“Come back!” roared Sir Lupus, standing straight up in his ponderous stirrups.  “Come back, you little vixen!  Am I to be obeyed, or am I not?  Baggage!  Undutiful tree-cat!  Dammy, she’s off!”

He looked at me and smote his fat thigh with open hand.

“Did you ever see the like of her!” he chuckled, in his pride.  “She’s a Dutch Varick for obstinacy, but the rest is Ormond—­all Ormond.  Ride on, George, and tell those rebel fools at Fonda’s Bush that they should be hunting cover in the forts if folk at the Fish-House read that smoke aright.  Follow the Brandt-Meester if Dorothy slips you, and tell her I’ll birch her, big as she is, if she’s not home by the new moon rise.”

Then he dragged his hat over his mottled ears, grasped the bridle and galloped on, followed by old Cato and his red coat and curly horn.

I had ridden a cautious mile on the dim, leafy trail ere I picked up Van Horn, only to quit him.  I had ridden full three before I caught sight of Dorothy, sitting her gray horse, head at gaze in my direction.

“What in the world set you tearing off through the forest like that?” I asked, laughing.

She turned her horse and we walked on, side by side.

“I wished to come,” she said, simply.  “The pleasures of this day must end only with the night.  Besides, I was burning to ask you if it is true that you mean to stay here and serve with our militia?”

“I mean to stay,” I said, slowly.

“And serve?”

“If they desire it.”

“Why?” she asked, raising her bright eyes.

I thought a moment, then said: 

“I have decided to resist our King’s soldiers.”

“But why here?” she repeated, clear eyes still on mine.  “Tell me the truth.”

“I think it is because you are here,” I said, soberly.

The loveliest smile parted her lips.

“I hoped you would say that....  Do I please you?  Listen, cousin:  I have a mad impulse to follow you—­to be hindered rages me beyond endurance—­as when Sir Lupus called me back.  For, within the past hour the strangest fancy has possessed me that we have little time left to be together; that I should not let one moment slip to enjoy you.”

“Foolish prophetess,” I said, striving to laugh.

“A prophetess?” she repeated under her breath.  And, as we rode on through the forest dusk, her head drooped thoughtfully, shaded by her loosened hair.  At last she looked up dreamily, musing aloud: 

“No prophetess, cousin; only a child, nerveless and over-fretted with too much pleasure, tired out with excitement, having played too hard.  I do not know quite how I should conduct.  I am unaccustomed to comrades like you, cousin; and, in the untasted delights of such companionship, have run wild till my head swims wi’ the humming thoughts you stir in me, and I long for a dark, still room and a bed to lie on, and think of this day’s pleasures.”