ent that Rodney brooded over the long series of failures,
but he still stoutly insisted, "It's not Washington's fault, I know."

When, just after New Year's, 1777, report came that Washington, with
his ragged troops, had crossed the Delaware amid the floating ice, and
marched almost barefooted to Trenton in a howling snowstorm, and there
had defeated the Hessians, Rodney fairly shouted in his joy, "I knew
he'd do it, I knew he'd do it!"

About a month later, Angus came home. He was a sorry looking Angus,
what with a severe wound, and his ragged regimentals, and his feet
bound up in rags. But he was a very important Angus, withal, for had
he not crossed the Delaware with Washington; had he not left bloody
footprints on the snowy road to Trenton; had he not charged down King
Street, swept by the northeast gale and British lead, and driven the
brutal Hessians as chaff is swept before the wind? He was, to the
village folk, the returned conqueror, and much they made of him, the
Allisons with the others. He no longer envied Rodney mounted on Nat
riding over the country with all the importance of a special
messenger, and it is to be hoped that Rodney did not envy him, now
that conditions seemed reversed. To young Allison's credit be it said
that, if in his heart lay a smouldering spark of envy, it did not show
itself.

When Angus was able to go about, he frequently visited the Allison
home, and revelled in narrations of his experiences. He, like the
common people generally, regarded Washington as an idol. He delighted
in descriptions of the appearance of his beloved general at the
crossing of the Delaware; again at the battle of Princeton, when
Washington had ridden out directly between the lines of the British
and the wavering Americans he sought to encourage, sitting like a
statue on his big horse, while the bullets of friends and foes flew
about him, and then riding away unscathed, as though by a miracle.
The lad's enthusiasm made it all seem very real, even when he told
how, one winter morning, the general walked about among his men while
wearing a strip of red flannel tied about his throat because of a
cold, and picked up with one hand a piece of heavy baggage, that would
have burdened both arms of an ordinary man, and lightly tossed it on
top of a baggage wagon.

"He had but twenty-four hundred men to capture Trenton, an' all the
other generals who were to help him failed. I was right close to him
when the messenger