“You sleep lightly, Davy,” he said, I think to try me.

I did not answer, fearing to tell him that I had been awake watching him.

“I have one friend, at least,” said the Colonel.

“You have many, sir,” I answered, “as you will find when the time comes.”

“The time has come,” said he; “to-day I shall be able to count them.  Davy, I want you to do something for me.”

“Now, sir?” I answered, overjoyed.

“As soon as the sun strikes that orchard,” he said, pointing out of the window.  “You have learned how to keep things to yourself.  Now I want you to impart them to others.  Go out, and tell the village that I am going away.”

“That you are going away, sir?” I repeated.

“That I am going away,” he said, “with my army, (save the mark!), with my army and my drummer boy and my paper money.  Such is my faith in the loyalty of the good people of these villages to the American cause, that I can safely leave the flag flying over their heads with the assurance that they will protect it.”

I stared at him doubtfully, for at times a pleasantry came out of his bitterness.

“Ay,” he said, “go!  Have you any love for me?”

“I have, sir,” I answered.

“By the Lord, I believe you,” he said, and picking up my small hunting shirt, he flung it at me.  “Put it on, and go when the sun rises.”

As the first shaft of light over the bluff revealed the diamonds in the orchard grass I went out, wondering.  Suspecting would be a better word for the nature I had inherited.  But I had my orders.  Terence was pacing the garden, his leggings turned black with the dew.  I looked at him.  Here was a vessel to disseminate.

“Terence, the Colonel is going back to Virginia with the army.”

“Him!” cried Terence, dropping the stock of his Deckard to the ground.  “And back to Kaintuckee!  Arrah, ‘tis a sin to be jokin’ before a man has a bit in his sthummick.  Bad cess to yere plisantry before breakfast.”

“I’m telling you what the Colonel himself told me,” I answered, and ran on.  “Davy, darlin’!” I heard him calling after me as I turned the corner, but I looked not back.

There was a single sound in the street.  A thin, bronzed Indian lad squatted against the pickets with his fingers on a reed, his cheeks distended.  He broke off with a wild, mournful note to stare at me.  A wisp of smoke stole from a stone chimney, and the smell that corn-pone and bacon leave was in the air.  A bolt was slammed back, a door creaked and stuck, was flung open, and with a “Va t’en, mechant!” a cotton-clad urchin was cast out of the house, and fled into the dusty street.  Breathing the morning air in the doorway, stood a young woman in a cotton gown, a saucepan in hand.  She had inquisitive eyes, a pointed, prying nose, and I knew her to be the village gossip, the wife of Jules, Monsieur Vigo’s clerk.  She had the same smattering of English as her husband.  Now she stood regarding me narrowly between half-closed lids.