I mention all these details because of a curious coincidence. I said to Jack--I was steering--that I had had since dawn a feeling that some calamity was about to happen. Now this was, as I recall it, a notion quite new to me, and far more like Jack himself. He laughed and said it was the east wind. Then after a pause he added: “I was trying to recall something I once heard, and now I have it. This waiting for an idea is like fishing in the deep waters of the mind: sometimes one gets only a nibble, and sometimes a bite; but I have my fish. It was Dr. Bush who told me that the liver was the mother of ghosts and presentiments. When I told him I was afflicted with these latter, he put on his glasses, looked at me, and said I was of a presentimental temperament.” “And he was right,” said I, laughing. Then Jack declared the weather was sorry enough to account for my notion. I made answer, as I remember, that I was not subject to the rule of the weather-cock, like some fellows I knew, nor to thinking I was going to be shot. This shut up Jack for a while, and we got off on to our own wise plans for capturing Sir Henry and all his host. At last we ran ashore at a settled point called Nyack, and thence we went to and fro wherever we saw the smoke of men’s homes. We broke up or burned many boats and dugouts, amid the lamentations of their owners, because with the aid of these they were enabled to take fish, and were ill off for other diet. We had an ugly task, and could only regret the sad but inexorable necessities of war. We camped ten miles above Tappan, and next day, near to dusk, got as far as King’s Landing, having pretty thoroughly attended to our ungracious task. As the tall promontory of Stony Point rose before us, dim in the evening light, we talked of Wayne’s gallant storming of this formidable fort, and of his affection for the bayonet, which, he said, was to be preferred to the musket because it was always loaded. “We of our State had most of that glory,” said Jack; “and all our best generals, save the great chief, are men of the North,” which was true and strange. We had at this place a strong force of horse and foot, and here we meant to pass the night with some of our officers, friends of Jack’s. It was quite dark, when, running in with a free sheet, we came close to a large barge rowed by six men. As we approached I heard a stern order to keep off, and recognised in the boat, where were also armed men, Major Tallmadge, whom I knew. I called to him, but as he only repeated his order, I answered, “Very well, sir;” and we drew in to the shore some hundred feet away.