r protested in vain; the roysterers threatened to put
Peter in the guard-house and gag him, or even to "string him up," if
he didn't hold his tongue.

The butler was forced to produce the keys to the wine-cellar, and the
consequences of his surrender were what might have been expected. The
mischief already perpetrated in coarse fun--the horseplay of
backwoods big boys cut loose from restraint, though rude and
destructive, was harmless compared with the orgies to which it was a
prelude. The rich and abundant liquors stored away to supply the
family demand for twenty years were in a day poured down the throats
of the pseudo-soldiers. Under the influence of drink many of the
privates, and not a few officers, lost all sense of decency. Some of
the bolder among them entered the house, roamed through kitchen,
parlor, library, bedrooms. One drunken lout smashed the rare
violincello, another brought the gilded harp out into the barnyard and
used it as a gridiron on which to roast a confiscated pig. The oil
portrait of Blennerhassett, set up as a target, was riddled with
bullets.

Dominick made a frantic effort to rescue his father's picture from so
ignominious a fate, but, cuffed on the ear by a bully, the boy had no
recourse except to hide away in his mother's room with Harman and the
black housemaid, Juno.

Such were the scenes enacting in and around her beautiful mansion,
while the disappointed mistress was hurrying homeward. A heavy fog
still hung over the valley and almost hid the sullen waters of the
river from view. As Madam Blennerhassett urged her horse along the
river road, her vigilant eye kept her aware of a small boat, which,
soon after her starting back from Marietta, she had seen glide out of
the mouth of the Muskingum and drift down the Ohio, hugging close to
the north shore. Indistinctly, through the mist, she could make out
the shape of a man rowing the boat. Whenever she quickened the pace of
her horse, the man plied his oars rapidly; whenever she slackened
reins, the man slowed up; he kept opposite her and was watching her.
Madam Blennerhassett was a courageous woman; but she was a woman, and
she began to be afraid. Why was that man furtively following her down
the river? Why did he keep her constantly in sight? What might be his
evil design? Her terror increased as she neared the ferry, where she
had ordered Peter Taylor and Ransom, the negro, to await her return.
Striking her steed smartly with the rid