The evening passed pleasantly at Master Peter Walker’s. Mistress Walker was glad to have the opportunity to get a fresh stock of needles and thread, and other little things which the pedler kept for sale. Phil was an old acquaintance. For many years he had been a welcome guest at the Walker homestead. In him Peter found a congenial spirit, and the neighbors were sure to come in to enjoy the old man’s droll stories and listen to the stirring music of his fife. Phil was always ready to do his best and his popularity was unbounded with the young folks who had no sympathy with the puritanical idea that dancing was the invention of Satan. The general public knew very little of Phil’s history. Only to Peter Walker had he confided the fact that, when a mere youth, he had come to this country from Ireland. He had been a “bound-man” in Pennsylvania years before the Revolution, but when the Continental army took the field, Phil Murphy had joined the patriot ranks and served through the war with credit. Then he became a wanderer in search of adventure, and, as he told Peter: “Bedad, I found plinty of it!” About the beginning of the century, he came to Boston, his only possessions being his beloved fife and a cheerful mind. He was getting old and unfitted for hard work, so he took to the road as a pedler and eventually found his way to Cape Cod where his little wares were in demand and where he established a route. The people liked his pleasant ways and he was always welcome to their firesides, having no permanent home of his own. Small of stature, with bright blue eyes and a dulcet brogue, Phil the Fifer, as he was commonly called, was still an active man notwithstanding his seventy years. Late that night, long after the family had retired, Phil and Peter were engaged in discussing the feasibility of the mission to the “Spencer.” As Peter had surmised, Phil was more than anxious to be of assistance to his good friends. There might be some difficulty in getting an interview with the prisoners, but he felt sure there would be no objection to his visiting the warship. “It’s just like this, Masther Walker: the boys aboard the ship think old Phil is a kind of an omadhaun, as we call a simpleton in the old counthry. Captain Raggett has a fine crew of dacint min, an’ many the shillin’ they threw at the old pedler for his little goods. The officers is all gintiemin, an’ there’s only wan man aboard who behaves like an upstart of a fellow. He’s a master’s mate called Dunton. He thried some of his nasty ways on me, but I kep’ my timper, thank God!” “Perhaps he may interfere with you again, Phil?” “Well, Masther Walker, if he does it won’t upset me. You see, if I am to get this job done for you, it won’t do for me to lose my timper whatever cause I get, will it?”