mid tears. All was, however,
immediately forgotten; for the parties understood each other, and Maud
profited by the scene to escape from the room. This flight broke up the
conference; and the captain, after exhorting his wife and daughter to
set an example of fortitude to the rest of the females, left the house,
to look after his duties among the men.

The absence of Joel cast a shade of doubt over the minds of the
disaffected. These last were comparatively numerous, comprising most of
the native Americans in the Hut, the blacks and Joyce excepted. Strides
had been enabled to effect his purposes more easily with his own
countrymen by working on their good qualities, as well as on their bad.
Many of these men--most of them, indeed--meant well, but their
attachment to the cause of their native land laid them open to
assaults, against which Mike and Jamie Allen were insensible. Captain
Willoughby was an Englishman, in the first place; he was an old army-
officer, in the next; and he had an only son who was confessedly in
open arms against the independence of America. It is easy to see how a
demagogue like Joel, who had free access to the ears of his comrades,
could improve circumstances like these to his own particular objects.
Nevertheless, he had difficulties to contend with. If it were true that
parson Woods still insisted on praying for the king, it was known that
the captain laughed at him for his reverence for Caesar; if Robert
Willoughby were a major in the royal forces, Evert Beekman was a
colonel in the continentals; if the owner of the manor were born in
England, his wife and children were born in America; and he, himself,
was often heard to express his convictions of the justice of most of
that for which the provincials were contending--_all_, the worthy
captain had not yet made up his mind to concede to them.

Then, most of the Americans in the Hut entertained none of the selfish
and narrow views of Joel and the miller. Their wish was to do right, in
the main; and though obnoxious to the charge of entertaining certain
prejudices that rendered them peculiarly liable to become the dupes of
a demagogue, they submitted to many of the better impulses, and were
indisposed to be guilty of any act of downright injustice. The perfect
integrity with which they had ever been treated, too, had its
influence; nor was the habitual kindness of Mrs. Willoughby to their
wives and children forgotten; nor the gentleness of Beula