than childish to complain when no good could come from
uttering peevish words, and I strove to put from my mind all that I
desired, by speaking of Archie, idly wondering where he might be.

"Unless he is snug at home, I'm allowing the Britishers have got him
penned up in such shape that neither you nor I can do much toward
aiding him," Hiram said emphatically, and then to my distress of mind
he set about telling of an acquaintance of his who had had the ill
fortune to displease some of General Gage's following, thereby bringing
himself to a sojourn in Boston prison.

After that we talked of this thing and of another, it makes little
difference what, I meanwhile watching the sun until my eyes ran water,
coming to believe now and then it was standing still in the heavens, so
slowly did it move.

Finally, however, the night came, as all nights will while we remain in
this world, whether they be for our good or for our evil. The shadows
had hardly more than begun to gather when Hiram, shaking himself as does
a dog, said in a business-like tone:

"I'm allowing, lad, that we can't start any too soon. The guard-boats
will be out as thick as flies around a molasses jug within the next half
hour, and even though there's a chance of being seen, by skirting along
the shore of this island we have reason to believe it'll be possible to
keep out of sight. According to my way of thinking the risk will be less
now, than if we waited for the lobster backs to begin their night's
work."

As Hiram suggested so we did, working rapidly in launching the skiff,
and when she was waterborne we pulled as fellows will who believe death
is pursuing them, meanwhile realizing keenly that once chase should be
made we could not hope to escape.

Fortune favored us this time, however scurvy a trick she had played the
night before, and we gained Morton's point on the Charlestown shore
without apparently having been seen by friend or foe.

Night had so nearly shut in now that we were hidden by the gloom, and
had every reason to believe we were come out from amid our enemies
without other harm than suffering with hunger and thirst.

If Archie had been with me, I could have cried aloud with joy as we
aimed a straight course for the Penny ferry.

There is no need that I go into details of that tramp from the Medford
river to Cambridge, nor for me to set down all which was said between
us. It is enough if I write that we were come in the early mornin