"There ain't much ter tell as you don't know already. Sir
William put no faith in the news I carried, thinkin' it but a Whig
trick, and so they held me prisoner. But later, when 't was
too late ter use it, they learned the word I brought them
was true; so they set me free, and as there was no gettin'
away from Boston, the general gave me a cornetcy, that I
should not starve."

"I'll lay to it that there'll be no more starvation now that
you 're back home," cried the squire, "though betwixt your
cheating old sire, who'll pay no interest on his mortgages,
and the merchants gone bankrupt in York, and now this loss
of harvest and stock, 't is like Greenwood will show but a lean
larder for a time. But mayhaps now that ye've gone up in
the world, ye'd like to cry off from the bargain?"

"But let me finish the campaign by capturin' Philadelphia,
and dispersin' Washington's pack of peddlers and jail-birds,
which won't take mor'n a fortnight, and then you can't name
a day too soon for me, an' I hope not for your daughter.
You can't call me gawk any longer, I reckon, Janice?"

"Thou camst nigh to losing her, Phil," declared Mrs.
Meredith.

"Ay," added the squire. "Hast heard of how that scoundrel
Evatt schemed

"Oh, dadda!" moaned Janice, imploringly.