of what was going on, in the inhabited parts of the
country, and of the expediency of sending some trustworthy person on
such an errand. He had frequently intimated his own readiness to go, if
his neighbours wished it.

"We're all in the dark here," he remarked, "and might stay so to the
end of time, without some one to be relied on, to tell us the news.
Major Willoughby is a fine man"--Joel meant _morally_, not
_physically_--"but he's a king's officer, and nat'rally feels
inclined to make the best of things for the rig'lars. The captain, too,
was once a soldier, himself, and his feelin's turn, as it might be,
unav'idably, to the side he has been most used to. We are like people
on a desart island, out here in the wilderness--and if ships won't
arrive to tell us how matters come on, we must send one out to l'arn it
for us. I'm the last man at the Dam"--so the _oi polloi_ called
the valley--"to say anything hard of either the captain or his son; but
one is English born, and the other is English bred; and each will make
a difference in a man's feelin's."

To this proposition the miller, in particular, assented; and, for the
twentieth time, he made some suggestion about the propriety of Joel's
going himself, in order to ascertain how the land lay.

"You can be back by hoeing," he added, "and have plenty of time to go
as far as Boston, should you wish to."

Now, while the great events were in progress, which led to the
subversion of British power in America, an under-current of feeling, if
not of incidents, was running in this valley, which threatened to wash
away the foundations of the captain's authority. Joel and the miller,
if not downright conspirators, had hopes, calculations, and even
projects of their own, that never would have originated with men of the
same class, in another state of society; or, it might almost be said,
in another part of the world. The sagacity of the overseer had long
enabled him to foresee that the issue of the present troubles would be
insurrection; and a sort of instinct which some men possess for the
strongest side, had pointed out to him the importance of being a
patriot. The captain, he little doubted, would take part with the
crown, and then no one knew what might be the consequences. It is not
probable that Joel's instinct for the strongest side predicted the
precise confiscations that subsequently ensued, some of which had all
the grasping lawlessness of a gross abuse of power; but