At these words our hero, who was regarding the group with a look of silent rebuke, turned suddenly on the old butler, who was, if truth must be told, the only sober one of the party. A flash of joy lit up Capt. Preston’s face as he extended his hand for the supposed letter. Old Jacob, who had no missive of that character to deliver, but who had come wholly on his own responsibility, hesitated what to say. While the two parties are thus regarding each other, we will explain the incidents which had brought them thus unexpectedly together. Capt. Preston had found great difficulty in regaining the camp, in consequence of Major Lindsay having left word of the place, where he had sought refuge, with some Tories in the neighborhood. These men, anxious to secure so redoubtable a leader, had immediately stationed patrols at all the usual outlets of the swamp, and thus twice had our hero been driven back into its recesses, once narrowly escaping death. At length, however, in the dead of night, he had succeeded in eluding his enemies, and gained the high-road. His flight, however, had led him into a district full of Tories, and he was forced to travel with great caution, and make a long circuit, in order to return to the camp. Meantime his absence there had occasioned much alarm, especially among his troop; and Macdonald had intended, if he did not appear by the ensuing morning, setting forth to make inquiries respecting him, fearing he was dead. The old butler had been in the camp two days. He had attended his mistress to Georgetown, and was the only one who suspected the true state of Kate’s heart. He loved that fair creature with the blind devotion a dog shows to its master; and he had long been fully satisfied that her affections were given to Preston. Of our hero he had some such idea as the old romancers had of a Paladin of former days, looking on him as capable of doing any deed, no matter how impossible. To old Jacob it seemed only necessary that Preston should know of Kate’s danger, in order to rescue her. Accordingly, when he found the marriage actually resolved on, and the day fixed, he stole out of Georgetown, and made the best of his way to Marion’s camp. Here the news of Preston’s absence fell on him like a thunderbolt. But he knew that no one else could assist him; and moreover he held Kate’s secret too sacred to be imparted to others. Meantime, he found amusement in listening to the tales of the soldiers, and he was never happier than when, with mouth wide open, he sat devouring some story of the war. He implicitly believed every thing he heard, and thought with humble vanity what a sensation he would create in the kitchen at Blakeley Hall, when he rehearsed there those tales; for Jacob, in his lowly way, was a sort of Froissart, and, with the unctuous old canon, thought nothing so “honorable and glorious as gallant feats of arms.” Preston now drew the butler aside, and said, “Have you the letter here?”