live current, down which it headed. "Don't you
consarn yerse'f about them ships--'tis the dark o' the moon an' a
cloudy night, an' as fur our course, I could _smell_ it out, if it
come to that!"

They rounded the end of the town, and turned into the Hudson, gliding
black over the surface of blackness. They pulled for some distance
against the stream, so as to land far enough above our post at Paulus
Hook. Going ashore in a little cove apparently well-known to Meadows,
they drew up the boat, and hastened inland. Meadows had led the way
about half a mile, when a dark mass composed of farmhouse and
outbuildings loomed up before them.

"Here's where the hoss is; Pete Westervelt takes keer of him,"
whispered the watchman, and strode, not to the stables, but to the
door of what appeared to be an outer kitchen, which he opened with a
key of his own. A friendly whinny greeted him from the narrow dark
space into which he disappeared. He soon came out, leading the horse
he used in his journeys to and from the American camp, and bearing
saddle and bridle on his arm. The two men speedily adjusted these,
whereupon Philip mounted.

"Bring or send the beast back by night," said Meadows, handing over
the key, with which he had meanwhile relocked the door of his
improvised stable. "Hoss-flesh is damn' skeerce these times." This was
the truth, the needs of the armies having raised the price of a horse
to a fabulous sum.

Philip promised to return the horse or its equivalent; gave a swift
acknowledgment of thanks, and a curt good-night; and made off, leaving
old Meadows to foot it, and row it, once more back to New York.

'Twas now, till he should reach the camp, but a matter of steady
galloping, with ears alert for the sound of other hoof-beats, eyes
watchful at crossroads and open stretches for the party he hoped to
forestall. While he had had ways and means to think of, and had been
in peril of detection by the British, or in doubt of obtaining a horse
without a long trudge to Ellis's hut, his mind had been diverted from
the unhappy interview with Margaret. But now that swept back into his
thoughts, inundating his soul with grief and shame, of the utmost
degree of bitterness. These were the more complete from the
recollection of the joyous anticipations with which he had gone to
meet her.

Contemplation of this contrast, sense of his desertion, overcame his
habitual resistance to self-pity, a feeling against which he was
usual