“Silly!” she said, cheeks aflame.  “I have no patience to be mauled.”  Then she laughed uncertainly to see him lying there, too astonished to get up.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

“Who taught you that hold?” he demanded, indignantly, scrambling to his feet.  “I thought I alone knew that.”

“Why, Captain Campbell taught you last week and ...  I was at the window ... sewing,” she said, demurely.

Ruyven looked at me, disgusted, muttering, “If I could learn things the way she does, I’d not waste time at King’s College, I can tell you.”

“You’re not going to King’s College, anyhow,” said his sister.  “York is full o’ loyal rebels and Tory patriots, and father says he’ll be damned if you can learn logic where all lack it.”

She held out her hand, smiling.  “No malice, Ruyven, and we’ll forgive each other.”

Her brother met the clasp; then, hands in his pockets, followed us back through the stockade towards the porch.  I was pleased to see that his pride had suffered no more than his body from the fall he got, which augured well for a fair-minded manhood.

As we approached the house I heard hollow noises within, like groans; and I stopped, listening intently.

“It is Sir Lupus snoring,” observed Ruyven.  “He will wake soon; I think I had best call Tulip,” he added, exchanging a glance with his sister; and entered the house calling, “Cato!  Cato!  Tulip!  Tulip!  I say!”

“Who is Tulip?” I asked of Dorothy, who lingered at the threshold folding her embroidery into a bundle.

“Tulip?  Oh, Tulip cooks for us—­black as a June crow, cousin.  She is voodoo.”

“Evil-eye and all?” I asked, smiling.

Dorothy looked up shyly.  “Don’t you believe in the evil-eye?”

I was not perfectly sure whether I did or not, but I said “No.”

“To believe is not necessarily to be afraid,” she added, quickly.

Now, had I believed in the voodoo craft, or in the power of an evil-eye, I should also have feared.  Those who have ever witnessed a sea-island witch-dance can bear me out, and I think a man may dread a hag and be no coward either.  But distance and time allay the memories of such uncanny works.  I had forgotten whether I was afraid or not.  So I said, “There are no witches, Dorothy.”

She looked at me, dreamily.  “There are none ... that I fear.”

“Not even Catrine Montour?” I asked, to plague her.

“No; it turns me cold to think of her running in the forest, but I am not afraid.”

She stood pensive in the doorway, rolling and unrolling her embroidery.  Harry and Cecile came out, flourishing alder poles from which lines and hooks dangled.  Samuel and Benny carried birchen baskets and shallow nets.

“If we’re to have Mohawk chubbs,” said Cecile, “you had best come with us, Dorothy.  Ruyven has a book and has locked himself in the play-room.”