the date of my first notion that there could be anything admirable in
my enemies.

At the time, these new views and the tone of our talk helped to disquiet
me. The swinging lines of shoulders, the tramp! tramp! in the mud, the
sight of the guns and swords about me, were all depressing. They seemed to
give a sinister significance to my return. It was my home, the dearest
spot on earth--this smiling, peaceful, sunlit Mohawk Valley--and I was
entering it with soldiers whose mission was to seize and despoil the son
of my boyhood's friend, Sir William. More than one of my old play-mates,
now grown to man's estate, would note with despair our approach, and curse
me for being of it. The lady of Johnson Hall, to whom all this would be
horrible nigh unto death, was a close, warm friend of Daisy's. So my
thoughts ran gloomily, and I had no joy in any of the now familiar sights
around me.

The march up from Schenectady had been a most wearisome one for the men,
owing to the miserable condition of the road, never over-smooth and now
rendered doubly bad and difficult by the spring freshets and the oozing
frost. When we reached the pleasant little hollow in which Fort Johnson
nestles, a halt was accordingly ordered, and the tired soldiers prepared
to refresh themselves with food by the banks of the creek. It was now
afternoon; we were distant but a short mile from the Cedars, and I could
not abide the thought of lingering here, to no purpose, so close to the
goal of all my longings. I therefore exchanged some plans and suggestions
with Colonel Dayton and his companion Judge Duer, who represented the
civil law in the expedition, and so clapped spurs and dashed forward
up the road.

"It seems ten years, not four, since I was last here," I was saying to