“An attack!” said Nat, his face all alight.
“At last!” cried George, with an involuntary tug at his belt.
“We’ll make them run as we did before,” declared Ben Cooper.
But, as was usual, Nat’s was the practical mind.
“It is good news,” said he, “and we are all glad of it. But the next move, I think, is to get it to the ears of General Ward.”
A chorus of assent followed this. In a few minutes they reached an encampment of colonists; to a gray-haired captain, a veteran of the Louisburg, Nat represented the case as far as he saw fit and asked that two mounts be loaned them.
“We haven’t horses enough for our own use,” said the captain. “But if it is, as you say, a matter of great importance, why of course you must be accommodated.”
Accordingly the nags were brought forward and saddled. Then all six, with the dwarf riding with Nat, mounted and rode off at a smart canter, heading for Cambridge and General Ward.
SHOWS HOW EZRA RODE WITH PRESCOTT TOWARD BUNKER HILL
As the six dashed along the morning roads toward Roxbury, Ezra noted much improvement in the American position; and those works that were in view had grown stronger and much more formidable than heretofore.
“It is right cleverly laid out,” commented Gilbert Scarlett, whose keen, dark eyes missed nothing. “I am more struck with admiration of your farmer and mechanic soldiery the more I see of them.”
“I can see,” said Nat Brewster, who rode with him, “that you have been harkening to the stories that the British have to tell about us. They call us impudent peasants who, in ignorance of what we are about, dare to face the army of the King. But that is mere bluster and affectation. Those officers among the British who have any experience in the warfare of the colonies, know that we have leaders who are perhaps their superiors.”
“Almost,” said he, “do you surpass our young friend Prentiss in attachment to the cause.”
“It is the cause of my country,” said Nat, simply.
A look of something like sadness came into the adventurer’s face.
“It must be a fine thing, indeed, to feel like that,” said he moodily. “As I have mentioned, I have served many causes—but never that of my own country, because I have no country.”
“I was born in Lisbon, of an English mother and an Italian father,” said Scarlett, “and in my childhood, you might say the world was my cradle. My father followed the wars and my mother followed him. And when they died, I took up their task of wandering. This sword,” and his hand rested upon the heavy hilt, “was my father’s, and I have carried it from Muscovy to the Floridas; and it has profited me no more than the cloth you see upon my back.”
