ivulet--How now, Jamie?
You look as if there were news to communicate?"

Jamie Allen, in truth, had entered at that instant in so much haste as
to have overlooked the customary ceremony of sending in his name, or
even of knocking.

"News!" repeated the mason, with a sort of wondering smile "and it's
just that I've come to bring. Wad ye think it, baith, gentlemen, that
our people are in their am cabins ag'in, boiling their pots, and frying
their pork, a' the same as if the valley was in a state of
tranquillity, and we so many lairds waiting for them to come and do our
pleasure!"

"I do not understand you, Jamie--whom do you mean by 'our people'?"

"Sure, just the desairters; Joel, and the miller, and Michael, and the
rest."

"And the cabins--and the pots--and the pork--it is gibberish to me."

"I hae what ye English ca' an aiccent, I know; but, in my judgment,
captain Willoughby, the words may be comprehended without a dictionary.
It's just that Joel Strides, and Daniel the miller, and the rest o'
them that fleed, the past night, have gane into their ain abodes, and
have lighted their fires, and put over their pots and kettles, and set
up their domestic habitudes, a' the same as if this Beaver Dam was ain
o' the pairks o' Lonnon!"

"The devil they have! Should this be the case, serjeant, our sortie may
be made at an earlier hour than that mentioned. I never will submit to
such an insult."

Captain Willoughby was too much aroused to waste many words; and,
seizing his hat, he proceeded forthwith to take a look for himself. The
stage, or gallery on the roofs, offering the best view, in a minute he
and his two companions were on it.

"There; ye'll be seein' a smoke in Joel's habitation, with your own
een; and, yon is anither, in the dwelling of his cousin Seth," said
Jamie, pointing in the direction he named.

"Smoke there is, of a certainty; but the Indians may have lighted fires
in the kitchen, to do their own cooking. This looks like investing us,
serjeant, rather more closely than the fellows have done before."

"I rather think not, your honour--Jamie is right, or my eyes do not
know a man from a woman. That is certainly a female in the garden of
Joel, and I'll engage it's Phoebe, pulling onions for his craving
stomach, the scoundrel!"

Captain Willoughby never moved without his little glass, and it was
soon levelled at the object mentioned.

"By Jupiter, you are right, Joyce"--he cried. "It is Phoebe, t