“I turned and recognised the same officer who had looked at me so long and earnestly near the Common. I thought of knocking him down and making a run for it, but such an act would have brought a whole regiment about my ears in a moment, so I could only grind my teeth and submit. He slipped his arm firmly through mine and led me to a house near by, where he unlocked the door and led me upstairs to his room. There he bade me sit down and himself stood looking at me long and in silence. Had his expression been a mocking one, I vow so great was my rage that I would have sought to slay him on the spot, but he looked only grave and thoughtful. Strange it is, Master Sheffield, but it flashed across my mind that his face was somehow familiar and that, in a certain way, he was like you.” “Like me?” repeated Stephen in amazement, and then laughed again. “Surely I would make a fine figure for a British soldier!” “He was like you, whatever you may say,” Miles affirmed stoutly, “his eyes were yours to the very life. We say in Hopewell ‘There is no blue like Sheffield blue,’ for the colour and fire of your eyes and your mother’s and your sister’s are things of which we often speak.” Stephen glanced up quickly at the portrait hanging above the mantel, one of the very few of his rescued possessions that he had brought to the cottage. The picture was of Master Simon, painted before he left England; it showed a dreamy-faced boy with those same wide, grave blue eyes. Margeret Bardwell had had them, and Amos and Alisoun, but none of them quite so like Master Simon’s as were Stephen’s. “It is curious,” he said at last, “but go on with your tale. If we pause to talk of the colour of eyes we will never come to the end of your adventure.” “When the officer spoke at length,” Miles continued, “his words knocked all the wind from the sails of my silly vanity. “‘I have been watching you,’ he said, ‘ever since you stopped by the Common, and I had no difficulty in recognising you as an officer in the Continental Army. It was not the first time we had met, however. Do you recollect a night raid last October, when your men made a stand north of Hopewell to the great discomfiture of the soldiers of King George?’ “‘What,’ I cried, ‘are you the officer that escaped?’ He nodded. ‘Then,’ I went on, further rage swelling in my heart, ‘you must have had a hand in the burning of that house and garden!’ “‘I am glad to say, that was no work of mine,’ he answered; ‘my division did not join the rest until that ugly task was done. The Commander’s orders in the matter were strict and definite but had they been issued to me I fear I would have made some trouble over obeying them. That is not the question now, however. Here are you, a soldier out of uniform, within the enemy’s lines, and that means hanging as a spy. What were you doing here beyond decorating His Majesty’s barracks with the rebel flag?’