he spoke, he shook his reins and started Joggles homeward.

It was little grief, as can be imagined, that the events of the
next few weeks brought to Greenwood; and the day the news
came that Washington's force had been outflanked and successfully
driven from its position on the hills of Brooklyn, with a loss
of two of its best brigades, the squire was so jubilant that nothing
would do but to have up a bottle of his best Madeira,--
a wine hitherto never served except to guests of distinction.

"Give a knave rope enough and he'll hang himself" he
said gloatingly. "Because the land favoured them at Boston,
they got the idea they were invincible, and Congress would
have it that New York must be defended, though a hundred
thousand troops could not have done it against the fleet, let
alone Howe's army. Ho! By this time the rogues have
learned what fifteen thousand butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers
can do 'gainst thirty thousand veterans. And
they've had but the first mouthful of the dose they'll have to
swallow."

The jubilation of the prophet was short-lived, for even as
he spoke, and with decanter but half emptied, the tramp of
feet sounded in the hallway, and the door was flung open to
admit four men, armed with muskets.

"In the name of the Continental Congress, and by orders
of General Washington, I arrests yer, Lambert Meredith,"
announced the spokesman.