Ugh!--the butcher's work that promised if the Iroquois were uncaged! It made me shudder, for I knew something of that kind of war, having seen a slight service against the Seminoles in my seventeenth year, and against the Chehaws and Tallassies a few months later. Also in November of 1775 I accompanied Governor Tonyn to Picolata, but when I learned that our mission was the shameful one of securing the Indians as British allies I resigned my captaincy in the Royal Rangers and returned to the Halifax to wait and watch events. And now, thoughtful, sad, wondering a little how it all would end, I paced to and fro across the porch. The steady patter of the dew was like the long roll beating--low, incessant, imperious--and my heart leaped responsive to the summons, till I found myself standing rigid, staring into the darkness with fevered eyes. The smothered, double drumming of a guitar from the distant revel assailed my ears, and a fresh, sweet voice, singing: "As at my door I chanced to be A-spinning, Spinning, A grenadier he winked at me A-grinning, Grinning! As at my door I chanced to be A grenadier he winked at me. And now my song's begun, you see! "My grenadier he said to me. So jolly, Jolly, 'We tax the tea, but love is free, Sweet Molly, Molly!' My grenadier he said to me, 'We tax the tea, but love is free!' And so my song it ends, you see, In folly, Folly!" I listened angrily; the voice was Dorothy Varick's, and I wondered that she had the heart to sing such foolishness for men whose grip was already on her people's throats. In the dining-hall somebody blew the view-halloo on a hunting-horn, and I heard cheers and the dulled roar of a chorus: "--Rally your men! Campbell and Cameron, Fox-hunting gentlemen, Follow the Jacobite back to his den! Run with the runaway rogue to his runway, Stole-away! Stole-away! Gallop to Galway, Back to Broadalbin and double to Perth; Ride! for the rebel is running to earth!" And the shrill, fierce Highland cry, "Gralloch him!" echoed the infamous catch, till the night air rang faintly in the starlight. "Cruachan!" shouted Captain Campbell; "the wild myrtle to clan Campbell, the heather to the McDonalds! An't--Arm, chlanna!" And a great shout answered him: "The army! Sons of the army!" Sullen and troubled and restless, I paced the porch, and at length sat down on the steps to cool my hot forehead in my hands. And as I sat, there came my cousin Dorothy to the porch to look for me, fanning her flushed face with a great, plumy fan, the warm odor of roses still clinging to her silken skirts. "Have they ended?" I asked, none too graciously.