The officer laughed scornfully.  “Ay,” he assented. “’T is the fashion of the land to run away, so ’t is only a la mode that bondsmen and slaves should imitate their betters.”

“Yer need n’t mount us Americans so hard, seem’ as yer took mortal good care ter git in the front ranks of them as wuz retreatin’,” asserted an Invincible.

I undertook to guide the retreat, because I knew the roads of the region,” retorted the officer, hotly, evidently stung by the remark; then he laughed savagely and continued:  “And how comes it, gentlemen all, that you are not gloriously serving your country?  Cornwallis, with nine thousand picked infantry, is but a twenty miles to the northward; Knyphausen and six thousand Hessians landed at Perth Amboy this morning, and would have got between us and Philadelphia but for our rapid retreat.  Canst sit and booze yourself with flip and swizzle when there are such opportunities for valour?  Hast forgotten the chorus you were for ever singing?” Brereton sang out with spirit:—­

“’In Freedom we’re born, and, like Sons of the Brave,
We’ll never surrender,
But swear to defend her,
And scorn to survive, if unable to save.’”

“’T ain’t no good fighting when we hav n’t a general,” snarled Bagby.

“Now damn you for a pack of dirty, low-minded curs!” swore the officer, his face blazing with anger.  “Here you’ve a general who is risking life, and fortune, and station; and then you blame him because he cannot with a handful of raw troops defeat thirty thousand regulars.  There’s not a general in Europe—­not the great Frederick himself—­who’d so much as have tried to make head against such odds, much less have done so much with so little.  After a whole summer campaign what have the British to show?  They’ve gained the territory within gunshot of their fleet; but at White Plains, though they were four to one, they dared not attack us, and valiantly turned tail about, preferring to overrun undefended country to assaulting our position.  I tell you General Washington is the honestest, bravest, most unselfish man in the world, and you are a pack of—­”

“Are my quarters ready, Colonel Brereton?” asked a tall man, standing in the doorway.

“This way, yer Excellency,” obsequiously cried the landlord, catching up a candle and coming out from behind the bar.  “I’ve set apart our settin’-room and our bestest room —­thet ’ere with the tester bed—­for yer honourable Excellency.”

“Come with me, Colonel Brereton,” ordered the general, as he followed the publican.

Motioning the tavern-keeper out of the room, Washington threw aside his wet cloak and hat, and taking from a pocket what looked like a piece of canvas, he unfolded and spread it out on the table, revealing a large folio map of New Jersey.

“You know the country,” he said; “show me where the Raritan can be forded.”

“Here, here, and here,” replied Brereton, indicating with his finger the points.  “But this rain to-night will probably so swell it that there’ll be no crossing for come a two days.”