admit that it might have
been more seemly had we opened our eyes before sunrise."

"It is to my mind that we were wise to get all the sleep possible,"
little Frenchie said with a shrug of the shoulders. "A good soldier
should be able to sleep anywhere and at any time, and it is his duty to
take advantage of every opportunity to rest, in order that he may be the
better able to undergo fatigue when it becomes necessary."

"But you are not a soldier," Saul said sharply, as if offended by the
words; but Pierre, nothing daunted, replied cheerily:

"Yet am I in a fair way to be one, having enrolled myself as a Minute
Boy. I am much the same as an apprentice, according to my way of
thinking, and, being so, should copy after my elders--"

"Meaning that you ought to sleep like a laggard until the sun is high in
the heavens?" Saul cried and I, growing irritated because he persisted
in harping upon our indolence, said, speaking quite as sharply as had
he:

"We have done no harm by being laggards. I would like for you to explain
how we might have been advantaged by awakening at daybreak and sitting
here waiting for you to come? It seems to me just as well that we should
sleep, as sit around twiddling our thumbs."

"I was astir a full hour before daybreak, attending to the work set me,
else I would not be here thus early, ready to make the venture as agreed
upon."

One might have fancied Saul was eager to be praised for his early
rising, and I might have said something calculated to irritate him, but
that Pierre cried with a laugh:

"So you were, my brave Minute Boy; but remember that most like you
crawled into bed a good two hours before Fitz and I did, and it is also
reasonable to suppose you were not awakened at midnight to give up your
blankets."

This remark seemed to anger Saul instead of soothing him, and, fearing
we might have then and there a wordy battle between the excitable little
French boy and my quick tempered cousin, I broke in by saying:

"Look you here, lads, there is no reason why you should squabble as to
who turned out of bed first this morning. That is over and done with,
and it strikes me we had best look forward rather than backward. Did you
speak with my mother, Saul?"

"Ay, that I did."

"And was she opposed to our going into York?"

"I would not be willing to say quite as much as that; but certain it is
her heart was troubled sorely when I told her what we counted on doing.
I believe of a