“But our desertions, Joyce, have not been few, but many. Three times as many have left us, if we include our other losses, as remain.  It matters not whence the loss proceeds, so long as it is a loss.”

“A retreat, with women and baggage, is always a ticklish operation, your honour, especially if an enemy is pressing your rear!  Then we have a wilderness before us, and the ladies could hardly hold out for so long a march as that from this place to the Mohawk; short of which river they will hardly be as safe as they are at present.”

“I have had no such march in view, Joyce.  You know there is a comfortable hut, only a mile from this very spot on the mountain side, where we commenced a clearing for a sheep-pasture, only three summers since.  The field is in rich grass; and, could we once reach the cabin, and manage to drive a cow or two up there, we might remain a month in security.  As for provisions and clothes, we could carry enough on our backs to serve us all several weeks; especially if assisted by the cows.”

“I’m glad your honour has thought of this idea,” said the serjeant, his face brightening as he listened; “it will be a beautiful operation to fall back on that position, when we can hold out no longer in this.  The want of some such arrangement has been my only objection to this post, captain Willoughby; for, we have always seemed to me, out here in the wilderness, like a regiment drawn up with a ravine or a swamp in its rear.”

“I am glad to find you relishing the movement for any cause, serjeant.  It is my intention at present to make the necessary arrangements to evacuate the Hut, while it is light; and, as soon as it is dark, to retreat by the gates, the palisades, and the rivulet—­How now, Jamie?  You look as if there were news to communicate?”

Jamie Allen, in truth, had entered at that instant in so much haste as to have overlooked the customary ceremony of sending in his name, or even of knocking.

“News!” repeated the mason, with a sort of wondering smile “and it’s just that I’ve come to bring.  Wad ye think it, baith, gentlemen, that our people are in their am cabins ag’in, boiling their pots, and frying their pork, a’ the same as if the valley was in a state of tranquillity, and we so many lairds waiting for them to come and do our pleasure!”

“I do not understand you, Jamie—­whom do you mean by ’our people’?”

“Sure, just the desairters; Joel, and the miller, and Michael, and the rest.”

“And the cabins—­and the pots—­and the pork—­it is gibberish to me.”

“I hae what ye English ca’ an aiccent, I know; but, in my judgment, captain Willoughby, the words may be comprehended without a dictionary.  It’s just that Joel Strides, and Daniel the miller, and the rest o’ them that fleed, the past night, have gane into their ain abodes, and have lighted their fires, and put over their pots and kettles, and set up their domestic habitudes, a’ the same as if this Beaver Dam was ain o’ the pairks o’ Lonnon!”