“We’re all in the dark here,” he remarked, “and might stay so to the end of time, without some one to be relied on, to tell us the news.  Major Willoughby is a fine man”—­Joel meant morally, not physically—­“but he’s a king’s officer, and nat’rally feels inclined to make the best of things for the rig’lars.  The captain, too, was once a soldier, himself, and his feelin’s turn, as it might be, unav’idably, to the side he has been most used to.  We are like people on a desart island, out here in the wilderness—­and if ships won’t arrive to tell us how matters come on, we must send one out to l’arn it for us.  I’m the last man at the Dam”—­so the oi polloi called the valley—­“to say anything hard of either the captain or his son; but one is English born, and the other is English bred; and each will make a difference in a man’s feelin’s.”

To this proposition the miller, in particular, assented; and, for the twentieth time, he made some suggestion about the propriety of Joel’s going himself, in order to ascertain how the land lay.

“You can be back by hoeing,” he added, “and have plenty of time to go as far as Boston, should you wish to.”

Now, while the great events were in progress, which led to the subversion of British power in America, an under-current of feeling, if not of incidents, was running in this valley, which threatened to wash away the foundations of the captain’s authority.  Joel and the miller, if not downright conspirators, had hopes, calculations, and even projects of their own, that never would have originated with men of the same class, in another state of society; or, it might almost be said, in another part of the world.  The sagacity of the overseer had long enabled him to foresee that the issue of the present troubles would be insurrection; and a sort of instinct which some men possess for the strongest side, had pointed out to him the importance of being a patriot.  The captain, he little doubted, would take part with the crown, and then no one knew what might be the consequences.  It is not probable that Joel’s instinct for the strongest side predicted the precise confiscations that subsequently ensued, some of which had all the grasping lawlessness of a gross abuse of power; but he could easily foresee that if the owner of the estate should be driven off, the property and its proceeds, probably for a series of years, would be very apt to fall under his own control and management.  Many a patriot has been made by anticipations less brilliant than these; and as Joel and the miller talked the matter over between them, they had calculated all the possible emolument of fattening beeves, and packing pork for hostile armies, or isolated frontier posts, with a strong gusto for the occupation.  Should open war but fairly commence, and could the captain only be induced to abandon the Knoll, and take refuge within a British camp, everything might be made to go smoothly, until settling day should follow a peace.  At that moment, non est inventus would be a sufficient answer to a demand for any balance.