“’T is surely not necessary that we should be treated so,” pleaded Mr. Meredith.  “My wife has not the strength to bear along—­”

“Can ’t help that.  Like as not the British horse ha’n’t had word that the Convention troops have been sent away, and will ride this far, and we reckon we can’t have you givin’ them no information,” answered the man.  “I don ’t want no talk.  Into the saddle with you.”

Protests and prayers were absolutely unavailing, and the whole party hurriedly set off at the best pace the horses were able to go.  As they journeyed, a halt was made at each cabin and each plantation, and every white man found was summarily ordered by the captain to get his gun and join the party; while at each place all the horses were impressed, not merely to carry those unprovided with one, but to prevent their falling into the hands of the foe.  Nor did the captain pay more heed to the expostulations and grumblings of the men, at being called away from their crops at the busiest farming season, nor of the women, at being deprived of their protectors in times of such danger, than he had to the weaker ones of the Merediths.

“The invasion law just passed by the’sembly calls out every man as can fight, and declares every one as won’t a traitor, so you can take your choice of shootin’ at the British or bein’ shot by us,” was the captain’s unvarying formula, be the complaints what they might.

As if to make the ill feeling the greater, too, he told the whole party at one point of the route, “If you-alls had been patriots and ’listed four weeks ago, you ’d every one of you’ve got a bounty of five hundred dollars of the money my saddle-bags is filled with; but you had n’t spunk, so it serves you-ails good and handsome that now you’ve got to fight for ’nary a shillin’.”

“We would n’t have been a tinker’s damn the richer if we had,” snarled one of the unwilling conscripts.  “I’d rather have a pound of hay than the same weight in cursed state money, for you can feed the hay to a hoss, but I’m consarned if t’ other ’s good for anythin’.”

“Say, cap,” asked a second, “has you ralely got them saddle-bags o’ yourn filled with the stuff?”

“Ay.  The presses were at Charlottesville busy strikin’ it, and I was told to help save what was already printed from capture.”

“Lord! the British would n’t have seized that, with all the cord wood there is in Charlottesville, to say nothin’ of grind-stones and ploughs and chimbleys built of brick and other things of value,” asserted the original speaker.

“Might come handy along of all the terbacker they’ve took down to Petersburg.  Do to light a pipe with, I reckon,” suggested another.

“Say, cap,” again spoke up the second speaker, “the raison as why I asked that there question is that we’ll be gettin’ to Hunker’s ordinary at the four corners right smart off now, and I was calculatin’ if you had enough of the rags with you to set us up a drink all round?  ’T won’t cost more ’n ten thousand dollars if Hunkers ain’t in an avaricious mood.”