontory, while the lower town, lying against that promontory's foot, needed no other defence on one side than the promontory itself. It was neither practicable nor necessary that a wall should run down the promontory's side; hence a man, finding himself on the steep declivity between the upper and the lower town, had a way of exit open to him, provided he could traverse obliquely the face of the cliff and could avoid observation from above or below. This way of escape recommended itself to Dick because the city gates would by this time be watched for him, and because it would bring him directly to the place where Arnold's man would be waiting to receive the report that was to have been brought by Mère Frappeur in her boat.

Dick knew the rampart overlooking the St. Lawrence would be the least guarded, as the British force was too small for the proper manning of the many and large defences. Slinking at a distance past the right flank of the grand battery, whose overworked sentries were shivering in the snow, he found a place where a platform enabled him to mount easily the rampart. Across this rampart he crawled, on hands and knees, making out through the falling flakes a single sentry who paced several rods away. Looking over the outer edge of the rampart, his head turned giddy, for a moment, at sight of the precipice falling sheer almost three hundred feet to the narrow fringe of houses and the gloomy river below.

But he chose a spot where there was ample footing at the rampart's base, turned about, backed from the rampart, hung for a moment by his fingers, and dropped to the chosen place, his fall softened by what snow had lodged there. He immediately turned his face towards his distant destination, and peered through the flake-filled darkness for what projections and indentations of the cliff might serve his progress. He thanked his stars for the evidence soon afforded him that his adopted mode of escape was within possibility, perilous though it might be; and then for the falling snow, which shielded him from sight, and for the snow already fallen, which now and then helped him to adhere to the cliff, for the irregularities of the precipice were such that the snow's lodgment had endured here and there on its steep face. These irregularities gave him footing, and so enabled him to proceed.

Many times he slipped, tearing his clothes and scraping his skin, but each time he kept his wits and availed himself of the first stopping-place that offered. The descent was a work of hours, so cautiously did he have to proceed, so carefully to pick out his next footing, so often to rest and regain his breath. At last he passed above the blockhouse and battery which together constituted the inner barrier of this end of the lower town. In the light from the blockhouse he could see a sentry pacing from the cliff's foot towards the wharf by the swift river.

Some minutes more of effort brought Dick past the top of a stockade, which formed the outer barrier. The exultation of success almost intoxicated him. He let himself slide down what remained of the cliff, heedless alike of the sharp projections and of the Canadian militia housed behind the stockade. As he stood, at last, in the narrow way between river and cliff, restraining an impulse to shout with glee, he took the two sheets of paper, containing his report, from beneath his hunting-shirt, and started forward, loudly whistling "Molly, my Treasure."

Suddenly, from over the top of the stockade, a shot was fired. Dick felt a sting, in the vicinity of the bayonet-wound received at Bunker Hill, and fell forward on his hands and knees. A gate in the stockade was thrown open, and two soldiers strode forth, lowering their faces to avoid the falling snow. At the same moment, a tall form sprang out from the shadow of a broken rock in front of Dick, completed the whistled passage of music suddenly cut off by Dick's fall, and said:

"Ye're nae woman in a boat, but ye're a braw whistler, and I'll tak' your papers!"

"IT WAS THE MAN SENT BY ARNOLD."

It was the man sent by Arnold,—old Tom MacAlister.

"Take them, Tom, and away with them quick, for God's sake!" cried Dick, handing them to him.

"But ye're hurt, lad!" cried Tom, thrusting the papers deep into an inner pocket.

"The devil I am!" lied Dick. "Only slipped on the snow. You save those papers, or all my work will go for naught! I'll get my wind and follow! Go, Tom! The papers first, don't you understand? I'll have my breath before those fellows can nab me!" And Dick raised one knee, as if already about to rise.

"Vera weel, lad!" said old Tom, compliantly, and plunged forward to round the point of Cape Diamond and follow the shore up the river. The sight of his gaunt figure, swiftly receding in the snow and night, between river and cliffs, was the last glimpse Dick had of Tom, the piper's son, for many a long day.

Dick was not entirely sure he might not indeed elude the two soldiers from the stockade, and overtake Tom. He got up and found he could proceed limpingly. But the soldiers, only a few yards from him when he rose, shortened the intervening distance so speedily that Dick saw they must catch him in a few seconds. He made to grasp his hunting-knife. It was gone, having been displaced from his belt at some contact with the cliff in his descent.

The idea of capture now became intolerable to him. A kind of madness arose in him, making him determined, at any cost, not to fall into the hands of the two enemies at his heels. When he felt himself almost within grasp of the foremost, he wheeled aside, and plunged head foremost into the swift, icy current of the St. Lawrence. While the water gurgled in his ears, he jubilantly pictured to himself the two men standing baffled on the shore and cursing the luck that had robbed them of their prey.

Soon rising to the surface, Dick struck out at random, using both arms and the unwounded leg. Whither would this swim in the dark lead him? He scarcely cared, now that he had accomplished his two missions; his one wish was that it should not diminish his triumph by delivering him up eventually to the foe. All at once something black loomed up before him,—a vessel whose lights he had not taken to be so near, and whose size he could not immediately make out.

As he turned to swim away from it, he heard a voice call out immediately over him, "Man in the river!" He pulled away, but with a constantly weakening stroke. He heard other cries, became vaguely aware that a boat was being sent after him, and presently, when strength and sense were about deserting him, he felt himself caught by the back of his hunting-shirt and drawn, by several hands, from the water to the boat.

He was too little conscious to answer the few questions that were asked him on the way back to the vessel. But as they landed him on the deck, he experienced a return of consciousness and of power to plan. He knew the vessel was a British one, but its people must be unacquainted with his face; hence he dared raise one last, desperate hope of completing his escape. As he stood on the deck, surrounded by the crew that had brought him from the water, he was approached by two officers, one of whom ordered him to stand forward, while the other remained a little aloof in dignified immovability.

"I beg you will put me ashore, sir," said Dick, somewhat excitedly, to the officer who had addressed him. "I had just left the stockade yonder, on a mission for Colonel Maclean. I fell in with a reconnoitring party of rebels, and escaped by taking to the river. May I be landed immediately on the other shore, to go on my mission without delay?"

"What papers have you, to show for this account of yourself?" demanded the officer, scrutinizing Dick.

"I had Colonel Maclean's pass in my hand when I was attacked," said Dick, with no outward falter; "but I must have let it go in the river. I had no other papers; the message I carry is a verbal one."

"A message? To whom?"

"To General Carleton," said Dick, on the moment's invention.

"Why, this is fortunate," said the officer, turning to the motionless gentleman. "General Carleton, this man says he has a verbal message for you."

Dick stood, for a moment, speechless and staring; then, yielding all at once to the fatigues of the night, sank in a senseless heap to the deck.

CHAPTER X.
"BY FLOOD AND FIELD."

The silent officer was indeed Sir Guy Carleton, governor of Canada, who had eluded the captors of Montreal by disguising himself as a Canadian voyager and helping six peasants to row him in a small boat with muffled oars to Three Rivers, where he had boarded the vessel for Quebec. He now ordered Dick held below, while the vessel proceeded to a mooring-place.

The captain of the vessel, on being hailed by a guard-boat from the Lizard frigate, announced the arrival of General Carleton, and, in the ensuing exchange of news, spoke of the man just found in the river. The guard-boat officer replied that the man must be a Virginia rifleman who had escaped that evening from the Adamant, on which vessel this rifleman and another, both captured in the suburbs of Quebec, had been placed with the rebels taken September 24th while attempting a night attack on Montreal. Dick fulfilled, in his attire, the description of the escaped Virginian, and was held on Carleton's vessel when the governor landed, the captain being ordered to hold him for identification by Mr. Brooke Watson, in whose charge the rebel prisoners now on the Adamant had been put. As the governor intended that the Adamant should sail the next day with its prisoners, he caused Mr. Watson to be summoned from his tavern for the purpose of viewing the new captive that night. The governor then hastened to the upper town, to confer with his lieutenant and with Colonel Maclean, and, in the discussion of important affairs, forgot about Dick; while Maclean, on his side, had now other matters for thought than the fugitive spy.

Meanwhile, Mr. Watson, the same eminent merchant who afterwards became lord mayor of London, going rather grumpily from inn comforts to the vessel, in the snow-storm, stumbled down the hatchway, and beheld Dick while the latter lay unconscious in a hammock, the whole upper side of his face concealed by straggling hair. Desirous of getting speedily back to his lodgings, and glad that his quota of prisoners might be restored to its full number, the honest merchant cast a brief glance at Dick in the dim light, unhesitatingly pronounced him to be the missing rascal, and stumbled back up the stairs to the deck.

Thus, through no kindness of intention on the part of his enemies, Dick escaped the fate of a spy, and was assigned to that of a rebel under arms. The next day, having slept well and having had his new wound cared for by a surgeon, who pronounced it trivial, Dick was put aboard the Adamant, handcuffed, by a guard of soldiers that had in the meantime received Mr. Watson's orders concerning him, and thrust into a dark apartment, which was already crowded with shackled prisoners, whose recumbent bodies took up most of the floor. Dick knew not what disposition was to be made of him, nor that the Adamant, already about to set sail with its prisoners and with Governor Carleton's despatches, was bound for England.

"So the minions of tyranny have dragged you back to the den!" rang out a bold, virile voice, from the inner darkness, and presently a stalwart, erect figure strode forth, stepping easily over the legs of the reclining prisoners and planting each foot firmly as it fell. The speaker was evidently able, from recent habit, to see fairly well in the darkness. Coming close to Dick, he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, "By the everlasting, 'tis another man! Brother, I took you first for a comrade who broke the tyrant's chain yesterday. They removed him from this cage, to doctor him, for the filthy air had made him sick; but he broke away and plunged into the river, in the snow-storm. Or else the guard who brought our supper is a liar. Have you heard anything of his fate?"

"No, sir," said Dick, wondering what personage was this whose style of speech was so oratorical, and whose spirit remained so high in this miserable hole. "I am a newcomer here. I am Richard Wetheral, of Hendricks's company of riflemen, from the county of Cumberland, province of Pennsylvania."

"I welcome you to my acquaintance," replied the other, heartily, thrusting forth his manacled hands and grasping Dick's. "I am Colonel Ethan Allen."

"What! The captor of Ticonderoga?" cried Dick, remembering how in the camp at Cambridge the news of that bold feat of a May morning had been celebrated, and how the name of the Green Mountain leader had become an every-day word in the colonial army.

"Fortune threw that prize in my way," said the other, with a modesty so unmistakably pretended that the affectation could only amuse, not offend. "Fortune was not so kind at Montreal, as you may have heard," he added, dismally.

"I had heard of your—your bad luck at Montreal," said Dick, leaning against the oaken wall of the enclosure, "but I little expected the honor of meeting you in these circumstances."

"Yet in these circumstances we have been—in this very den, indeed—since ever the army appeared yonder at Point Levi."

"And where were you before that?" asked Dick, eager to hear the story of so famous a hero from the hero's own lips.

"Why," said the colonel, "we were in more places than one, you may be sure. After our—bad luck, which was all because I was outrageously out-numbered and not concerted with, I surrendered, on the promise of honorable terms, and we were led into the town to be interviewed by their commandant, General Prescott, God—bless him! When he asked me whether I was that Colonel Allen who took Ticonderoga, and I told him I was the very man, he went into a rage and shook his cane over my head and called me a rebel and several worse names; and when he ordered us put in irons and sent on board the Gaspee schooner, he swore I should wear a halter at Tyburn. From the Gaspee I wrote him a letter, telling him of the notorious friendship and generosity with which I had treated the officers I took at Ticonderoga, but he paid no attention to my letter."

"You have the satisfaction of knowing," put in Dick, "that General Montgomery has captured Montreal and taken Prescott prisoner."

"Huzza!" cried Allen, and there were utterances of jubilation from the men on the floor. "So the wheel of transitory events has turned that way! I hope Prescott will remember the treatment we got on the Gaspee. The irons were bad enough, Mr. Wetheral, but the insults were intolerable. We received the insolence that cowards always show their betters when in a position to do so,—for cowards they were on that vessel, as they proved one day by scattering as if a wild beast was amongst them, when in a fit of anger I twisted a nail from the bar of my handcuff with my teeth. They said I was a mad savage, a ferocious animal,—in their mean souls they couldn't conceive the feelings of a liberty-loving man under restraint. After five or six weeks we were transferred to an armed vessel lying off Quebec, under Captain McCloud, who was a gentleman and treated us well. The next day we were put on board the vessel of Captain Littlejohn, a brave and civil officer; he ordered my irons taken off and had me sit at his own table. His subordinates, too, were friendly to us. And then we were brought on the Adamant, and handcuffed again. We are under the charge of a damned calico merchant by the name of Brooke Watson, who trades between London and Montreal. He is the man who visited New York and Philadelphia, pretending to be friendly to the glorious cause of the colonies, and who returned to Montreal and wrote letters to Gage's people in Boston, disclosing what he had learned through his make-believe sympathy. This vessel is a floating nest of Tories, who have taken passage on it. When we came aboard, we were treated in the most bitter, reviling spirit, by the officers, crew, guards, and passengers."

Dick was by this time able to make out the speaker's features, as well as the tall, robust figure on which was solidly set the shapely head placed upright in a natural attitude of pride and defiance. The full eyes, nose, and mouth showed sociability and sympathy, as well as pugnacity and assertiveness. There was in the man's whole expression such an unconscious look of irrepressibility, his self-vaunting was so spontaneous, he so evidently took his high-flown phrases seriously, that even his foibles made him the more engaging.

"I made the devil's own time of it," he went on, with a slight smile of pleasure at the recollection, "when they first ordered me to this filthy pen, after my men had already been forced in. I protested quite civilly with Watson, but he cut my representations short by commanding me to follow my men. He said the place was good enough for a rebel, and that a man who deserved hanging had no right to talk of honor and humanity, and indulged in other such talk. A Tory lieutenant who was looking on said I ought to have been hanged for my opposition to the province of New York, in her claim of New Hampshire's lands; and, as if it wasn't enough to call that rightful opposition a rebellion, he suddenly spat in my face. I ran at him, and knocked him partly down with both fists, handcuffed as I am now. He made for the cabin, where he got under the protection of some guards with fixed bayonets, whom Watson ordered to drive me back to the den, for I had sprung after the lieutenant. I challenged him to come out and fight, but the tyrant-loving cur stood shaking with fear. Watson shouted to the guards to get me into the pen, dead or alive, and the low brutes surrounded me with their bayonets. I thought I would try flattery on the rascals, so I said, 'I know you are honest fellows, and are not the ones to blame; I am only in dispute with a calico merchant, who doesn't know how to behave towards a gentleman of the military establishment.' But they paid no heed to my words, and so I was at last driven into this hole at the point of the bayonet. How we live here, you will see for yourself, if you remain with us,—as you probably will, for, by the feel of things, the vessel has cast off."

It was soon plain that the vessel was indeed under way, whence came the inference that Dick's destination was to be that of the other prisoners, which they knew was England. Dick's sensations of mind on contemplating this new shift of the wind of circumstance, this utterly unexpected breaking away from what had seemed to be his immediate destiny, may be imagined. As he sat on the floor, while the vessel rocked and strained, he thought of the home in Pennsylvania, of the army besieging Boston, of Arnold's troops waiting to attack Quebec, of old Tom, of the girl in the great house in Palace Street, of all he was being carried from, and then of the unknown that lay before him. "Over the hills and over the main," sang a voice within him, and with a patient sigh he resigned himself to the guidance of fortune.

The den was about twenty-two feet by twenty. The prisoners confined here, all handcuffed, were thirty-four in number. There were Allen, and thirty-one of the thirty-eight men who had surrendered with him at Montreal, the Virginia rifleman taken in the suburb of St. John's, and Dick Wetheral. Until the day before the end of their voyage,—that is to say, for more than a month,—they were not allowed to leave their dark pen, which contained no furniture or utensil other than two tubs. The experience of prison life that Dick had got in Boston was as nothing to that which he now endured, although in accommodating himself to the latter he profited some by the former.

Besides the close confinement, the irons, and the perpetual darkness, there was the sickening heaving of the vessel, the continual distress of stomach and adjacent organs, the inevitable fever, and the consequent raging thirst, which each man's daily gill of rum and small allowance of fresh water failed to quench. When the prisoners begged for more water on being served with their regular allowance of salt food, they were jeered and reviled by their keepers, and by the Tories who then looked in at them. They were irritated half to madness by vermin of the body. Some of the men raged, others merely fretted; others lay most of the while in a kind of stupor, at times broken with despairing groans.

Allen and Dick both kept their wits, and remained of unbroken spirit. Allen sometimes chafed, but always with a healthy anger, and sometimes he cursed, but more often he declaimed against tyranny, defied the oppressor, and predicted the triumph of liberty. Dick bore the torments of this voyage with a fixed dourness, and, as one annoyance grew upon another, began to see something ludicrous in the very accumulation of miseries, so that his face often went from an irrepressible grimace of inward pain to a peculiar amused smile somewhat akin to that elicited from him on occasions of peril. Moreover, he comforted himself with the thought that, for every dejected moment, fate owed him a moment of exultation, and that the voyage must end some time.

One day the prisoners were unexpectedly ordered to go on deck. They stumbled awkwardly up into the light of the sun, and drank in gladly the fresh air of the ocean. Afar in a certain direction, whither all eyes were turned, they beheld a faint blot of duller color against the different blues of sky and sea. It was the Land's End of England. The prisoners, whose faces had become hideously transformed by the growth of beards during their imprisonment, gazed curiously at the first outlines of the land they had never seen, yet once had loved as the home of their fathers.

The next day the vessel made Falmouth harbor, sailing in between the lofty promontories, of which one on the west side is crowned by Pendennis Castle, one on the east by the castle of St. Mawes. The news spread from the port of Falmouth that American prisoners were to be landed, rebels of marvellous skill with the rifle, and that the chief of them was the taker of Ticonderoga. Consequently, while the prisoners were shaving and making themselves presentable, for which the means had at last been given them, great crowds flocked to the wharf, and to the housetops and high places along the way to Pendennis Castle, in which the prisoners were to be confined.

In due time the prisoners, not less curious, but more self-contained than the spectators, were put ashore, all in their hunters' garb, for Allen himself, a few days before his attack on Montreal, had laid aside his usual costume for a Canadian dress,—a short double-breasted fawn-skin jacket, undervest and breeches of sagathy, worsted stockings, shoes, and a red worsted cap. Allen assumed his haughtiest, most scornful, and most belligerent look, as he stepped firmly on English ground, followed by Dick, who, while he thrilled at knowing himself on the soil he had learned from his parents to call home, had yet a new and unaccountable feeling of pride in that he was American.

The crowd so blocked the way in Falmouth—which place reminded him somewhat of New England sea-towns he had passed through, though it lacked their look of freshness—that the officers had to draw swords and force a passage. So the prisoners were led, with guards before and behind, and between lines of people, many of whom followed on either side, for about a mile's distance from the town, towards the lofty round tower, within walled grounds, that crowned the promontory between sea and harbor. Pendennis Castle rose, a high and gray building of the time of Henry VIII., within close walls, around which a great space, containing a parade-ground and here and there some small houses, was in turn surrounded by lower walls, from which tree-dotted slopes fell in different degrees of steepness to the water almost entirely environing the peninsula. At the entrance the prisoners were taken in charge by Lieutenant Hamilton, the commandant of the castle, and were led through grounds and gates, corridors and stairways, to an airy room provided with bunks and straw.

Though their irons were not taken off, the prisoners had here an easy captivity. They arrived almost on the eve of Christmas, and they were not forgotten in the beneficent feeling that pervaded England during Yule-tide. Breakfast and dinner came for Allen every day, with now and then a bottle of wine, all from Lieutenant Hamilton's table and with Lieutenant Hamilton's compliments. Dick and the other prisoners, themselves well fed, got many a crumb from Allen's board, which was supplied, by a gentleman in the neighborhood, with suppers also. Their first day or two in the castle having been devoted to a campaign of extermination against the vermin they had brought from ship, the prisoners soon recovered spirit and health, in their new surroundings. With great pleasure they learned that their former keeper-in-chief, the estimable Watson, had hastened off to London to receive his compensation.

Allen was often sent for by the commandant, with permission to take the air on the parade-ground, where many of the Cornwall gentry came to visit him. This gentle treatment did no more towards weakening his patriotism than harsh measures had done. For his discourse with those who came to talk with him was most often upon the cause of the fighting colonies. He declaimed most high-soundingly on the subject, and Dick, who was sometimes allowed to accompany him to the parade-ground, would half amusedly liken him to some would-be Pitt before the House of Commons or some oratorical Roman hero in a tragedy. Many of his English hearers would dispute with him, but others would nod hearty agreement, for there was in England a numerous party that sympathized with the American revolt. "The conquest of the American colonies is to Great Britain an eternal impracticability!" he would thunder, rejoicing in polysyllables.

Some of the visitors came to make sport. Thus, one day:

"What was your former occupation?" asked a sapient gentleman, quizzingly.

"In my younger days," quoth Allen, ironically, "I studied divinity, but I'm a conjurer by profession."

"You conjured wrong, then, when you were taken prisoner."

"I know I mistook a figure that time," said Allen, "but I conjured you out of Ticonderoga."

The tittering of some ladies, for many such were among the visitors, closed up the inquisitive gentleman's mouth.

Another time, Allen astonished two benevolent clergymen, who had come expecting to see some sort of untutored savage, by discoursing on moral philosophy, and by arguing, in approved logical mode, against their doctrine of Christianity.

There was in the company, one day, an airy youth who claimed to know that Americans could not bear the smell of powder. Allen, taking the assertion as a challenge, offered to convince him on the spot that an American could bear that smell. "I wouldn't put myself on a par with you," replied the youth. "Then treat the character of the Americans with respect," demanded Allen. "But you are an Irishman," retorted the young gentleman. "No, sir, I am a full-blooded Yankee," said Allen, and went on to use his matchless powers of banter against the other, until the latter made a confused retreat amidst the laughter of the onlookers.

Another day, a gentleman expressing a desire to do something for him, Allen replied that he would be obliged for a bowl of punch. The gentleman sent his servant away, who returned presently with punch and offered it to Allen. The hero of Ticonderoga refused to take the bowl from the hand of a servant. The gentleman then handed it himself to Allen, who proposed that the two should drink together. The gentleman said he must refuse to drink with a state criminal. Allen thereupon, with a look of superior indifference, raised the bowl and drank the whole contents at one long draught, and then gave the bowl back to the gentleman. The crowd shouted with laughter, in which Allen, quickly affected by this extraordinary tipple, presently joined; and when he accompanied Dick back to the cell he was in a state of great jubilation.

There was much conjecture among the prisoners as to their ultimate fate. Allen told his comrades that a Mr. Temple, from America, had whispered to him that bets were laid in London that he should be hanged. This gentleman's information must have been meant as friendly, for it had been accompanied by a guinea secretly bestowed. But, on the other hand, it had been hinted on the parade-ground that certain gentlemen intended to attempt freeing the prisoners by the habeas corpus act, or having them brought to trial before a magistrate.

"I have a project that should make the government think twice before stringing any of us up," said Allen one day to Dick. He then obtained the commandant's permission to write a letter, which he did, addressing it to the Illustrious Continental Congress, describing his present state, and requesting that no retaliation be made upon General Prescott and other English prisoners until it be known how England would treat himself and his companions.

"But," said Dick, "that letter will surely be opened and sent to the English authorities, if anywhere."

"That is exactly where I desire it shall go," replied Allen; "and it's ten to one we shall fare the better in consequence."

The next day the commandant, to whom the letter had been entrusted, jocularly asked Allen if he thought they were fools in England, and told him the letter had been sent to Lord North. That its effects were such as Allen had predicted, was soon shown, but not until after Dick, suddenly presented with an opportunity, had severed his fortunes from those of his fellow prisoners in Pendennis Castle.

Some of Allen's visitors came fifty miles to see him. One afternoon, while he was on the parade-ground, discoursing with several gentlemen and ladies, and accompanied by Dick, a horse took fright just outside the outer gateway, at which its rider, who had journeyed far to behold the famous prisoner, was about to dismount. The scared animal, after a few wild turns and plunges, galloped madly through the open gateway and straight for the group surrounding Allen. The people fell back in confusion, women shrieking, men taken by surprise; visitors, prisoners, and guards huddled into one disorderly mass. The horse threw its rider, and reared before the crowd, with fiery eyes and snorting nostrils.

Suddenly a man was seen to rush out from the group, seize the horse's bridle with both hands together, bring the animal to its fore-knees, place both hands on the pommel of the saddle, leap astride the horse, and make it rear again on its hind legs. As if resolved to get the beast under control at any effort, this volunteer horse-tamer brought its head sharply around to face the gate, towards which it bolted with such sudden speed that the two guards there stood back in terror. Once out of the gate, the animal headed for Falmouth at a furious gallop.

The panic-stricken crowd on the parade-ground now breathed again, and separated into its three elements,—spectators, guards, and prisoner,—for, lo and behold, there remained now but one of the two prisoners! On the ground lay the fallen cap of the other, who had lost it in his struggle with the horse, and who, now being borne swiftly towards Falmouth, was none other than Dick Wetheral.

There was some question, with Lieutenant Hamilton and his officers, as to whether the prisoner intended to escape or merely to conquer the frightened horse. Hence some time elapsed before finally the alarm-gun was fired and a searching party sent out. Meanwhile, Dick Wetheral, who could never afterward recall at exactly what moment his impulse to stop the horse had turned into the idea of making a dash for liberty, allowed the horse to run away with him at its best speed. While rapidly approaching Falmouth, he did a thing that he had often heard old Tom describe as having been done by certain mountebanks, and which, as his hands were comparatively small, he had practised with success in prison,—he folded each hand lengthwise, and, with some painful scraping of skin at his thumb-joints, worked off his handcuffs, which he then tossed into a pool of water at the roadside.

He knew it would not be safe for him to enter the town, and, therefore, as the horse presently calmed of its own accord, Dick dismounted, gave the animal a smart slap to make it proceed on its way, and hastened down towards some fishermen's squat houses that lay near the beach on the outskirts of Falmouth. Noticing several boats drawn up on the sands, Dick knocked at the first door in his way, and brought forth an old woman, who, on his asking how he might get some one to row him across the bay, turned out to be half blind, half deaf, and stupidly indifferent. While he was making his desires clearer to her, he heard an ominous boom from the castle.

He knew this to be the alarm-gun, and looked to see what would be its effect on the old woman, but her unaltered features proved the genuineness of her deafness. At last Dick elicited that all the able-bodied men of the hamlet were in the town, at some merrymaking, but that she could hire a boat to him, which he might row himself, and which, as he said he would not soon return that way, he might leave in the care of a certain fisherman at St. Mawes. Dick paid her out of what money he had kept ever since leaving Arnold's camp, and she thereupon helped him drag a small boat out into the waves, and steadied it for him while he clambered aboard.

His first attempts at rowing were wild efforts, for this bay of the ocean was as different a matter from the smooth Pennsylvania rivers and creeks, as oars were different from canoe paddles. But difficult arts are soon acquired when they have to be, and by those who will admit nothing to be impossible to themselves that is possible to any other. Dick at last contrived to make some kind of headway, thanks to the serenity of the weather and to the favoring tide. By the time, therefore, when the guards from the castle passed the fishing hamlet, on the track of the horse, Dick was merely an unrecognizable boatman well out in the bay.

The trip to St. Mawes, a small matter to a practised waterman, was to Dick one of great persistence and several hours, by reason of his inexperience, through which he covered twice or thrice the distance to be traversed. It was dusk when, at last, after many a dubious look at the castle of St. Mawes that crowned the overlooking hill, he felt the boat grate violently underneath, sounded with his oar, leaped out into the water, and dragged the boat up the beach, now aided and now impeded by the inrolling and receding waves.

He was at the end of the single street of a miserable hamlet lying under a hill and fronting the sea. No human creature was abroad to see him land. He therefore, in order to change his appearance as much as possible from that of an American hunter to that of an English rustic, did away with his belt and leggings, so that his hunting-shirt, being of linsey-woolsey, looked something like a countryman's frock, while his stockings, similar to those of English make, were now in view. He knocked at one of the huts, ascertained the abode of the man in whose charge he was to leave the boat, found that person in, gave out that he was returning to his home near Exeter from a journey in search of a place in service, was regaled with a frugal and fishy supper for a consideration, and then set out afoot towards Tregoney, saying he had a relation there with whom he would pass the night. It was from the man's own talk that Dick had learned the name and location of this village, which was eight miles northeastward.

While Dick was plodding along over those eight miles, with no further plan than to get out of the vicinity of Pendennis Castle, it began to snow. Passing through two villages on the way, he arrived at Tregoney, a decent-looking place, about nine o'clock. He stayed there no longer than to buy an old hat from an aged poor man whose sons worked in the tin-mines at St. Austel, and from whom Dick, having said that his former hat had been blown into the Fal by a gust of wind, obtained information as to the road ahead.

Learning that there was a good inn at Lostwithiel, sixteen miles farther northeast, he decided to proceed thither. The snow increasing, and Dick stopping to rest in some sheltered spot in each of three intervening villages, these sixteen miles were a long business. To a survivor of the march through Maine, however, the cold and the snow seemed no great inconvenience.

When he reached Lostwithiel, though, Dick was so fatigued, with his walk of twenty-four miles and his row across the bay, that he fell asleep almost as soon as his body was stretched on a bed in one of the inn's inferior rooms, to which he had been conducted from the kitchen, where he had found an inn servant already up, despite the fact that the day soon to dawn was Sunday. This servant was a stout female, whose impressionability to masculine merits made easy Dick's admittance to the inn, which might otherwise have rejected such a guest arriving at such an hour. It was not yet daylight, but dawn was near enough to enable Dick, before closing his eyes, to receive a vague impression of the open spire of St. Bartholomew's Church through the falling snow. It made him think of Quebec, and he drowsily wondered what, at that moment, might be doing with old Tom, with Captain Hendricks, Simpson, Steele, and the others of the army far across seas in Canada.

What was doing with them at that moment? It was then a little after six o'clock in the morning at Lostwithiel, two o'clock the same morning at Quebec. The morning was that of December 31, 1775. This is what was occurring at Quebec:

Snow was falling there also, but in a far more violent storm. Wind was blowing the snow in drifts, and with the snow there was a cutting sleet. The beginning of the night had been moonlit, but at twelve the sky was overcast, and then came the storm. This snowfall by night was a thing for which the Americans had been waiting. Montgomery had at last come up from Montreal with three hundred men, and joined Arnold at Point aux Trembles, December 1st. The army had started the next day, amid whirling flakes, for Quebec; had arrived before the city on the 5th, Montgomery having found Arnold's men a fine corps, well disciplined. Later, a breastwork had been thrown up to face the gate of St. Louis; and, by means of a battery mounted partly on ice and snow, shells had been thrown into the town, starting fires in several places. But the heavy guns from Quebec's walls had so dealt with this battery that it had been removed. Thenceforth, execution from the American side had been done mainly by mortars and riflemen, placed in the suburb of St. Roque, outside Palace Gate. It had finally been decided to carry the town by escalade, and this was to be attempted during the first snow-storm, such as that which finally came on this night preceding Sunday, December 31st. The plan adopted was that the lower town should be taken first, Arnold leading an attack on its northern end, Montgomery leading one on its southern end; demonstrations being made against the upper town at St. John's Gate and at the Bastion of Cape Diamond, to distract attention from the attacks below; signal-rockets to be fired in order that all four movements should be made at the same time.

At midnight the men repaired to quarters from the farms and drinking-houses whereat they had been scattered. At two, they began their march, struggling against a biting wind, their faces stung by the snow horizontally driven, the locks of their guns held under the lappets of their coats to avoid being wetted by the snow. Old Tom and the other riflemen were in their usual place in Arnold's division, which was to enter the lower town at its narrow northern end, passing between the promontory's foot and the frozen St. Charles River. Through the suburb and streets of St. Roque, they breasted the snowy darkness; first went Arnold, at the head of a forlorn hope of twenty-five men, one hundred yards before the main body; then Captain Lamb and his artillery company, drawing a field-piece on a sledge; next, a company with ladders and other scaling implements; then, Morgan and his company, heading the riflemen; next, the Lancaster company, led, in Captain Smith's absence, by Steele; then the Cumberland County men, with their own captain, for Hendricks, though the command of the guard that morning belonged to him, had got leave to take part in the attack; and last, the New England troops. The division would have first to pass a battery on a wharf, which the field-piece was to attack and the forlorn hope scale with ladders, while Morgan should lead the riflemen around the wharf on the ice.

Old Tom plodded not far behind Hendricks, the men straggling onward in single file. As they approached the houses below Palace Gate, which led from the upper town on their right, there suddenly burst forth a thunder of cannon, which mingled soon with the alarming clang of all the bells in the city. "They've spied our intentions," muttered old Tom to the man ahead, and strode on.

Presently muskets blazed from the ramparts above. Men began to drop here and there and to writhe in the snow, but their comrades hurried over or around them. Hendricks's soldiers could not see far ahead, for the darkness and the blinding snow; nor could they always make out the path left by Arnold, Lamb, and the riflemen in advance. They could see nothing of the foe save the flashes of the muskets from the walls crowning the ascent at their right.

Presently they became aware of some kind of stoppage ahead; it was made by the artillerymen, whose field-piece had stuck hopelessly in a snowdrift. The company with the scaling-ladders made as if to stop also; but Morgan was at their heels, forcing them forward, hastening on his own company, and swearing terribly in a voice that rivalled the tumult of bells and cannon. So the riflemen, preceded by the ladder-bearers, passed on through the opening made for them by the artillery company.

They were nearing the first barrier now; the uproar of the unseen enemy's fire was more terrific. And now Hendricks's men saw pass a group that was returning as with reluctance and difficulty,—two men supporting between them a third, who was so badly wounded in the leg that he could not stand unaided. It was Colonel Arnold, upheld by Parson Spring and Mr. Ogden. "Forward, my brave men!" cried Arnold, in a strong and heartening voice, and the riflemen cheered and passed on.

They soon saw that Morgan had taken command, and, amid the inevitable crowding together near the barrier, they found themselves in close company with the forlorn hope, headed now by Arnold's secretary, Oswald, and with Lamb and his artillerymen, who had left their field-piece in order to wield muskets and bayonets.

Forward rushed Morgan and the advance companies, right through a discharge of grape-shot from the two cannon commanding the defile. Forward, without slackening, upon the battery, some scaling the walls, some firing through the embrasures; pouring over and through, seizing the captain and thirty of his men as prisoners, driving the rest of the guard away, and taking the enemy's dry muskets to use instead of their own damp ones.

Then Morgan formed his men as he could, and led them on to take the second barrier. The day was about to dawn now, and, although Morgan's men knew it not, the false attack planned against St. John's Gate had failed of being made; the feint against the Bastion of Cape Diamond had served its purpose to conceal Montgomery's march along the shore of the St. Lawrence, but Montgomery, while leading his men from the stockade whence Dick Wetheral had once been fired upon, towards the blockhouse within, had fallen in death before a discharge of grape-shot, while his triumphant cry, "Push on, my brave boys, Quebec is ours!" still rang in the ears of his New Yorkers. Montgomery's men had thereupon retreated, and thus the British force, warned of the very first movements by a too early discharge of the signal-rockets, was enabled to concentrate against the division now between the first and second northern barriers of the lower town.

Morgan's advance followed a curving course along the sides of houses, to where the narrow street was crossed, not far up from its mouth, by the second barrier, which was at least twelve feet high. Meanwhile Morgan had despatched Captain Dearborn, with a party, to prevent the enemy's coming from the upper town through Palace Gate and down the promontory's St. Charles side, which was neither as high nor as steep as the St. Lawrence side.

Behind the barrier now to be taken, was a platform whence cannon poured grape-shot, defended by two ranges of musketeers with fixed bayonets. The enemy fired also from the upper windows of houses beyond. The Americans speedily upbuilt an elevation to a height approaching that of the barrier, men falling all the while beneath the fire from the barrier, the houses beyond, and the walls far above at the right. Morgan's first lieutenant, Humphreys, climbed this mound to scale the barrier, but a row of bayonets forced him back.

Seeing the impregnability of the barrier to his present force, and the rapidity with which that force was depleted by the terrible fire, Morgan thundered and cursed. Hendricks and Steele were calm, encouraging their men to patience, and directing them whither to return the enemy's fire. At last Lieutenant Humphreys fell in the street, dying on the spot. Then Morgan ordered his men to enter a house close to the barrier, and fire from the windows.

Into the house and up to the second story rushed Hendricks, Steele, Tom MacAlister, and many others. Steele ran to the first window and aimed his gun towards the barrier; but, without firing, he suddenly stepped back with a sharp cry, and held up one of his hands to look at it, entrusting his gun wholly to the other. Where three fingers had been, there were now three crimson stumps. Hendricks and MacAlister took another window. As Hendricks was about to shoot, a ball tore its way to his heart; he lowered his rifle, took on a swift look of pain, staggered a few feet backward, fell with half his body on a bed, and died there almost instantly. While the hell continued in and about the house, as the daylight increased, a party of British rushed out from Palace Gate, captured Dearborn and his men, fell upon the rear of Morgan's party, and presently, when the dauntless Virginian had had his rage out, received the surrender of him and his officers and men. "I wonder," thought old Tom MacAlister, as he marched in the line of prisoners to the great ruined Franciscan monastery, near the Reguliers, "how the lad Dick would 'a' fared if he'd been wi' us the braw night past? Weel, weel, maybe it's better he was called away when he was, for, whether he be on the earth or under, it's little he'd 'a' relished finding out 'twas for this we marched through Maine and hungered and froze in the snaws of Canada!"

'Twas for that, had been the planning and the money-spending, the suffering and the starving, the toils and the bloodshed,—for that, and for the glory of heroic failure.

CHAPTER XI.
THREE WHIMSICAL GENTLEMEN AND A BEAUTIFUL LADY.

Under the protection of the maid-servant, who was mature and fat, Dick Wetheral was allowed to slumber till the afternoon. He awoke entirely refreshed, and, after a curious look through his small window at the snow-covered little town with its picturesque church spire, he went down to the kitchen, and in a corner thereof he satisfied a prodigious appetite; upon which he felt himself in excellent physical condition. His slight flesh-wound, received at Quebec, had healed on his sea-voyage, thanks to the persistent health of his blood, and despite the badness of other circumstances.

He walked but twelve miles that day, arriving after nightfall at Liskeard, and lodging till morning at an inn near the handsome Gothic church of St. Martin. When he came to pay his bill he found it took all his money but a few pence, and thus he set forth, on the first day of the year 1776, bound eastward, with empty pockets, friendless in a strange and hostile land, with no fixed intention save the vague one of eventually returning to fight for his country, with no present plan save to keep moving on.

Not seeking food once during a journey of seventeen miles, he finally crossed the Tamer, from Cornwall into Devonshire, and arrived at Tavistock with less curiosity to view the vestiges of the tenth century abbey there, than to learn where his dinner was to come from. He had decided to beg, if necessary; he considered that his own people, as was the custom of his country, entertained freely every hungry or roofless man that came to their home in the wilderness, therefore some hospitality was due him from the world at large; and he reasoned that, being now among a hostile people, whose government was responsible for his present situation, he was morally entitled, without reproach, to whatever he could, in the name of charity, obtain from that people. Profiting by some of Tom MacAlister's related experiences, he had bethought himself, on the road, of certain possible methods of overcoming charity's coyness.

The first door at which he knocked, in Tavistock, was promptly shut in his face, by a man who blurted out something about rogues and vagabonds, and ere Dick's civil greeting was finished. At the next house a frowning old woman was equally inhospitable. But at the third, the cottage of a serge-weaver, the young girl who opened the door allowed her soft eyes to rest on Dick before making a move to close it, and Dick improved the moment to assure her that he was no common rogue and vagabond, but an honest teller of fortunes by cards, who saw already in her face the signs of a great surprise in her own immediate future. The girl opened the door wider, and Dick stepped in with such a courteous bow to the two other occupants of the room that they rose instinctively to receive him, blinded to his garb by his gentlemanly bearing. It was meal-time, and the family at table consisted of father, mother, and the girl who had opened the door.

Dick lost no time, but asked for a pack of cards, with such a smile, and so much as if the request were the most natural one possible, that the mother told the girl where the cards were, and the girl immediately brought them. Dick began by telling the fortune of the head of the house, who was so diverted with the prediction of a gift from a dark man, that Dick's invention was allowed full exercise regarding the future destiny of each member of the family. The mother then speaking of a dream she had recently had, Dick promptly offered to interpret it for her, and its meaning was so favorable that the interpreter was soon in the way to gorge himself with beef and ale. He then did some card tricks that Tom had taught him, and, perceiving that a pack of cards would thereafter be a useful implement to him, eventually won the cards themselves, on a bet as to the location of a certain one of them. Having found that his card tricks amused, he resolved to rely on them thereafter, and not to stoop again to fortune-telling, an old woman's business adopted by him for the once as most likely means of exciting the girl's curiosity.

He went from the weaver's house to the inn hard by the church of St. Eustache, and, obtaining a friendly reception by the conciliating manner and flattering air with which he accosted the servants, passed the afternoon in manipulating the cards, to the mystification of kitchen wenches, ostlers, and tipplers of low degree; winning a few sixpences from the last named in a fair game of skill. He thus earned a supper in a kitchen, and a bed in the stable-loft.

The next day he walked twenty-one miles, crossing Dartmoor Forest and the vast common, doing card tricks for a meal in a farmer's cottage at each one of two villages, and lodging for the night at Moreton Hampstead, where his procedure at the inn was in general similar to that at Tavistock.

In the morning he went on to Exeter, which—with its antique houses, its splendid cathedral of St. Peter flanked by the old bishop's palace, its ruined castle of West Saxon kings, its bustling High Street, its bridge across the Exe, and its busy quay—impressed Dick the more for its being the first large town of England to greet his eyes. He remained here many days, going from inn-yard to inn-yard, and, in the poorer quarters, from house to house; always with an address so polite and amiable that few resisted or distrusted him. His look and manner were so different from those of the common wayfarer or mountebank that he found he need stand in no fear of being dealt with as a vagrant. He added to his resources some of Tom's old conjuring feats, which he made new by means of the glib, humorous speeches he was soon able to rattle off. A cause of his prolonged stay at Exeter was the great snowfall and frost, which began January 7th, with a high eastern wind, froze the rivers, and put to shame all recollections of cold weather that dated since the memorable hard winter of 1739-40. Dick spent most of this time in entertaining snow-bound travellers of low degree, at the inns, receiving in payment now a meal, now a share of a bed, now a few small coins. There were nights, though, when he lodged outside, taking short naps in some sheltering angle of the cathedral, and rousing himself at intervals to stir his blood by walking.

On the 2d of February the wind changed and blew from the south. Waiting a few days more, so as to be less inconvenienced by the thaw, Dick started northward, passing through a beautiful country partly in sight of the Exe, dined at Collumpton, and proceeded in the afternoon to Wellington in Somersetshire, where he lay for the night in an open shed appertaining to the inn. The next morning, paying for breakfast with the last of the coins he had earned at Exeter, he went on to the sweet vale of Taunton Dean, and arrived penniless at the town of Taunton, where a singular thing befell him.

He had stopped to look into an inn-yard, to see whether the time was propitious for his obtaining the attention of servants and inferior guests, and thus for his paving the way to one of his unlicensed performances, when a post-chaise drove up and let out a richly dressed young gentleman, with a portmanteau and a gold-headed cane, but not attended by any private servant.

As he was about to enter the inn, this young gentleman, who was of a sedate and self-contained demeanor, stopped for a moment, regarded Dick with a sudden but civil interest, and half perceptibly smiled; he then passed in, while a menial shouldered his portmanteau and followed.

Dick knew at once the cause of the look of interest and of the smile. He was still pondering on it when, a few minutes later, the gentleman came out of the inn, greeted him with most kindly condescension, and said, in a quiet tone, while making sure by swift side-glances that no one overheard:

"My good man, I see you, too, have noticed how much we look like each other."

"In the face, yes," replied Dick; "but not as much in the clothes."

"Quite true," said the gentleman, with an appreciative smile. "I was just about to speak of that. As I looked at you and noticed the resemblance between us, I couldn't but think how different everything would be to me if I were the man in the smock-frock and you were the man in the velvet coat. And then an odd idea came into my head. Said I to myself, 'Why shouldn't I try the experiment, and see how it may be to travel a short way through the world in a smock-frock?' I'm given to whims, you see, and, moreover, it will be a droll thing for me to appear, clad like you, at the house where I'm expected to-night. Ha! How my lord will stare to see me come in! In fine, my good man, I propose that we shall exchange clothes, and go on our different ways!"

"You mean that, for the clothes I have on, you would give me those you wear now?" cried Dick, astonished and amused.

"Precisely, with the cane and snuff-box thrown into the bargain."

"But don't you know you can buy in five minutes a suit of clothes like mine, for a hundredth part of the worth of all you offer me?"

"Yes, I know that, of course. But, you see, it would attract attention, my buying such clothes—"

"Oh, for that matter, I can buy them for you."

"No, for then they would either be new, in which case my—ah—disguise would be easier seen through; or they would be second-hand, and then God knows who might have worn them in the past! Besides, I can afford to pay for my whims, and it pleases me to think that you, too, who resemble me so much, would have the benefit of my clothes, as I should have of yours. Come! Or, rather, wait till I pay in advance for my room, which I'll occupy but half an hour; then I'll take you to it; we can change immediately, and go forth to see how differently the world will look at us."

Convinced, at last, that it was no insane person by whom he should be profiting, Dick saw no reason for interposing further objections; indeed, those already put had been offered merely to satisfy his natural scruples against being on the better side of so uneven a bargain, for the idea of swaggering awhile in costly raiment had instantly attracted him. In less than an hour thereafter, he issued from the inn, fully clad as a gentleman, while his whimsical acquaintance, slinking out as unobserved as Dick had slunk in, tipped him a friendly farewell and made off in the opposite direction, shouldering the portmanteau as if he were a hired porter.

As Dick strutted along the busy street, glancing at the shop-windows, and in turn glanced at by more than one pair of demure eyes, he suddenly bethought himself that a gentleman in velvet and lace, with silk stockings and gold buckles, but without a penny in pocket or in prospect, was a somewhat anomalous personage. Moreover, the county towns and country villages were a field far less worth shining in as a gentleman than were certain fields he now began to think he might soon visit.

He therefore visited certain dealers in the town, and by dinner-time he was minus the gold-headed cane and a gold-mounted snuff-box, but was the richer by a plainer snuff-box; some changes of linen, underclothes, neck-cloths, and handkerchiefs; a bag in which to carry all his movables; and a suit of clothes. He chose the last with a view to the fit only, regardless of the fact that it was a gamekeeper's costume. At another inn than the one where he had met the stranger, Dick doffed his fine feathers, put on the gamekeeper's suit, and dined, paying for his dinner with some money he had over from the proceeds of the cane and snuff-box.

In the afternoon, carrying his bag of clothes slung by a stick over his shoulder, he left Taunton behind, presently abandoned the road that went northward to Bridgewater, and proceeded northeastward, traversing charming vales, and arriving at night at a village about half-way between Taunton and Glastonbury. His pack of cards earned his supper and bed, both in the house of a simple-minded blacksmith.

The next day he passed through Glastonbury, pausing to indulge his imagination before the ruined abbey in which Kings Arthur and Edgar were buried, as well as before the rotting cross in the town's centre, and before the Tor of St. Michael on the hill northeast. He fed nothing but his imagination at this place, and hastened on to Wells, where he stayed his stomach further while admiring the magnificent west front of the Gothic Cathedral, the high square tower and ornate exterior of St. Cuthbert's Church, and the other fine old buildings.

At the inn, he found, among other travellers, a party of lesser gentry on whose hands time hung heavily, their business being finished, but themselves being unwilling to set forth on a Friday. Dick soon ingratiated himself with these gentlemen, whose thick and empty heads were already astray with punch, wine, and ale; and he was made not only a sharer of their good cheer, but the sole occupant of the bed of one whom he tried to assist thither but who persisted in sleeping on the floor instead.

Leaving early the next morning, ere his benefactors were awake to eject him as some presuming plebeian who had availed himself of their drunkenness, Dick proceeded northeastward towards Bath, his eyes rejoicing in the beauty of the Mendip hills and the surrounding country.

When he had reached a spot where a short stretch of road before him had a delightfully secluded appearance, by reason of the trees that overarched it, and the varied slopes that rose gently on either hand, those on the left extending in a series of shapely hills to a far western horizon, he began to think of breakfast. A little way ahead, a vine-grown wall, broken by high gate-posts, marked the roadside boundary of a small, sloping park, belonging to a country-seat whose towers and chimneys rose among the trees some distance within. As Dick lay down his bag to rest, there came from a small door in the wall a gamekeeper, who immediately raised the fowling-piece he carried, and fired at a hawk that circled over a copse at Dick's right. The shot missed, and the gamekeeper reloaded. But when he was ready for a second shot, he shouldered his gun, evidently thinking the bird out of range, although it remained over the copse.

"I'll bring that bird down for you, if you let me," called out Dick, on the impulse of the moment, just as if he had been in his own country.

In reply, the gamekeeper stared in amazement. Dick repeated his offer. Then the gamekeeper found words, and wrathfully ordered Dick from the premises, calling him a vagabond, a poacher, and worse. Dick was about to close the fellow's mouth with a blow, when a loud voice, one that shifted between a bellow and a whine, came from the direction of the great gate:

"What's amiss, Perkins? Hold the damned rascal! I'll make a jailbird of him, that I will! What is it, Perkins? Highway robbery? I'll have him up, the next assizes!"

By this time, the speaker, having got out of a coach just as it was being driven through the gate, had come up to where Dick and the gamekeeper stood. He was a large, pot-bellied man, with coarse features, red face, and bloodshot eyes; a man of about forty, showing in his movements a disability due to a dissolute life, and dressed with a richness that did not avail to soften the impression of grossness he produced.

"The rascal had the impudence of offering to shoot that hawk, sir," said the gamekeeper, looking wroth at the outrage.

"What hawk?" queried the threatening gentleman, looking, and presently sighting the only one in view. "That hawk? Odd's life! If the rogue can shoot that hawk at this distance, I'm his humble servant, that I am! And let him only speak, and the place of under-keeper shall be his, damn me twice over if it sha'n't! D'ye hear that, rascal?"

Philosophically ignoring the last word, Dick replied, "If Mr. Perkins will hand me the gun, I'll show you how we shoot in" (he was going to say "America," but checked himself) "the county I came from."

"Give him the gun, Perkins, give him the gun!" ordered the gentleman, eagerly, responding to anything that appealed to his love of shooting, and already preparing to jeer in case of Dick's failure.

Dick took the gun, aimed carefully, fired; the bird fell into the copse. Whereupon the gentleman, forgetting former threats, impulsively applauded, pronounced Dick a marvel, and, taking it from his garb that he was a gamekeeper, began a brief catechising that resulted in Dick's being forthwith installed as Mr. Perkins's assistant, in a lodge at the farther end of Mr. Bullcott's woods,—for Bullcott was the name of the country squire whose favor Dick's marksmanship had so quickly won. Dick's face, and the straight account of himself that he had invented on the spot, served in lieu of a written "character" with the impulsive and unthinking Squire Bullcott; as subsequently his adaptiveness, quickness of perception, and conciliating manner enabled him to acquire Perkins's tolerance, and to learn the duties of his post so soon that no one discovered he had never filled a similar one before.

In this situation Dick spent the rest of February, all of March, and great part of April; having little company other than that of Perkins and the dogs; rarely seeing his master, who made frequent journeys from home; and not once beholding the Squire's wife, who, said Perkins, was usually ailing and mostly kept her room. He might have had the smiles of any of the maid-servants of Bullcott Hall, but he would never accept amatory favors from low sources as a supposed equal, though he might willingly enough, in his own proper character of gentleman, condescend on occasion to kiss a handsome wench.

One sweet, blossomy day in April, while following the course of a little rivulet, Dick emerged from the woods to a field at whose farther end was a barn, before which stood a large wagon whence a party of strolling players were moving their accessories into the building, for the purpose of giving a series of performances there. By the brookside, at a place hidden from her fellow Thespians by some bushes, knelt one of the women of the company, a rather pretty girl, washing clothes. Standing near this girl, with his back towards Dick, was a man who seemed, from his attitude and gestures, to be pressing on her some sort of invitation, which she apparently chose to ignore. This man presently stooped by her side, and made to put his arms around her, whereupon she gave him a vigorous slap in the face with the wet undergarment she then held.

The man persisting in his attempt to embrace her, and the girl resisting without fear but with repugnance, Dick ran forward, cuffed the man on the side of the head, and announced the intention of throwing him into the brook if he did not immediately let go the lady. The man let go, but only in order to spring to his feet and turn, with clenched fists, upon Dick, disclosing to the latter the furious face of Squire Bullcott.

The Squire, whose wrath instantly doubled upon his seeing that his interfering assailant was his own under gamekeeper, could only roar, sputter, and whine, incoherently, and look as if about to explode. He was deterred from instantly laying hands on Dick by the attitude of defence into which the latter had promptly thrown himself. When Mr. Bullcott had used up his breath in calling Dick vile names, and threatening him with everything from a cudgel to a gibbet, Dick explained that he could not stand by and see any man force his caresses on a lady against her will.

"Lady!" bellowed the Squire. "Why, she's a miserable —— of a vagabond play-actress! Why, you fool, I'll warrant she can't begin to count the men who have had her!"

"I don't stand up for the woman's virtue," said Dick. "I know nothing about that." He perceived that a man who would ever testify with due effect to the virtue of a good woman, must not assert, by oath or blows, a belief in that of a bad or doubtful woman. "But every woman has the right to say who sha'n't have her favors," he went on, "and that girl was resolved you shouldn't have hers!"

"Well, by God, we'll see! I'll have the whole rabble locked up, I will! They shan't give any of their nasty plays where I have jurisdiction! I'll drive them off, and you, too! No, I won't, I'll have you up at the assizes. I'll see you hanged for murderous assault; that I will!"

With which, the girl having already fled to her comrades, and voices being heard to approach, the worthy magistrate plunged into cover of the woods in one direction, while Dick sought similar concealment in another.

Knowing that time had come to resume his travels, Dick hastened to his lodge, and there, the better to avoid arrest on the Squire's order, he put on the fine suit given him by the strange gentleman at Taunton. With all his other clothes in his bag, he then started for the road. As he was passing through the woods, he first heard and then saw Mr. Perkins leading towards the abandoned lodge a pair of ugly fellows armed with bludgeons. Unseen by this party, Dick made a detour that led him eventually to the road, but to a part thereof that necessitated his passing the great gate of the Hall in order to continue his journey northward.

As he was musing on the peculiar appearance he must make in the road, that of a gaily dressed gentleman travelling afoot and carrying a bag, he saw Squire Bullcott come forth on horseback, attended by two stalwart, raw-looking servants. The Squire stared at him, in bewilderment, a moment, then cried out to his servants:

"'Tis the very same! The same damned rogue! I know the rascal in spite of his clothes! Stop him, Curry, and hold him fast! Down off your horses, both of you, or he'll get safe away!"

"I dare you to stop me now!" cried Dick, going straight up to Bullcott and looking him in the face. "I'm a gentleman, and one of your betters, though I did amuse myself by playing gamekeeper to an ignorant brute!"

The Squire glared for a moment in speechless fury, and then, gathering breath and saliva, spat with great force in Dick's face.

The two servants were now dismounted. Mr. Bullcott, enraged to the point of preferring immediate revenge rather than the slow operation of the law, ordered them to use their whips on Dick. They fell upon him together, at the moment when he was blinded by the handkerchief with which he had instantly begun to cleanse his visage of Bullcott's disgusting marks.

Maddened by the blows that rained upon his face, neck, arms, and wrists, Dick struck out wildly at his brawny assailants. At a certain violent rush on his part, they fell back. The Squire seized that moment as an opportune one for riding his horse at Dick, and the latter, leaping aside to avoid the heavy hoofs, tripped on a stone and fell flat in the road, knocking the breath out of his body.

Bullcott now, leaning from his horse, wielded his own whip on Dick's head and back, accompanying the castigation with vengeful oaths and vile epithets. Then, ordering his men to bestow each a final kick on the prostrate body, the worthy gentleman rode off about his business, which, it eventually appeared, was to cause the ejection of the strolling players from the barn before which their merry-andrew had already begun to collect a crowd around his wagon.

Kicked into insensibility, Dick was at last abandoned by the two servants, and he lay in the road until, fifteen minutes later, there came up from the direction of Wells a post-chaise, from which a hearty-looking young gentleman, having ordered the postilion to stop, got out for the sole purpose of examining the prostrate body in the way. He stooped beside Dick, called his valet to bring some brandy, and gently raised Dick's head.

"Who is it?" murmured Dick, summoned out of a wild and painful dream, and resting his blue eyes on the rubicund, cheerful, somewhat impudent face of the young gentleman.

"Who is it?" repeated the latter, blithely. "That's a good one! Here's a gentleman who has fallen among thieves and been left half dead, and the first thing he wants of the Good Samaritan is to know who the Good Samaritan is! Swallow this brandy, sir, and the Good Samaritan will introduce himself."

"You are certainly the Good Samaritan," moaned Dick, after a reviving gulp from the flask held by the valet; "but I haven't fallen among thieves. I fell in only with the most damned boorish scoundrel that ever disgraced the name of gentleman, and I swear I won't rest till I've paid him back what he and his rascal menials did me here, blow for blow, and kick for kick."

"Quite right!" said the other, gaily. "But, in the meantime, what is to be done for you? Can I take you to your house? Do you live hereabouts?"

"No, my home is—quite—far—away," replied Dick, relapsing into a dreamy condition.

The other gently shook him back to full consciousness. "Then where may I take you? Whither were you bound? Towards Bath?"

"Yes, towards Bath," said Dick, on a moment's impulse.

"Well, by George, that's fortunate! You shall be my travelling companion the rest of the way. You don't seem to have your own coach at hand, or any of your servants."

"You are right. I have no coach at hand—or any servants. I have only the bag in the ditch yonder. You are very kind! I don't like to intrude."

"Nonsense, my dear sir! 'Tis I who have intruded on your slumbers here. You'll be company for me on the journey. 'Fore gad, I was dead of ennui, for some one to talk to, when we came upon you! Get the gentleman's bag, Wilkins. I must say, sir, your own servant must be a rascal, to have dropped your things and ridden off as he did, when you were attacked."

Dick saw no reason to correct the impression produced, by his clothes and other circumstances, on the cordial young gentleman, and he silently let himself be helped into the chaise, which, his bag having been stowed away and his rescuers having got in, at once started off towards Bath.

Dick gave no more account of himself, beyond announcing his name and the fact that he had recently come from travels abroad, than to say that he had been attacked by the servants of a gentleman whose motive was personal revenge, and left as the Good Samaritan had found him. The Good Samaritan turned out to be Lord George Winston, who was given to letting his private coaches and horses lie idle, and to travelling in his present modest fashion, in order that he might encounter the more amusing people and incidents. He was now hastening, in quest of society, back from his Devonshire estate, whither he had recently hastened in quest of solitude. He was an exceedingly good-natured, self-satisfied, talkative youth, one of those happily constituted persons who are not even their own enemies. Yet he was a man of exceeding animation and wit, as he showed by countless little jests with which he enlivened the talk he rattled off to Dick on the journey.

Dick allowed most of the conversation to his lordship, which circumstance made so agreeable an impression on the latter, that, on learning Dick had no engagements, he gave an imperative invitation to be his guest in Bath for a few days, and afterward to bear him company to London. Dick, philosophically accepting, thus saw his immediate future paved with roses in advance, ere the increasing bustle of converging roads, the sound of the Avon flowing beneath its bridge, and the sight of many roofs and towers told him he was entering the most populous and fashionable pleasure resort in England.

It was late in the afternoon, when they drove into Bath. The chaise rattled through the fine streets of splendid stone houses, its own noise mingling with that of grand coaches and other conveyances. On every side were finely dressed people, strutting with an air of consequence, while Dick got a glimpse of a fair face, more or less genuine in color, in many a carriage and chair. The chaise let out its passengers at the Three Tuns, where Lord George engaged rooms for the night, and where Dick carefully repaired all damage to his person and attire, donned fresh linen, had his hair powdered by a man whom Lord George had caused to be summoned, dined with his gay companion, and sauntered forth afoot with him at evening, glowing with the newly stimulated love of pleasure.

At the door of the Pelican Inn, Lord George introduced Dick to a pompous but good-natured little gentleman named Boswell, who greeted my lord obsequiously but tarried only so long as to mention that he was on his way to meet Doctor Johnson at the house of Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.

"Does he mean the great Doctor Johnson, the author?" asked Dick, looking back after him with curiosity.

"Yes," said Lord George; "he is a harmless, conceited Scotchman that comes to town a few weeks every year and follows at the heels of Johnson, who treats him as if he were the spaniel he is. 'Tis amusing to consort now and then with those writing fellows, if you can endure their vanity. As for Johnson, he says a good thing sometimes, and might be good company but for his sweating and grunting, his dirty linen and his beastly way of eating, and his desire of doing all the talking himself."

They went to the Assembly Rooms, where his lordship introduced Dick to numerous people of both sexes and then sat down to cards; while Dick looked on, or walked about among the promenaders, the gay talkers, and the chatting tea-drinkers, and thought he was in a kind of paradise.

The next day Lord George moved with his guest to a floor in a fine house on the South Parade, where there was comparative quiet from the noise of wheels. There established, Dick, as he listened to the bells of the Abbey church,—which sound carried to him a mental vision of the venerable Cathedral itself, with its fine western front and its countless windows,—resolved that he would ever after wear the clothes of a gentleman, as his birth and mind entitled him to do; that his future way should lie amidst fine surroundings; that he should thereafter contrive to sip only of the honey of this world.

The two young gentlemen went early to the pump-room; took the hot water bath in a great tank overlooked by the pump-room windows, in company with other perspiring folk, who did not look at their best,—particularly the ladies in their brown linen jackets and petticoats and their chip hats with handkerchiefs affixed. Then, having dressed and partaken of the water served by the pumper in the bar, Lord George and Dick—or rather Mr. Wetheral, for he had now determined to complete the transformation that his change of clothes had begun—strolled on the North Parade; after which his lordship played a game of billiards with an acquaintance he met, while Dick stole away in quest of a certain kind of shop. This excursion was fruitful, and when Mr. Wetheral rejoined his friend at the Coffee House his shoes had silver buckles instead of gold ones, and a small quantity of coin rattled in his previously silent pocket. For Dick, having watched the cards awhile on the preceding night, had made up his mind to try a fling at fortune, himself.

Accordingly, when they went to the Rooms that night, it was Mr. Wetheral that played, and Lord George that sought diversion otherwise, joining the dancers, for this was one of the two weekly ball-nights. Wetheral had beginner's luck, of course, and when he retired to bed at twelve his pockets jingled with an effect almost as pleasant to his ears as that of the Abbey bells, and he saw himself prospectively the possessor of some splendid house in the Circus or in Prince's Row.

He imagined, of course, a lovely sharer of the contemplated splendor, but this fancy did not take a permanent shape in his mind's eye; sometimes it wore the face of Catherine de St. Valier; then this image gave way to a kind of collective impression of the many pretty faces he had already seen in Bath. For so great a change had come in his surroundings and desires, that Catherine and her snowy Quebec had faded into a far past and seemed at an immeasurable distance. Reproach him not too severely! He was nineteen, in England, in spring, as if freshly born into a new world that appeared all pleasure and beauty; moreover, the past five months had been so crowded with events and changes that they trailed out behind him like years instead of months.

His luck at cards continuing, and with it his determination to move thereafter in polite life, Mr. Wetheral set about acquiring certain accomplishments necessary to his purpose. There was a fop among Lord George's acquaintance, given to telling laughable stories, partly in French. Of this gentleman's Coffee House audience, Dick was the only one who could not laugh uproariously at these Gallic passages. He thereupon resolved to learn French, as well as to acquire the more fashionable styles of dancing, and to improve what rudiments of fencing had been imparted to him by old Tom MacAlister. Thus he invested a good part of his nightly winnings in clandestine lessons, taken while Lord George was making visits, or off with some pleasure-seeking party to Spring Gardens, or elsewhere engaged.

Wetheral supplemented his French and fencing lessons with private practice in his rooms, or in some solitary part of the grove by the Avon, or of King's Mead Fields, or elsewhere. His natural readiness and his fierce application soon enabled him to read and write easy French passably well; but when he came to speak in that language to the foppish little master of ceremonies at the Rooms, he brought confusion on himself. He made a better show at dancing, though; and a few trials of the foils with Lord George, on a rainy day, displayed a promise of early ability to handle a sword in the approved fashion.

One evening in the second week of May, Lord George announced his wish of starting for London on the morrow, as the fashionable season at Bath would soon be over. Dick had no sorrow at this, for he had resolved to continue in London his present way of life, by means of the cards and by whatever other resources he might find at hand. He was quite ready for fresh fields, as long as they were of the flowery kind. Desiring, though, a last survey of the field he was about to leave, Dick sallied forth alone that night for the Rooms, Lord George having to remain at his lodgings to write some letters he had postponed to the last moment.

Just as Mr. Wetheral was entering the ballroom, during a cessation of dancing, and was felicitating himself on the flattering salutations he got from acquaintances obtained through Lord George,—and several of these greetings came with melting smiles from fair faces,—he heard a voice at his side cry out:

"Why, by God, 'tis the rascal gamekeeper masquerading as a gentleman!"

Dick recognized the voice, now bellow and now whimper, ere even he turned, like a man shot, and saw the face. At sight of the gross, insolent visage of Squire Bullcott, the memory of the horse-whipping drove away every other consideration, and Dick, thinking only of revenge, not of his own possible discomfiture, replied, hotly:

"So 'tis you, Bully Bullcott! I intended to return and pay off my score, but kind Providence has saved me the trouble by sending you to Bath. Wait until I meet you in the street, sir!"

"What, you dog!" cried the Squire, whose corpulent body was dressed as if it were the elegant figure of a beau of twenty-five. "Why, hear the cur talk, will you that! The low, dirty, mongrel cur, that came starving along the road, with tongue hanging out and ne'er a kennel to sleep in; and that I took in and made a gamekeeper of! How in the name of God he ever came by those clothes he has on, I know not. But you sha'n't play any of your tricks here, you impostor! I denounce this rascal, gentlemen! He's not what he pretends to be!"

"Gentlemen," said Dick, to the crowd that had quickly assembled, "there are many of you here who know me—"

"If there be," said Bullcott, cutting Dick's speech short, "how long have you known him? Hey? And is there any gentleman here that doesn't know me?" From the manner in which the Squire glared around, and that of the gentlemen who amiably nodded in confirmation, it was plain that Squire Bullcott was a very well-known person at Bath; and from other tokens it was equally plain that Dick's acquaintances were mentally recalling that the time since they had first met him was indeed short. "The fellow is a gamekeeper, I say! A common servant, that I paid wages to, a month ago, and that my footmen drove off my place, as they shall drive him out of these Rooms now!" Whereat he strode through the crowd, which opened for him with the deference due to wealth, and at the door he called out to his servants, who were waiting with his coach.

Before Mr. Wetheral, who looked in perplexity from one acquaintance to another, and saw each man fall slightly back or look aside, could arrive at any course of action, he found himself face to face with the two low-browed fellows who had obeyed the Squire's behest on a former memorable occasion. Ere he was fully sensible of their intention, he was grasped at neck and arm, and the next instant he was being hustled swiftly to the street. Resisting blindly, and as the nether part of his person came considerably in the rear in this rapid exit, he made a ludicrous appearance, as he knew from the shout of laughter that followed him,—laughter in which, to his unutterable chagrin, the voices of the ladies mingled, for they had pushed forward among the gentlemen who had first hastened to the scene.

Once outside, Dick's two burly captors flung him forward into the street, where he landed on all fours in mire and refuse.

A crowd of servants and rabble quickly gathered around, shouting with glee. Dick's mood, when he rose, bruised and soiled, was to return and do battle with the whole assembly in the Rooms. But he knew the futility of such heroic measures, and that the present was no time in which to seek retaliation. He contented himself, therefore, with what effective lunges were necessary in order to break through the street crowd. Having achieved a passage in one fierce dash, he ran on, at a pace that soon ended pursuit, until he reached his lodgings. There he made himself presentable before joining Lord George, to whom he said nothing of the night's occurrence.

Their early departure, the next morning, alone prevented his lordship from hearing the news that was now all over Bath; and Dick felt a decided relief when he saw the city receding in the morning sunshine while the post-chaise they had taken was bowling merrily towards Wiltshire. An uneventful day, diversified by many stops for refreshment, brought them late in the afternoon to Marlboro, where Dick had time, before nightfall, to ascend by the winding path the famous mount, and to meditate in the grotto where Thomson had composed "The Seasons," as well as to stroll through the charming grounds stretching at the rear of the inn to the Kennet.

As the Bath stage-coach for London drove up, Dick looked furtively from the inn window to see if it should let out any of those who had witnessed his humiliation the previous night. Lord George, glancing from the same window, suddenly exclaimed, "Egad, there's a fine woman!"

Following his lordship's gaze, Dick beheld a slender and graceful lady emerging from a private coach. Her face, round, soft, childlike, with clear and gentle blue eyes, instantly captivated Dick. He watched her while she gave hasty directions to her coachman, and while she stepped quickly and with downcast look, as if wishing to avoid observation, to the inn. She was accompanied by another lady, also quite handsome, but of a somewhat severe and defiant countenance.

Having entered the inn, the two ladies were seen no more while Dick and Lord George remained at Marlboro, although these candid admirers of beauty delayed their departure thence till the next day was far advanced. With sighs of disappointment, they then resumed their journey, and passed through the forest and on to Hungerford, where they dined and tarried awhile in the vain hope that yet the lady of the private coach might overtake them.

Continuing in disappointment, they proceeded into Berkshire and along the pleasant Kennet to Speenhamland, which, as all the world knows, is but the northern part of Newbury, the Kennet flowing between under a stone bridge. They had no sooner made themselves comfortable in the last two available rooms at the Pelican Inn, than Wetheral happened to look out into the corridor and see, accidentally glancing from the opposite chamber at the same moment, the beautiful lady of the private coach.

CHAPTER XII.
THE DEVIL TO PAY AT THE PELICAN INN.

The lady, on seeing herself observed, immediately disappeared, and closed her door. Dick imparted his discovery to Lord George, who thereupon sent his man Wilkins to inquire of the servants who the lady was. Wilkins returned with the information, obtained from an inn maid who had quizzed the lady's own man-servant, that the lady was Miss Englefield, Sir Hilary Englefield's sister, returning to her brother's seat near Reading, to escape the attentions of a very wealthy gentleman who had pursued her at Bath.

"Why, I know Sir Hilary," cried Lord George. "Wilkins, you will take this message to Miss Englefield at once. Say to her that I have learned she is here, and that, supposing she must have heard her brother speak of me, though I have never had the honor and pleasure of meeting her, I send my most respectful compliments and will do myself the happiness of waiting upon her in the public parlor. Make haste, Wilkins! Come, Wetheral,—damn it, your hair is all right! We shall probably have the joy of supping with these ladies."

Dick hastened down to the parlor with his lordship and waited in a very pleasant trepidation. Wilkins soon came with the answer that Miss Englefield would give herself the honor, etc. "She seemed at first quite took by surprise, my lord," added Wilkins, "and repeated the name Englefield after me, as if to make me think there was a mistake and she wasn't that lady. But she whispered awhile with the other lady, and then gave me the answer."

"If she is really running away from some obnoxious suitor, she would quite naturally wish to hide her name," commented Lord George to Dick; and then a rustle of skirts heralded the entrance of the lady and her companion themselves.

While introductions were being made, the four people became so grouped that Wetheral found himself near Miss Englefield, an advantage he was quite ready to keep when it had come through circumstance, although he would not with premeditation have competed for it with Lord George. His lordship, noting the circumstance with a smile partly of reproach and partly of resignation, accepted with good grace the place of partner to the other lady, Miss Thorpe, whom Miss Englefield addressed as Celestine. Thus coupled, the new acquaintances talked of the crowded state of the inns, the excellence of the weather and roads, the season at Bath (Dick learned with ineffable relief that Miss Englefield's departure had occurred before his ejection from the Rooms), and such matters.

It was agreed presently, on Lord George's proposal, that the four should sup together in a corner of their own in the dining-room; and Dick there contrived to retain his post as cavalier to Miss Englefield, with whom he became more entranced at every commonplace utterance from her dainty lips, every meaningless glance from her soft eyes, every change of expression of her girlish face, every insignificant sigh, every occasionless laugh.

Her manner was generally that of a woman under some kind of anxiety or suspense, from which she found relief in a half timid, half reckless abandonment to gaiety; she was like a schoolgirl on some feminine lark, entirely novel to her, to which some severity had driven her for relief, yet of which she was constantly in terror.

In the parlor, after supper, Wetheral's supposed travels being mentioned, he led up to the highly original remark, spoken with a most meaning look, "But of all women, I'll swear the finest I have seen are in England,—nay, I must say, is in England!" The charming blush with which she received this extremely subtle compliment encouraged Dick to further efforts in the same strain, for the conversation of the two had now fallen to a tone inaudible to Lord George and Miss Thorpe. These, on their side, sat at some distance, deep in a masked contest arising from the haughty Celestine's declared invulnerability to any man's attack, and from Lord George's complacent conviction that he could make a swift conquest of any woman without even seriously exerting himself.

This game, between the irresistible and the immovable, enabled Wetheral and Miss Englefield to proceed unwatched through a flirtation's first stages, so delicious to the participants, so insipid to third persons. Silly as their talk was, it derived unutterable charm from the low tones in which it was spoken, the ardent looks and suppressed agitation of Dick, the furtive glances and demure blushes of Miss Englefield. At last the silence of the inn, and the shortened state of the candles, broke up the reluctant quartette, and the ladies said good night, leaving Dick on the outer threshold of his paradise, and Lord George at the first man[oe]uvre in his campaign against the composure of Celestine.

"By the lord," cried Wetheral in ecstasy, when he and Lord George were alone together, "did you ever see a more heavenly creature? She's divine, she's perfect, and her name is Amabel, as lovely as herself! She told me it, and she told me, too, almost in as many words, that her affections were not engaged—previously. Amabel! Could any name fit any woman better?"

"Come, come," said Lord George, "it's bedtime. I must sleep well to-night, and look my best to-morrow, for I've a conquest to make."

"'Fore gad, I sha'n't sleep at all!" cried Dick. "I've been made a conquest of!"

But he followed his friend up-stairs, where he found the latter slightly meditative and absent, a circumstance that would have held his attention had not his mind been full of other thoughts. Dick looked out of the window, at the inn garden. It was a perfect night, with a glorious moonlight. Dick could never go to bed in his present mood. He longed to walk, to revel in the moonlight, which was all his own, now that the rest of the world was asleep. If he could but pace beneath her window! That window also, being in line with his own, looked out on the garden. Between the two windows was that of the corridor, and beneath this there was a rear door leading to the garden, which door was flanked by a vine-clad trellis.

"I'm going for a stroll in the garden," said Dick, suddenly, to Lord George, who was already in bed. "I sha'n't want a candle to go to bed by."

He thereupon stepped from his window to the trellis, and descended thereby to the ground, heedless of the impeding vines. Amabel's window was already dark, as his own became a moment later. The garden sloped gently, between a wall and a hedge, to the Kennet, which reflected the moon between shadows of over-arching boughs. With its small trees, its bushes and flowers, its solitary bench, and its clear spaces of short grass, all made beautiful and mysterious by the moonlight, its spring odors, and the murmur of the stream, the place seemed to Dick like some Italian garden, and he imagined himself Romeo gazing up at Juliet's balcony.

In the midst of this fancy, he was rudely brought back to England by the sound of wheels and horse, and of voices speaking guardedly in very un-Italian accents, in the inn coach-yard beyond the wall that bounded one side of the garden. The sounds came to a stop, and the gate of the wall opened cautiously, whereupon Dick stepped into the shadow of the trellis flanking the rear doorway. Through the gateway he could see a rickety coach, of which the door was open and from about which there now stepped stealthily into the garden four ill-clad, desperate-looking fellows, one wearing a cloak about his lank body and stifling a cough as he walked, another carrying a large handkerchief in his hand, two others awkwardly bearing a ladder.

"'Tis all clear," said the cloaked individual. "Quick work, captain, now! That's the room." And he pointed to the window of Amabel.

Dick gave a violent start. What could be the purpose, concerning her chamber, of these birds of ill omen, who, doubtless through the collusion of some inn servant, had driven so secretly into the coach-yard at this hour? He decided to wait, that he might, before interfering, discover their plans.

The two ladder-bearers, at a whisper from the man with the handkerchief, placed the ladder to the window. The captain—a title which Dick guessed in this case to indicate a highwayman rather than a gentleman of war or sea—mounted with agility, and disappeared through the window, followed by one of the men. The cloaked fellow stood holding the ladder, and the other went to the gate to keep watch.

Dick, thinking it high time to take a hand, looked about for a weapon, and, seeing nothing else, finally pulled a stout cross-piece from the trellis. By this time the expeditious captain had reappeared at the top of the ladder, bearing the swooning form of Amabel, whose possible screams he had provided against with the handkerchief. His assistant followed him down the ladder, to give aid should the nimble captain's burden prove too heavy.

"BEARING THE SWOONING FORM OF AMABEL."

Dick ran forward with a threatening shout, and brought his extemporized cudgel down on the skull of the man in the cloak; at the same time there rose, in the chamber above, loud cries of "Help!" from Celestine, who had just awakened to what was goingon. The sudden rush and noise took the enemy by surprise. The man attacked by Dick made for the gate, leaving his cloak in the hands of his assailant, who had mechanically clutched it. The captain's principal assistant leaped from the ladder, and followed with all speed to the gate, while the man on watch scrambled to the seat on the coach and whipped the horses to a gallop. The captain, seeing himself deserted, dropped Amabel as soon as he reached the bottom of the ladder, drew a pistol, and made ready for a fight over her body. But Dick clubbed the pistol from his hand, whereupon the captain, with merely an ejaculation of annoyance, turned and fled after his retreating forces.

Dick picked up the fainting Amabel, and carried her to the garden bench, whereon he placed her in a sitting attitude, and put the captured cloak about her, lest in her fragile night-dress she might be chilled. Meanwhile Celestine's cries had not abated, and suddenly Dick, while trying to fan Miss Englefield back to recovery with his hat, beheld Lord George emerge from the gentlemen's window, in night-gown and coat, drop to the ground, rush up the ladder, and plunge into the chamber whence the shouts for aid continued to issue. Lord George, in his haste to the rescue, had not noticed Dick and Amabel in the garden.

At last the tender creature on the bench gently stirred, feebly opened her eyes, and faintly asked where she was. Dick immediately enlightened her. She appeared astonished at what had befallen, and murmured, reflectively, "I shouldn't have thought he would take that way of doing it," then checked herself as if she had said too much. Dick supposed she alluded to the rich suitor, and that the attempted abduction was the work of that person. He could not enough thank heaven for having enabled him to be her preserver, and he sat by her side, on the bench, while she remained wrapped in the cloak, apparently too prostrated by the recent occurrence to return immediately to her chamber.

And now was the time for a romantic love scene, suitable to the youth and beauty of the two participants, to the charm of the surroundings, to the May night, the moonlight, the odor of flowers, the ripple of the stream, and the preceding circumstances of the interview; and doubtless the conversation was poetic enough to the two who engaged in it, thanks to all these matters and to the glances, low tones of agitation, suppressed fervor, tremblings, etc.; but the talk in itself was no more original or impassioned than this:

"I'm glad you aren't hurt," said she.

"It would be a happiness to carry forever a wound received in such a cause,—'pon honor, it would!" said he.

"Will they come back, do you think? I sha'n't be able to sleep, the rest of the night, for fear of them!"

"You have nothing to fear. I shall keep guard under your window all night."

"Oh, no, sir! You will take cold."

"I cannot. I shall be on fire. My heart will glow with your image, which has occupied it ever since I saw you before the inn at Marlboro yesterday."

"Why, did you notice me then? I saw you looking out of the window, and I said to Celestine, 'What a frank and generous face! If my—if some person were but like that!'"

"You said that, really,—and meant it,—and mean it still?"

"Why, to be sure, how could I mean it less, after all that has happened to-night?"

He now plunged deep into ardent love-making, at which she seemed to be both frightened and, in spite of herself, pleased. Not making any direct response, she began to sound him as to his character and opinions, his views on matters pertaining to love and propriety and honorable conduct, and finally as to whether he would deem a love between a married and a single person, under any possible circumstances, justifiable. He declared that, for his part, he would never make love to a married woman, that he would rob no man, nor injure any in a matter so sacred,—excepting possibly one man, to whom he owed the keenest of revenges, Mr. Bullcott, of Bullcott Hall, Somersetshire. At this declaration, an unaccountable strange look—astonishment mingled with secret elation—overspread her face. "Why do you look so?" inquired Dick.

Before she could answer, there came from the ladies' chamber, whence the cries had for some time ceased to issue, the sound of several slaps and cuffs in close succession. An instant later the figure of Lord George, in coat and night-gown, came swiftly through the window and dropped to the ground.

"Damn all affected prudery!" muttered his lordship, holding his hand to his cheek, and then clambered up the trellis to his own window.

At the same time, Celestine appeared at the other window, and the landlord, having first gone to her door and been informed by her that the garden was full of house-breakers and kidnappers, came from the inn door, followed by two servants, while a detachment of the town watch, summoned by another servant, entered by the wall gate from the coach-yard.

Thus interrupted, Dick had to make explanations, and to hasten Amabel's return to her chamber by way of the inn door. He then returned to the garden to carry out his purpose of guarding her window the rest of the night, and there found one of the watchmen charged with the same duty, two others having captured the ladder and very carefully carried it off to preserve as evidence.

Despite what blissful thoughts Dick had to entertain himself with, he now found it harder to remain awake than it had been when he was on sentry duty in freezing Canada. Relying at last on the watchman who sat in the inn doorway, Dick at last succumbed to sleep, on the bench, where he did not awake till dawn. The watchman also slumbered through the night, and, had the abductors so elected, they might, with due skill and caution, have carried off not only the lovely Amabel, but Dick and the watchman as well.

The watchman was the first to awake; hence Dick, assuming that all was well, returned to his chamber, refreshed himself with a bath, and put his clothes in order. By the time this was accomplished, Wilkins having come to attend the gentlemen, Lord George was up, and in his usual good humor as to everything but Celestine. Her resistance to his attractions he pronounced an odious affectation, which he should certainly take out of the woman, if only for her own sake, for he admitted she had some good points.

Lord George and Dick had scarcely finished dressing, when there came a violent knock on the door of their parlor, heralding the boisterous entrance of a stout, ruddy-faced young gentleman with a decided fox-hunting look, who thrust out his hand to Lord George, and blurted out:

"Why, damme, my lord, don't you know me? By gad, you ought to, for many's the finish we've been in at together, us two!"

"Why, certainly, Sir Hilary! Welcome! Sir Hilary Englefield, Mr. Wetheral."

Dick bowed, and surveyed critically the brother of Miss Englefield.

"There's the devil to pay somewhere, or else I'm on a wild goose chase," went on Sir Hilary, beating his riding-boot with his whip. "A rascal ensign, as he calls himself, wakes up my house in the middle of the night, and gives me a letter that he says, being on the way to London, he agreed to carry from a ragged wench he met at the Pelican here. The letter turns out to be from a girl that once served in our house but fell into bad ways and ran off with a damned drunken lawyer. It tells of a plot of some scoundrel, whom she doesn't name, to have my sister carried off from this inn last night by the gang of rogues the wench is travelling with. Well, I up and ride from t'other side of Reading to Newbury, twenty miles, like the very devil, and when I get here, the inn people say my sister left the inn yesterday. They tell me another lady was nearly kidnapped from the room Sis had occupied, but you and another gentleman prevented. So I said, 'I'll run up and pay my respects to his lordship,' and, now I've done that, I must be off and look in the other inns for Sister. I didn't know she was coming back from Bath so soon."

"But," said Lord George, detaining Sir Hilary, "your sister is here. It was she that Wetheral protected. There must have been some mistake between you and the inn people. What I say is true, I assure you. Learning Miss Englefield was here, I made myself known to her, and she and her friend passed the evening with Wetheral and me."

"Oh, then, the fool of a landlord was fuddled, I dare say. Egad, since Sis is here, we'll all crack a bottle together. We'll have breakfast together. My belly aches with emptiness."

"Excellent!" said Lord George. They were now in that one of their two rooms which served as parlor; it adjoined the bedchamber, which was the room whose window overlooked the garden. Besides the door between the two, each room had a door opening to the corridor. "We can have the table set here in this room, now that you are with us," continued Lord George, "and be as merry as we please."

"So we shall," cried Sir Hilary; "and, meanwhile, I'll have my horse put away. I always see with my own eyes how my beasts are cared for." The baronet then, evidently satisfied at hearing from others of his sister's safety, ran down-stairs; while Lord George, having sent Wilkins to order the breakfast, went out to walk for an appetite, Dick remaining to add some finishing touches to his toilet.

Presently hearing light footfalls and the swish of skirts in the corridor, and recalling that the ladies had not yet been notified of Sir Hilary's arrival and of the plan for the breakfast party, Dick hastened out from his bedchamber, greeted them both, and said, "I have pleasant news for you, Miss Englefield; your brother, Sir Hilary, has arrived, and—ah, that is he at the foot of the stairs! He will be up in a moment."

This announcement had the most astonishing effect on Amabel. She cast a panic-stricken look around, and then sought refuge through the first open doorway, which she closed after her, and could be heard turning the key inside. The door happened to be that of Wetheral and Lord George's bedchamber.

Sir Hilary, who had not seen this flight, now arrived in the corridor, and looked first at Celestine, then inquiringly at Wetheral. Surprised at Sir Hilary's not recognizing his sister's friend, Dick was for a moment silent; then he proceeded, in some embarrassment, to make the two acquainted.

"Sir Hilary must often have heard his sister speak of her friend, Celestine Thorpe," said that lady, who also seemed not entirely at ease.

"Thorpe? Celestine?" repeated Sir Hilary, making the, to him, unusual effort of searching his memory. "No, I can't say—unless you were the girl that went to school with Sis, that she got me to write letters to. I forget that girl's name."

"Why, 'twas Celestine Thorpe," said the lady.

"So 'twas, now I think on't. Well, well, how Sis used to plague me, to make me answer your letters, to be sure! It seems the girls at your school had read some novel or such book, Palemia, or Pamelia, or some name or other, that got you to pestering all your own relations and one another's with letters. I never used to read yours through, but Sister would make me answer 'em, ne'ertheless."

At this point Lord George returned, and, on his invitation, the four went into the parlor of the two gentlemen, Dick hastily closing the door between parlor and bedchamber, and Miss Thorpe telling the others, with a look half pleading and half threatening at Dick, that Miss Englefield would join them soon. Servants now came and laid a table for breakfast, under Wilkins's direction. Wine being brought, Sir Hilary fell upon it immediately, pleading his long ride in excuse. Meanwhile Dick, mystified at the conduct of Amabel, supposed she would now use the opportunity to go from the bedchamber to the corridor; and wondered how long she would defer meeting her brother.

Those in the parlor, while the table was being made ready, were grouped about the window, which looked out from the side of the inn; Miss Thorpe seated, Lord George at her one elbow, Sir Hilary at the other. The fox-hunter, repeating frequently his glass of wine, from a bottle on a near-by side-table, became rapidly more gay and familiar, especially towards Celestine, whose former characteristics he now proceeded to recall. At this, Lord George began to show irritation, while the lady's own composure was far from increased.

"Lord," said the baronet, looking mirthful at the recollection, "what soft stuff it was, in the letters you used to plague me with! I said to Sis one day, 'I've heard as how girls at boarding-schools pine for gentlemen's society and go crazy to be made love to,' I said, 'but I never fancied one of 'em to have such a coming-on disposition as Celestine has.' Lord, Lord, 'twas a tender soul!"

This was going beyond the endurance alike of Celestine, whose present character was so different from that ascribed to the baronet's former correspondent, and of Lord George, who felt doubly chafed to think that tenderness denied him had been heaped upon another. Miss Thorpe turned crimson under his look. Having to vent his anger on some one, his lordship naturally chose the reminiscent fox-hunter.

"Is it a Berkshire custom, sir," queried Lord George, heatedly, "to treat the confidence of ladies in this manner?"

Sir Hilary, after a moment of bewilderment, disavowed the least intention to offend, but his own tone showed a decided resentment of Lord George's. This fact did not make his lordship's reply any sweeter, and the upshot of their brief but swift verbal passage was that Sir Hilary departed in high dudgeon, saying he would find his sister and start for home at once. Dick slipped quietly into the bedchamber, and, to his surprise, found Amabel still there.

"Why didn't you go out that way," he whispered, pointing to the corridor door, "while we were in the parlor?"

"I was afraid of being seen," she answered; "the servants have been passing to and fro outside the door; so I locked it," and she handed him the key, which he took thoughtlessly, his own confusion being like that which had made her take the key from the door after locking it.

"Would it not be best to go out now, while the way is clear," said he, "and meet your brother, who has gone down-stairs to inquire for you?"

"No, no!" she exclaimed; "I cannot—I dare not! Oh, sir, that gentleman is not my brother!"

This, then, explained her former flight from Sir Hilary's sight; explained also why Sir Hilary's description of the letter-writer was so at variance with the character of Miss Thorpe, who had been forced into the rôle of his sister's friend by a desire to support Amabel. Little wonder that Celestine was enraged, or that now, left alone in the parlor with Lord George, she sought refuge from his sarcastic silence in an unceremonious retreat to her own chamber! Lord George, with no appetite for the breakfast, which Wilkins at this moment announced to be ready, took up his hat, and flung out for another walk. As he passed the tap-room door, he heard Sir Hilary vociferously declaiming to the landlord within.

It thus fell out that Dick, looking cautiously in from the other chamber, saw the parlor deserted, Wilkins having rushed after his master. Dick instantly beckoned Amabel into the parlor, where it was not likely Sir Hilary would return. He offered her a chair; but she preferred to stand, resting one hand on the table, while she explained:

"When we arrived at the inn, we were shown to the room another lady had vacated a few minutes earlier. As Celestine took pains to learn this morning, on account of things that have happened since we came here, that lady was Miss Englefield. When we received Lord George's message, and found he thought one of us was Miss Englefield, and that he had never seen her, I thought it would be amusing to keep up the mistake. Miss Thorpe opposed it, but I longed so to imagine for a time I was somebody else, I wouldn't listen to her. Of course, after the deception was begun, she wouldn't betray me. Well, I couldn't endure to be exposed by others, so I ran from Miss Englefield's brother. You will think me terribly wicked, won't you, sir?"

"Why, 'twas a most innocent, harmless jest," protested Mr. Wetheral, gallantly. "If there were any blame, it would belong to Lord George and me, for our impertinence in having Wilkins inquire who the beautiful lady was. His informant, it seems, didn't know Miss Englefield had left and another taken her place. We have now but to send for Miss Thorpe—if she is Miss Thorpe—"

"Oh, yes, there was no deception as to Celestine's name."

"And as to your own first name?" Dick was slightly apprehensive.

"That was given truly. It is Amabel." Dick was rejoiced.

"Amabel!" he repeated. "Then that is the only name by which at this moment I know you. 'Tis the loveliest name, and the most fitting one, I swear! If you would but make it needless, as far as concerns my calling you by name, that I should ever know any other! If you would but give me the right to call you by that name alone!"

"Give you the right?" said she in a low voice, and with downcast eyes. "As how?"

"As by your mere permission."

"After what you know?" Her voice was barely audible, her manner agitated.

"What do you mean?" asked Dick.

"That I am not the person I pretended to be."

"What difference does that make? Are you any less charming? 'Fore George, what's in a name,—unless it be Amabel?"

"'Tis not a mere matter of names. You remember what you said last night—"

"Yes—whatever it was, it all meant that you were adorable, and I mean that now a thousand times over!" He took her hand, which she did not withdraw from him.

"But you said something," she went on, in a voice yet lower and more unsteady, "of married persons and single,—of not injuring a man in a matter so sacred,—you remember?"

"Why, yes,—I—"

"But you said there might be one exception—"

"Yes, I remember. Squire Bullcott, a Somerset gentleman. I owe him a very bitter revenge."

"Well, then,—if revenge and—love—both pointed to the same thing,—what then?"

He looked at her a moment; while she stood crimson, motionless, scarcely breathing, her eyes averted. Then he let go her hand.

"My God, madam, does it mean that you are—Mr. Bullcott's wife?"

"Yes," and now she spoke with rapidity and more force, "and that I have endured such treatment from him as I could bear no longer. Insolence, blows, neglect, imprisonment even, for he is as jealous as he is faithless, and has tried to hide me from all society, having me guarded by brutal servants of his own choosing, making me a captive in my own apartments, and keeping me under lock and key while he pursued his amours elsewhere. What could I do? I was an only child, without near relations: my parents died soon after arranging my marriage, which was against my own wishes. At last I learned, through some careless talk of my husband's, that Celestine was at Bath. She was my only friend. I contrived to get a letter to her, and she planned my escape. She waited at night in a private coach, near Bullcott Hall, while I got out of the house in the clothes of a chambermaid who was asleep. I ran to a place she had appointed, and there I found her footman on the park wall, with a ladder; he helped me across, and to her coach. We took a roundabout way to the London road, so as to avoid Bath; and when you met us we were on our way to Celestine's house in Oxfordshire, intending I should keep concealed there, for I am determined to die rather than go back to my husband!"

She now stood silent, as if she had placed the situation and herself in Wetheral's hands, to dispose of as he might choose. Manifestly she had met very few men, seen nothing of the world; she was still a child, ready to entrust her whole destiny to the first flatterer whose tender speeches had won her heart.

Dick was not slow in making up his mind.

"You spoke of love and revenge, madam," said he, gently. "They are strong passions, and I have been strongly urged by them the last few moments. But we will resist them,—not for his sake, but for yours—and mine. Before you start for Oxfordshire, I shall have started for London. I wish you a pleasant and safe journey, and a long and happy life. Good-by!"

Before she could answer, there came from the corridor the noise of heavy feet rushing up the stairs, and the words loudly bellowed:

"I'll find the room, never fear, that will I!"

"My husband!" whispered Amabel, the picture of sudden fright. "If he finds me here, he will kill me!"

"He'll not do that, I promise you!" said Dick. "But, ne'ertheless, he mustn't see you!"

For it was indeed this very parlor that the footfalls were approaching. Dick led the terrified wife back into the bedchamber, and returned instantly to the parlor, in time to see Squire Bullcott burst in from the corridor. Dick had not yet closed the bedchamber door, and he now left it slightly ajar, remembering his experience in the St. Valier house in Quebec, and thinking by this negligence to disarm suspicion. The Squire was followed by the two faithful henchmen who had used Dick violently twice in the past.

At sight of Wetheral, the Squire stood aghast. Dick was near the bedchamber door. On the floor beside him was an open portmanteau, very long, in which lay, among clothes, a dress sword of Lord George's. Dick stooped and took up this pretty weapon, as if merely to examine its jewelled hilt.

"What, you cur!" cried Bullcott, as soon as he had got breath. "So 'tis you she ran away with! So you thought to revenge yourself on me by seducing my wife!"

"Mr. Bullcott is too hasty to vilify that angelic but mistreated lady," said Dick, quietly, but with scorn as fine as the edge of the sword he was feeling.

"Hear the mongrel! He'd come over me with talk like a fine gentleman's in a play! The base-born impostor! He's got the woman hid somewhere about!"

"You can see for yourself that you lie!" said Dick, with a swift look around the parlor.

"She's in that other room," cried Bullcott, truly. "She ain't in her own chamber, and she is with you. I paid a chambermaid a guinea to tell me so, and what you pay a guinea for can't be false. Look ye, Curry!" The Squire whispered a few words to one of his followers, and that one at once left the room. "Now, Pike, go ahead and knock that rascal down, and then I'll go in and catch her. I'll show—zounds and blood! Sir Hilary Englefield!"

It was indeed the voice of the fox-hunting baronet, and as it approached the parlor door, making a great hullabaloo, it seemed to throw the formidable Bullcott into a panic.

"Did the knaves that bungled last night's business sell me out to him, I wonder?" queried Squire Bullcott of his remaining adherent. Dick had a sudden illumination. 'Twas Squire Bullcott that had persecuted Miss Englefield at Bath, planned her abduction while his own wife was availing herself of his absence to run away from him, and nearly succeeded in kidnapping his own wife by mistake! His present terror of Sir Hilary, then, arose from the possibility that Sir Hilary had learned of the Squire's design against that baronet's sister.

But that terror proved ill-grounded. When Sir Hilary bounced into the parlor, he greeted the now quaking Bullcott with a single friendly word and bow, showing he knew not yet who had instigated the kidnapping; and then turned his wrath on Wetheral. The landlord, who had tried to prevent his entrance, had followed him in, and now made futile efforts to avoid a scandalous scene.

"What the devil do you mean," cried Sir Hilary to Dick, "by sending me off on a wild goose chase after my sister, when you have her in that room? Don't deny it, you scoundrel! Put down that sword, I say! What, you'd try to run me through, would you? You'd save my sister from being carried off by some damned hound" (Squire Bullcott, now utterly astounded, winced at this) "and then reward yourself by trying to ruin the girl yourself?"

"So it is your sister in that room?" said Dick, standing with his back to the bedchamber door, and holding his sword in a way that accounted for the wordy hesitation of his would-be assailants. "The Squire insists it is his wife. Sure, it can't be both!"

"Damn the Squire!" cried Sir Hilary. "'Tis my sister. She's nowhere else, and I paid a chambermaid half a guinea, who told me she was here!"

"Don't be so fast about damning the Squire!" put in that worthy, taking heart and bristling up. "I paid a whole guinea to find out my wife was there. So it must be she! Besides, didn't the coachman that drove her send word back to me, from this inn, that she was running away? Didn't the messenger meet me at Hungerford, where I was—ah—on business? I tell you what, Sir Hilary, you and my man take that fellow's sword away, and I'll go in and see my wife!"

"Devil take your wife!" said Sir Hilary. "'Tis my sister. I see her gown at this moment through the door-crack. I know that gown. There,—she's moved backed out of sight. Sis, come out!"

"'Pon my word, gentlemen," said Dick, pretending to make light of the accusations of both, "'tis a very curious honor you are contesting for! And one of you sees a lady's gown where none exists! I don't know what to make of you!"

But Bullcott seemed struck by Sir Hilary's asserted recognition of the dress. "Oh, well," said he, "maybe I'm wrong. Sir Hilary doubtless knows what inn his sister lodged at last night. Egad, if it turns out to be her, mayhap some folk won't be so prudish after this!" The Squire grinned to think the lady who had repulsed him, and whom he had failed to carry off, might be compromised after all.

"What's that? What d'ye say?" cried Sir Hilary. "So my sister has been prudish to you, you old goat! Well she might! I know your ways; everybody does! Well, if it comes to that, I don't say it is my sister in that room! I don't say the landlord wasn't right, and that my sister didn't leave this inn yesterday. But I do say this, and to you, sir." Sir Hilary spoke now to Dick. "You see how my sister's good name is at stake. If the lady in that room isn't she, then my sister is an honest girl, and doesn't deserve the least doubt against her reputation. Whoever the lady is, 'tis evident as much can't be said for her. Therefore, to exonerate an innocent lady, 'tis your duty the guilty one shall be made to show herself, before all in this room. That's only fair, sir! Better than two ladies suffer reproach, let the one that merits it appear and clear the other! Then we shall know whether 'tis my right or Bullcott's to fight you. For there is one lady in that room, I'll swear!" Sir Hilary had become quite sober and dignified.

That Sir Hilary's sister should suffer for a moment in her reputation was, of course, a thought intolerable to Dick. Yet he must save Amabel at any cost. The actual truth, if he told it, would be taken as a lame excuse for her presence in the bedchamber. By the pig-headed Squire, the mere fact that his wife had fled to Dick's room to avoid exposure would be regarded as evidence of criminality. Yet how could such a plea as Sir Hilary's be refused?

"Come, sir!" said the baronet.

At that moment a new face appeared in the doorway, that of a young lady of graceful figure, piquant visage, and very fine gray eyes. These eyes rested on Sir Hilary alone, thus missing Squire Bullcott, who, at first sight of the lady, flopped down on all fours behind the breakfast-table, a movement unnoticed while the general attention was on the newcomer.

"Why, Brother, so you are really here? Wilson saw you ride past the inn at Thatcham this morning, and we supposed you were coming to the Pelican to meet me; so I drove back after you."

"Give me a buss, Sis!" cried Sir Hilary, who had already grasped both her hands and shown every sign of joy. "'Fore gad, you came in good time! So 'tisn't you in the next room! A thousand pardons, Mr. Wetheral! But what were you doing at Thatcham, Sis?"

"Why," replied Miss Englefield, "'tis a long story. At this inn, yesterday afternoon, a maid brought me a letter scrawled by Jenny Mullen, who used to serve at the Hall. It seems she is now attached to a gang of rogues that were hired to make trouble for me at this inn last night. So she warned me in secret to leave quietly. She begged me to say nothing to the landlord or the watch, lest her companions might be caught. So I went on and lay at Thatcham, and that is how Wilson happened to see you galloping hither this morning. Poor Jenny promised to keep the rascals drinking in the tap-room, so they should not learn of my departure, and she must have kept her promise."

"Thank the Lord, she must have!" said Sir Hilary. "But how the devil did they know you were going to lodge here last night?"

"Why, my girl, Sukey, confessed this morning that in Bath she made the acquaintance of a so-called captain, to whom she told the plan we had arranged for our journey. It seems from Jenny's letter that the rogues were to carry me off to a country-seat near Whitchurch in Hampshire; their employer—odious beast—was to lie last night at Hungerford, and follow to-day to Whitchurch."

"Zounds! You shall tell me all about it, Sis, on the way home, and we'll see what's to be done. Come away from this inn! It seems there's been the devil to pay here, in more matters than one. Good day, sir!" Sir Hilary thereupon led his sister quickly out, with barely a thought of the apparent absence of Squire Bullcott, who indeed might have slipped off while the baronet was engrossed with his sister.

The Squire now rose into view, very red and very much perturbed. He glanced first at his man and the landlord, who both had been keeping in the background during Miss Englefield's presence, then at Dick, who still guarded the bedchamber door.

"Then, since it ain't his sister, by God, it must be my wife!" whined Bullcott, who, like many another person capable of doing any wrong, was quick to whimper on supposing himself injured. "I'll expose her, I'll kill her, that will I! Landlord, send for constables! Oh, the faithless woman, and the vile seducer! To think a gentleman can't go off to attend to—a little business, but his wife must take a dirty, low advantage of his absence, to run off with a base-born rascal! Send for constables, landlord, to force a way into that room!"

"The landlord well knows," put in Dick, thinking of another ruse of Catherine de St. Valier's in Quebec, "that there is no lady in this room. Why, if a lady had been there, don't you suppose she'd have gone out long ago by the other door" (Dick remembered here that the other door was locked and the key in his own hand), "or by the window, from which even a woman could easily descend by the trellis to the garden?"

But the Squire continued to cry for constables, and Dick continued to detain the landlord by one remark and another. Keeping his ear on the alert, he presently heard the window in the bedchamber softly open, and he inferred that Amabel had taken his loud-spoken hint as he himself had once vainly accepted that of Catherine de St. Valier. By keeping his sword-point constantly in evidence, he deterred the Squire and the latter's man from a rush. The landlord, considering this guest was the friend of a lord, would take no step whatever, and Bullcott chose to keep his own man with him for protection, so there was none to summon the minions of the law.

At last Dick, fearing that Miss Thorpe might at any moment enter, and her presence certify to that of Amabel, said he had played with the Squire long enough, and would now let the latter scan the bedchamber from the threshold. Dick, confident that Amabel would have acted promptly at so important a crisis, supposed she had some time ago reached the garden, whence she might have gone to her own chamber. He therefore flung wide the door, and disclosed—Amabel in the centre of the chamber, and the squire's man, Curry, perched on the window-ledge, to which he had climbed by the trellis from the garden, whither Bullcott had sent him to watch the chamber window.

The Squire, almost black with rage, started towards the bedroom. Dick interposed in time to stay the burly figure's rush. The Squire stepped back and gathered strength for another effort, growling inarticulately.

"Well, sir," said Dick, with assumed resignation, "I see the jig is up. The lady has refused to save me by flight. She remains, I see, as evidence against me. So, it seems, your wife was running away from you, Squire Bullcott? Well, I can't blame her, though I didn't know that when I took her into my room by force."

"By force?" gasped the Squire.

"How can I deny it, when the lady herself is here to accuse me?" said Dick. "You'll admit the temptation was strong,—my door open, the lady passing in the corridor, no one in sight, a devil of a noise in the tap-room to drown her screams,—not to mention that I threatened to kill her if she cried out."