That night ten men met in the deserted hut on the marsh, having stolen with the caution of Indians from their respective plantations. Five were men who had fought at Edgehill and Naseby and Worcester, or had followed Cromwell through the breach at Drogheda. Four were victims of the Act of Uniformity; darker, sterner, more determined if possible, than the veterans of the New Model. The tenth man was Landless. When, late at night, he and Porringer crept stealthily back to the quarters, it was with the conviction that this was the last time they should so steal through the darkness. The date of the rising had been fixed for the thirteenth of September; this night, by Landless’s advice, it was brought forward to the tenth—and it was now the sixth. Groping his way past the slumbering forms of the three other occupants of his cabin, Landless threw himself down upon his pallet with a heavy sigh. "Liberty!" he said beneath his breath. "Goddess, whom I and mine have sought through long years, whom once we thought we held, and waked to find thee gone,—once I thought thee fairer than aught beside; thought no price too great to pay for thee. But now!" He hid his face in his hands with a stifled groan, When at length he fell into a troubled sleep, it was to see again a storm-tossed boat, and a woman’s face, set like a star against the blackness of the night. *CHAPTER XIX* *THE LIBRARY OF THE SURVEYOR-GENERAL* At a long, low table stood Mistress Betty Carrington, her slender figure enveloped in an apron of blue dowlas, her sleeves of fine holland rolled above her elbows, and her white and rounded arms plunged deep into a great bowl filled with the purple globes of the wild grape. A row of children knelt on the brick floor at her feet, busily stripping the fruit from the stems, and negresses, hard by, strained with sinewy hands the crimson juice from the pulpy mass into jars of earthenware. To this group suddenly entered a breathless urchin. "Ohé, mistis! de Gov’nor an’ Massa Peyton comin’ up de road!" Betty suspended her operations with a little cry. "The Governor!" she exclaimed in dismay. "And my father is gone a-processioning;—and my gown is not seemly;—and he cannot be kept waiting!" She threw off her apron, dipped her hands into the water the slaves poured for her, and was at the hall door in time to courtesy to the Governor, as, followed by a groom, and attended by Mr. Peyton, he rode up to the house. With the agility of youth his Excellency sprung from his horse, threw the reins to the groom, and advanced to greet the lady. A richly laced riding-suit became his still slight and elegant figure to a marvel; his gilt-spurred, Spanish leather boots were of the newest, most approved cut; his periwig was fresh curled, and framed with distinction a handsome, if somewhat withered, countenance. He doffed his Spanish hat with a bow and flourish: Betty courtesied profoundly.