I could not help smiling to think of the good colonel’s face when he should read this letter. I glanced at the arms over the fireplace, thanked the good people warmly, and, as I went out, looked back at the familiar words old John Bartram set over the door in 1770: ‘T is God alone, Almighty Lord, The Holy One by me adored. It seemed the last of home and its associations. I turned away, passed through the grounds, which extended up to the Darby road, and, after a careful look about me, moved rapidly southward. Here and there were farm-houses between spurs of the broken forest which, with its many farms, stretched far to westward. I met no one. I knew there was a picket at the Blue Bell Inn, and so, before nearing it, I struck into a woodland, and, avoiding the farms, kept to the northwest until I came on to a road which I saw at once to be Gray’s Lane. Unused to guiding myself by compass, I had again gotten dangerously near to the river. I pushed up the lane to the west, and after half an hour came upon a small hamlet, where I saw an open forge and a sturdy smith at work. In a moment I recognised my old master, Lowry, the farrier. I asked the way across-country to the Schuylkill. He stood a little, resting on his hammer, not in the least remembering me. He said it was difficult. I must take certain country lanes until I got into the Lancaster road, and so on. I did not wish to get into the main highway, where foragers or outlying parties might see fit to be too curious. I said at last, “Dost not thou know thy old prentice, Hugh Wynne?” I felt sure of my man, as he had been one of the Sons of Liberty, and had fallen out with Friends in consequence, so that I did not hesitate to relate my whole story. He was pleased to see me, and bade me enter and see his wife. As we stood consulting, a man cried out at the door: “Here are more Hessians.” And as he spoke we heard the notes of a bugle. “Put me somewhere,” I said, “and quick.” “No,” he cried. “Here, set your snapsack back of this forge. Put on this leather apron. Smudge your face and hands.” It took me but a minute, and here I was, grimy and black, a smith again, with my sack hid under a lot of old iron and a broken bellows. As they rode up--some two dozen yagers--I let fall the bellows handle, at which my master had set me to work, and went out to the doorway. There, not at all to my satisfaction, I saw the small Hessian, Captain von Heiser, our third and least pleasant boarder, the aide of General Knyphausen. Worse still, he was on Lucy. It was long before I knew how this came to pass. They had two waggons, and, amidst the lamentations of the hamlet, took chickens, pigs, and grain, leaving orders on the paymaster, which, I am told, were scrupulously honoured.