excited
pleasant thoughts of rural business and domestic content. A rudely
constructed wagon, to which were harnessed two lean horses, stood at the
door of the mill, and two men, one of them advanced in years, and the
other apparently just beyond the verge of boyhood, were occupied in
heaping upon it a heavy load of bags of meal. The whitened habiliments
of these men showed them to be the proper attendants of the place, and
now engaged in their avocation. A military guard stood by the wagon, and
as soon as it was filled, they were seen to put the horses in motion,
and to retire by a road that crossed the stream and take the descending
direction of the current close along the opposite bank.

When this party had disappeared, the old man directed the mill to be
stopped. The gates were let down, the machinery ungeared, and, in a few
moments, all was still. The millers now retired to the little habitation
hard by.

"There is so much work lost," said the elder to his companion, as they
approached the gate that opened into the curtilage of the dwelling. "We
shall never be paid for that load. Colonel Innis doesn't care much out
of whose pocket he feeds his men; and as to his orders upon Rawdon's
quarter-master, why it is almost the price of blood to venture so far
from home to ask for payment--to say nothing of the risk of finding the
army purse as low as a poor miller's at home. I begrudge the grain,
Christopher, and the work that grinds it; but there is no disputing with
these whiskered foot-pads with bayonets in their hands--they must have
it and will have it, and there's an end of it."

"Aye," replied the man addressed by the name of Christopher, "as you
say, they will have it; and if they are told that a poor man's sweat has
been mixed with their bread, they talk to us about the cause--the
cause--the cause. I am tired of this everlasting preaching about king
and country. I don't know but if I had my own way I'd take the country
against the king any day. What does George the Third care for us, with a
great world of water between?"

"Whisht, Christopher Shaw--whisht, boy! We have no opinions of our own;
trees and walls have ears at this time. It isn't for us to be bringing
blood and burning under our roof, by setting up for men who have
opinions. No, no. Wait patiently; and perhaps, Christopher, it will not
be long before this gay bird Cornwallis will be plucked of his feathers.
The man is on his way now that, by the he