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his lip.
This, then, you report as being the business of the party, in coming to this
place! he said, quietly.
I do, sir; and an ugly ar nd it is, in times like these.
Is there any person in authority in a party that pretends to move about the
colony, with such high duties?
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There s one or two white men among em, if that s what the captain means;
they pretend to be duly authorised and app inted to act in behalf of the
people.
At each allusion to the people, Joel invariably looked towards his particular
partisans, in order to note the effect the use of the word might produce. On
the present occasion, he even ventured to wink at the miller.
If acting on authority, why do they keep aloof?--I have no such character
for resisting the laws, that any who come clothed with its mantle need fear
resistance.
Why, I s pose they reason in some such manner as this. There stwo laws in
operation at this time; the king s law, and the people s law. I take it, this
party comes in virtue of the people s law, whereas it is likely the law the
captain means is the king s law. The difference is so great, that one or
t other carries the day, just as the king s friends or the people s friends
happen to be the strongest. These men don t like to trust totheir law, when
the captain may think it safest to trust a little to his n.
And all this was told you, Strides, in order to be repeated to me?
Not a word on t; it s all my own consait about the matter. Little passed
between us.
And, now, said the captain, relieving his breast by a long sigh, I presume
I may inquire about your companion. You probably have ascertained who he is?
Lord, captain Willoughby, I was altogether dumbfounded, when the truth came
upon me of a sudden! I never should have known the major in that dress, in the
world, or out of the world either; but he walks so like the captain, that as I
followed a ter him, I said to myself, whocan it be? -- and then the walk came
over me, as it might be; and then I remembered last night, and the stranger
that was out with the captain, and how he occupied the room next to the
library, and them things; and so, when I come to look in his face, there was
the major sure enough!
Joel lied famously in this account; but he believed himself safe, as no one
could very well contradict him.
Now, you have explained the manner in which you recognised my son, Strides,
added the captain, I will thank you to let me know what has become of him?
He s with the savages. Having come so far to seize the father, it wasn t in
natur to let the son go free, when he walked right into the lion s den,
like.
And how could the savages know hewas my son? Did they, too, recognise the
family walk?
Strides was taken aback at this question, and he even had the grace to colour
a little. He saw that he was critically placed; for, in addition to the
suggestions of conscience, he understood the captain sufficiently to know he
was a man who would not trifle, in the event of his suspicions becoming
active. He knew he deserved the gallows, and Joyce was a man who would execute
him in an instant, did his commander order it. The idea fairly made the
traitor tremble in his shoes.
Ah! I ve got a little ahead of my story, he said, hastily. But, perhaps I
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had best tell everything as it happened--
That will be the simplest and clearest course. In order that there be no
interruption, we will go into my room, where Joyce will follow us, as soon as
he has dismissed his men.
This was done, and in a minute or two the captain and Joel were seated in the
library, Joyce respectfully standing; the old soldier always declining to
assume any familiarity with his superior. We shall give the substance of most
of Joel s report in our own language; preferring it, defective as it is, to
that of the overseer s, which was no bad representative of his cunning,
treacherous and low mind.
It seems, then, that the bearers of the flag were amicably received by the
Indians. The men towards whom they were led on the rocks, were the chiefs of
the party, who treated them with proper respect. The sudden movement was
explained to them, as connected with their meal; and the chiefs, accompanied
by the major and Strides, proceeded to the house of the miller. Here, by means
of a white man for an interpreter, the major had demanded the motive of the
strangers in coming into the settlement. The answer was a frank demand for the
surrender of the Hut, and all it contained, to the authorities of the
continental congress. The major had endeavoured to persuade a white man, who
professed to hold the legal authority for what was doing, of the perfectly
neutral disposition of his father, when, according to Joel s account, to his
own great astonishment, the argument was met by the announcement of Robert
Willoughby s true character, and a sneering demand if it were likely man who
had a son in the royal army, and who had kept that son secreted in his own
house, would be very indifferent to the success of the royal cause.
They ve got a wonderful smart man there for a magistrate, I can tell you,
added Joel, with emphasis, and he ra ally bore as hard on the major as a
lawyer before a court. How he found out that the major was at the Hut is a
little strange, seein that none of us know d of it; but they ve got
extraor nary means, now-a-days.
And, did major Willoughby admit his true character, when charged with being
in the king s service?
He did--and like a gentleman. He only insisted that his sole ar nd out here
was to see his folks, and that he intended to go back to York the moment he
had paid his visit.
How did the person you mention receive his explanations?
Waal, to own the truth, he laugh d at it, like all natur . I don t believe
they put any great weight on a syllable the major told em. I never see
critturs with such onbelievin faces! After talking as long as suited
themselves, they ordered the major to be shut up in a buttery, with a warrior
at the door for a sentinel; a ter which they took to examining me.
Joel then proceeded with an account -- his own account, always, be it
remembered--of what passed between himself and the strangers. They had
questioned him closely touching the nature of the defences of the Hut, the
strength of the garrison, its disposition, the number and quality of the arms,
and the amount of the ammunition.
You may depend on t, I gave a good account, continued the overseer, in a
self-satisfied way. In the first place, I told em, the captain had a
lieutenant with him that had sarved out the whull French war; then I put the
men up to fifty at once, seein it was just as easy to say that, as thirty or
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thirty-three. As to the arms, I told em more than half the pieces were
double-barrelled; and that the captain, in particular, carried a rifle that
had killed nine savages in one fight.
You were much mistaken in that, Joel. It is true, that celebrated chief once
fell by this rifle; even that is not a matter for boasting.
Waal, them that told me on t, said thattwo had fallen before it, and I put
it up to nine at once, to make a good story better. Nine men had a more
desperate sound than two; and when youdo begin to brag, a man shouldn t be
backward. I thought, howsever, that they was most nonplussed, when I told em
of the field-piece.
The field-piece, Strides!--Why did you venture on an exaggeration that any
forward movement of theirs must expose?
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