ller's habitation.

Soon after sunrise the rain ceased to fall, the clouds dispersed, and a
fresh and brilliant morning broke forth upon the heavens. The success of
their late exploit had raised the spirits of the wanderers. A sense of
intense delight animated Butler's feelings: a consciousness of liberty
once more enjoyed, after hopes deferred and almost despairing captivity,
seemed to regenerate him and make him acquainted with emotions he had
never felt before. His heart was full of gratitude to his new friend
Ramsay, and the expression of it was warm and sincere. Nature had never
appeared so lovely to him as now: the whispers of the forest and the
murmur of the clear brook fell on his enfranchised ear like the sweetest
music: there was melody for him even in the screams of the jay and the
harsh notes of the crow: and once when his companion had halted in sight
of a buck that bounded through the wood before him, Butler, apprehensive
that John was about to discharge a bullet after the forest-rover, found
himself involuntarily pleading the cause of the noble animal: "Do not
draw your pistol on him, Ramsay, I pray you. Let him run; it is
liberty--liberty, good comrade--and that is sacred."

Before eight o'clock they had reached the rendezvous. Here they found
three troopers who, although armed, were habited in the plain dress of
the country, which enabled them to claim the denomination either of Whig
or Tory militia, as their occasions might demand. These men had lain
perdue, for some days, in the depth of the forest, impatiently awaiting
for intelligence from Ramsay.

"Well, Harry Winter," said John, laughing, "what say you now? I have
brought you the miller's boy at last. Have I not made my word good?"

"Truth, John," replied the trooper, "there is more stuff in you than we
counted on. Macdonald must be a silly crow to let the fox steal his
cheese from him so easily."

"You would have come nearer the mark, Harry, if you had called him a
sleepy lout, for whilst he was nodding I took his cake off the griddle.
It was fair filching by night, as the Major will tell you. But come,
lads, here is no time for dallying, we mustn't have the grass growing to
our horses' heels, when we have a whole pack of King George's hounds on
our trail. So move, boys!" and saying these words, John led the party
forward at a rapid gallop.

They had not gone far before they found themselves upon a road which led
through a piece of thin woo