We passed three delightful days under the Old Offender’s roof, and then thanking our host for his kindness to us, and paying our bill, we started on our return journey for Oxford.  We arrived safely, and staid with Boston Yankee a fortnight.  We were close by the Scheimer homestead, which was but a few miles away across the river; but we feared neither father nor brothers, nor even the woman who was so unwilling to let Sarah go with me.  The constable, and the rest had carried home the news of our marriage, and the old folks made the best of it.  Indeed, after they heard we had returned to Oxford, Sarah’s mother sent a man over to tell her that if she would come home any day she could pack her clothes and other things, and take them away with her.  The day after we received this invitation, Boston Yankee offered to take Sarah over home, and promised to bring her safely back.  So she went, was treated tolerably well, at any rate, she secured her clothes and brought them home with her.

It was now time to bid farewell to our staunch friend, Boston Yankee.  I had inducements to go to Goshen, Orange County, N. Y., where I had many acquaintances, and to Goshen we went.  We found a good boarding place, and I began to practice medicine, After we had been there a while, Sarah wrote home to let her family know where she was, and that she was well and happy.  Her father wrote in reply that we both might come there at any time, and that if she would come home he would do as well by her as he would by any of his children.  This letter made Sarah uneasy.  In spite of all the ill usage she had received from her parents and family, she was nevertheless homesick, and longed to get back again.  I could see that this feeling grew upon her daily.  We were pleasantly situated where we were; I had a good and growing practice, and we had made many friends; but this did not satisfy her; she had some property in her own right, but her father was trustee of it, and he had hitherto kept it away from her from spite at her love affair with me.  But now she was to be taken into favor again, and she represented to me that we could go back and get her money, and that I could establish myself there as well as anywhere; we could live well and happily among her friends and old associations.  These things were dinged in my ears day after day, till I was sick of the very sound.  I could see that she was bound, or, as the Dutch doctor would have said, “bewitched” to go back, and at last, after five happy months in Goshen, in an evil hour I consented to go home with her.

CHAPTER V.

How the Scheimers made me suffer.

Return to Scheimer-peace and then pandemonium-frightful family
row-running for refuge-the gang again-arrest at midnight-struggle with my captors-in jail once more-put in irons-A horrible prison breaking out-the dungeon-Sarah’s baby-curious compromises-old Scheimer my jailer-signing A bond-free again-last words from Sarah.