pursued by Howe's army, of the capture of Fort Washington
and its garrison, of the evacuation of Fort Lee, of the steady
dwindling of the Continental Army by the expiration of the
terms of enlistment, and still more by wholesale desertions,
reached the little community in various forms. But interesting
though all this was for discussion at the tavern of an
evening, or to fill in the vacant hour between the double
service on a Sunday, it was still too distant to seem quite
real, and so the stay-at-home farmers peacefully completed
the getting in of their harvests, while the housewives baked
and spun as of yore, both conscious of the conflict more
through the gaps in the village society, caused by the
absences of their more belligerently inclined neighbours,
than from the actual clash of war.

The absent ones, it is needless to say, were the doughty
warriors of the "Invincibles," who had been called into service
along with the rest of the New Jersey militia when Howe's
fleet had anchored in the bay of New York three months
before, and who had since formed part of the troops defending
the towns of Amboy and Elizabethport, but a few miles
away, from the possible descent of the British forces lying on
Staten Island. This arrangement not only spared them from
all active service, thus saving the parents and wives of Brunswick
from serious anxiety, but also permitted frequent home
visits, with or without furlough, thus supplying the town with
its chief means of news.

An end came, however, to this period of quiet. Early in
November vague rumours, growing presently to specific statements,