aky voice of his which ever set my
nerves on edge:

"Hi! there, Luke Wright, has that scurvy father of yours mended his ways
yet, or does he think the king's officers will wait awhile before
sending him to the gallows where he belongs?"

Now while I hold that no lad should take part in a street brawl, I ask
what would any boy have done whose father had been thus assailed by one
who was not fit to speak his name? I set upon the miserable Tory so
suddenly that he, taken unawares, so to speak, went down beneath me, and
then I pummelled him as he deserved, until the cur howled for mercy,
Silas and Archie standing by with hands in their coat pockets lest Amos
Nelson should say afterward that the three of us had attacked him.

"You'll hear from me one day, in a way that won't be to your liking,"
Amos cried threateningly after I had allowed him to get up, and he had
taken to his heels until having gotten a safe distance away. "We'll see
what General Gage has to say when he knows how the king's friends are
treated by you, who would be rebels if you had stomach enough to use
your hands as well as you do your tongues!"

"You one of the king's friends!" Archie cried derisively. "If he picks
his intimates from such spawn as you there's good reason why he has
allowed these colonies of his to come to open rebellion against
injustice."

"You've said it! You've said it!" the Tory cur cried as if in delight.
"You've admitted that you are rebels, and the king's officers shall hear
of what you say, for the time has come when they are marking such as you
for future punishment."

"And what have they marked you for?" Silas asked with a laugh. "Are you
counted on being able to act the part of a half-way decent scarecrow, or
are you ranked as a lickspittle to some lobster back who hasn't yet
learned to speak English?"

"Before we're many days older you shall come to understand some of the
marks, and I'll be the one to explain them in a way that won't be to
your liking," Amos shouted, and just then he was bowled over by a clod
of earth that Archie flung with an aim which would have done your heart
good to see.

"There's what you call a rebel mark," the dear lad cried with a laugh at
his own success, "and I'm counting you'll carry it longer than shall we
that which the tyrant Gage puts upon us."

At that instant Archie was seized by the collar from behind, and I was
near to letting out a cry of fear, for I counted as a certainty that