me, but I'd sooner trust you than any chap of the corps. I may as well put you down."
"No, not yet: I'll be ready to answer you soon, and I can easily make my preparations. You have arms a-plenty?"
"Soon shall have. Three wagons are on their way from Charleston with sabres and pistols especially for us."
"I shall, no doubt, want some of them, and you shall then hear from me. There is time enough in all next week."
"Yes; but be quick about it, or there will be no picking; and then you have but twenty days, remember. The proclamation gives but twenty days, and then Cornwallis has sworn to treat as rebels, with the utmost severity of the law, all those who are not in arms for his majesty—just the same as if they had fought against him. See, I have it here."
He took from his pocket the proclamation, and with it a private order, which was issued by the commander-in-chief to all the subordinate commands, giving directions for the utmost severity, and prescribing the mode of punishment for the refractory, nearly in the language, and to the full effect, of Huck's representations. Humphries looked grave enough at these crowding evidences, but resisted, by well urged evasions, the exhortations of the tempter. The tory captain was compelled to rest satisfied for the present, assured that he had held forth especial inducements to the countryman which must give his troop a preference over any claims that might be set up by the rival recruiting officer, as he considered Singleton. With a hearty shake of the hand, and a few parting words in whisper to his companion, he left the hotel to make his way—a subtle sycophant with his superiors—to the presence of Major Proctor of the Dorchester garrison, from whom he had received his commission.
Singleton, while this episode of Humphries and the tory had been going on, employed himself in occasional conversation with the landlord and sundry of the villagers in another end of the apartment. In this conversation, though studiously selecting topics of a nature not to startle or offend the fears or the prejudices of any, he contrived, with no little ingenuity, to bring about, every and then, occasional expressions of their feelings and opinions.
