I made my way over the rustling, brittle leaves, and soon found a trail that led up over high land.  I followed it for a matter of some minutes, and came to the road, taking my left-hand way, as they told me.  There was no traveller in sight.  I walked as fast as I could, passing a village at sunrise, where I asked my way in French at a smithy.  Beyond there was a narrow clearing, stumpy and rank with briers, on the up-side of the way.  Presently, looking over a level stretch, I could see trees arching the road again, from under which, as I was looking, a squad of cavalry came out in the open.  It startled me.  I began to think I was trapped, I thought of dodging into the brush.  But, no; they had seen me, and I would be a fool now to turn fugitive.  I looked about me.  Cows were feeding near.  I picked up a stick and went deliberately into the bushes, driving one of them to the pike and heading her toward them.  They went by at a gallop, never pulling up while in sight of me.  Then I passed the cow and went on, stopping an hour later at a lonely log house, where I found French people, and a welcome that included moose meat, a cup of coffee, and fried potatoes.  Leaving, I rode some miles with a travelling tinker, a voluble, well-meaning youth who took a liking for me, and went far out of his way to help me on.  He blushed proudly when, stopping to mend a pot for the cook at a camp of militia, they inquired if I was his wife.

“No; but she may be yet,” said he; “who knows?”

I knew it was no good place for me, and felt some relief when the young man did me this honor.  From that moment they set me down for a sweetheart.

“She ’s too big for you, my boy,” said the general, laughing.

“The more the better,” said he; “can’t have too much of a good wife.”

I said little to him as we rode along.  He asked for my address, when I left him, and gave me the comforting assurance that he would see me again.  I made no answer, leaving him at a turn where, north of us, I could see the white houses of Wrentham.  Kingston was hard by, its fort crowning a hill-top by the river.

It was past three by a tower clock at the gate of the Weirs when I got there.  A driveway through tall oaks led to the mansion of dark stone.  Many acres of park and field and garden were shut in with high walls.  I rang a bell at the small gate, and some fellow in livery took my message.

“Wait ’ere, my lass,” said he, with an English accent.  “I ’ll go at once to the secretary.”

I sat in a rustic chair by the gate-side, waiting for that functionary.

“Ah, come in, come in,” said he, coolly, as he opened the gate a little.

He said nothing more, and I followed him—­an oldish man with gray eyes and hair and side-whiskers, and neatly dressed, his head covered to the ears with a high hat, tilted backward.  We took a stone path, and soon entered a rear door.