Chapter XXVII.

The Arrest of Poor Lady Johnson.



Early the next day, which was May 20th, we heard to our surprise and
consternation that on the preceding afternoon, almost as Colonel Dayton
and his soldiers were entering Johnstown, Sir John and the bulk of his
Highlanders and sympathizers, to the number of one hundred and thirty, had
privately taken to the woods at the north of the Hall, and struck out
for Canada.

Over six weeks elapsed before we learned definitely that the baronet and
his companions had traversed the whole wilderness in safety and reached
Montreal, which now was once more in British hands--our ill-starred Quebec
expedition having finally quitted Canada earlier in the month. We could
understand the stories of Sir John's travail and privations, for the snow
was not yet out of the Adirondack trails, and few of his company were
skilled in woodmen's craft. But they did accomplish the journey, and that
in nineteen days.

I, for one, was not very much grieved at Johnson's escape, for his
imprisonment would have been an embarrassment rather than a service to us.
But Colonel Dayton was deeply chagrined at finding the bird flown, and I
fear that in the first hours of his discomfiture he may have forgotten
some of his philosophical toleration for Tories in general. He had,
moreover, the delicate question on his hands of what to do with Lady