He looked in at the placid flock, brought a bucket of water
from the little stream, and, not caring to light a lantern, ate his
supper of bread and cheese outside the hut on the slope facing the bay.
The night settled chill but without fog. The boy wrapped his heavy
homespun cloak round him, snuggled close to Jock's hairy side, and in
his lonesomeness fell back on counting the stars as they came out. First
the great yellow planet in the west, then, high overhead, the sparkling
white of what, had he known it, was Vega; and in a moment a dozen
others were in view before he could number them--Regulus, Altair, Spica,
and, low in the south, the angry fire of Antares.

For him they were unnamed, save for the peculiarities he discovered in
each. In common with most boys he could trace the dipper and find the
North Star, but he regrouped most of the constellations to suit himself,
and was able to see the outline of a wolf or the head of an Indian that
covered half the sky whenever he chose. He wondered what had become of
Orion, whose brilliant galaxy of stars appeals to every boy's fancy. It
had vanished since the spring. In it he had always recognized the form
of a brig he had seen hove-to in Portsmouth Harbor--high poop,
skyward-sticking bowsprit and ominous, even row of gun-ports where she
carried her carronades--three on a side. How those black cannon-mouths
had gaped at the small boy on the dock! He wondered--

"Boom...!" came a hollow sound that seemed to hang like mist in a long
echo over the island. Before Jeremy could jump to his feet he heard the
rumbling report a second time. He was all alert now, and thought
rapidly. Those sounds--there came another even as he stood there--must
be cannon-shots--nothing less. The ships he had seen from the hilltop
were men-of-war, then. Could the French have sent a fleet? He did not
know of any recent fighting. What could it mean?

Deep night had settled over the island, and the fir-woods looked very
black and uninviting to Jeremy when he started up the hill once more.

As their shadow engulfed him, he was tempted to turn back--how he was to
wish he had done so in the days that followed--but the hardy strain of
adventure in his spirit kept his jaw set and his legs working steadily
forward into the pitch-black undergrowth. Once or twice he stumbled over
fallen logs or tripped in the rocks, but he held on upward till the
trees thinned and he felt that the looming shape of the ledge