“Oh! in that case, then, all will come right in the end—­though, as your father does not want it, I wish you could have it, now.”

This was said with the most satisfied air in the world, as if the speaker had no possible interest in the matter herself, and it closed the conversation, for that time.  It was not easy to keep up an interest in anything that related to the family, where Mrs. Willoughby was concerned, in which heart did not predominate.  A baronetcy was a considerable dignity in the colony of New York in the year of our Lord, 1775, and it gave its possessor far more importance than it would have done in England.  In the whole colony there was but one, though a good many were to be found further south; and he was known as “Sir John,” as, in England, Lord Rockingham, or, in America, at a later day, La Fayette, was known as “The Marquis.”  Under such circumstances, then, it would have been no trifling sacrifice to an ordinary woman to forego the pleasure of being called “my lady.”  But the sacrifice cost our matron no pain, no regrets, no thought even:  The same attachments which made her happy, away from the world, in the wilderness where she dwelt, supplanted all other feelings, and left her no room, or leisure, to think of such vanities.  When the discourse changed, it was understood that “Sir Hugh” was not to be “Sir Hugh,” and that “Sir Robert” must bide his time.

“Where did you fall in with the Tuscarora, Bob?” suddenly asked the captain, as much to bring up another subject, as through curiosity.  “The fellow had been so long away, I began to think we should never see him again.

“He tells me, sir, he has been on a war path, somewhere out among the western savages.  It seems these Indians fight among themselves, from time to time, and Nick has been trying to keep his hand in.  I found him down at Canajoharie, and took him for a guide, though he had the honesty to own he was on the point of coming over here, had I not engaged him.”

“I’ll answer for it he didn’t tell you that, until you had paid him for the job.”

“Why, to own the truth, he did not, sir.  He pretended something about owing money in the village, and got his pay in advance.  I learned his intentions only when we were within a few miles of the Hut.”

“I’m glad to find, Bob, that you give the place its proper name.  How gloriously Sir Hugh Willoughby, Bart., of The Hut, Tryon county, New York, would sound, Woods!—­Did Nick boast of the scalps he has taken from the Carthaginians?”

“He lays claim to three, I believe, though I have seen none of his trophies.”

“The Roman hero!—­Yet, I have known Nick rather a dangerous warrior.  He was out against us, in some of my earliest service, and our acquaintance was made by my saving his life from the bayonet of one of my own grenadiers.  I thought the fellow remembered the act for some years; but, in the end, I believe I flogged all the gratitude out of him.  His motives, now, are concentrated in the little island of Santa Cruz.”