A day or two after the marriage, all that remained of those who had so lately crowded the Hut, left the valley together.  The valuables were packed and transported to boats lying in the stream below the mills.  All the cattle, hogs, &c., were collected and driven towards the settlements; and horses were prepared for Maud and the females, who were to thread the path that led to Fort Stanwix.  In a word, the Knoll was to be abandoned, as a spot unfit to be occupied in such a war.  None but labourers, indeed, could, or would remain, and Beekman thought it wisest to leave the spot entirely to nature, for the few succeeding years.

There had been some rumours of confiscations by the new state, and Willoughby had come to the conclusion that it would be safer to transfer this property to one who would be certain to escape such an infliction, than to retain it in his own hands.  Little Evert was entitled to receive a portion of the captain’s estate by justice, if not by law.  No will had been found, and the son succeeded as heir-at-law.  A deed was accordingly drawn up by Mr. Woods, who understood such matters, and being duly executed, the Beaver Dam property was vested in fee in the child.  His own thirty thousand pounds, the personals he inherited from his mother, and Maud’s fortune, to say nothing of the major’s commission, formed an ample support for the new-married pair.  When all was settled, and made productive, indeed, Willoughby found himself the master of between three and four thousand sterling a year, exclusively of his allowances from the British government, an ample fortune for that day.  In looking over the accounts of Maud’s fortune, he had reason to admire the rigid justice, and free-handed liberality with which his father had managed her affairs.  Every farthing of her income had been transferred to capital, a long minority nearly doubling the original investment.  Unknown to himself, he had married one of the largest heiresses then to be found in the American colonies.  This was unknown to Maud, also; though it gave her great delight on her husband’s account, when she came to learn the truth.

Albany was reached in due time, though not without encountering the usual difficulties.  Here the party separated.  The remaining Plinys and Smashes were all liberated, handsome provisions made for their little wants, and good places found for them, in the connection of the family to which they had originally belonged.  Mike announced his determination to enter a corps that was intended expressly to fight the Indians.  He had a long score to settle, and having no wife or children, he thought he might amuse himself in this way, during a revolution, as well as in any other.