"My mother used to say there was a corner for every crooked stick if it could only be found," answered Recompense, busily cutting a delicate little broiled chicken into pieces of convenient size and pouring out a fragrant cup of spearmint tea. "I was always reckoned handy about sick folks, though I ain't very smart other ways. Thee 'd better come away now and let the man eat his dinner in peace. He has had talk enough for one day." "He is getting on pretty well, isn't he?" asked Captain Elmer as they descended the stairs from Caspar's room. "Well, middling," answered Recompense, with a true nurse's unwillingness to say that his patient was improving. "I've seen them get on faster, and I've seen them not so fast." "I'm sorry he is so downhearted." "Oh, thee needn't mind that. He will feel quite different when he has eaten his dinner and had a nap. Thee gave him rather too great a dose of talk with thy news and thy plans." "I dare say I was stupid," said the captain, apologetically, "but I had thought it all over so many times, and he never said he was tired." "Of course he didn't. Sick folks hardly ever do; and there's where well folks have got to look out for them. However, I don't think there's any harm done.—Has thee settled his matters, think?" "Oh yes. There won't be any trouble, seeing that Clinton is out of the way and all Jersey is in our hands for the present," answered Captain Elmer. "There is nothing to hinder his going to work at his trade either here in Greenwich or at Bridgeton, but I should advise the latter, as being rather more out of the way." "And thee thinks he won't be liable to be taken and hung for a deserter?" "Not unless he takes a great deal of pains to bring it about. Clinton would have his hands fuller than they are now if he should undertake to catch and hang all the men that have deserted in his march across Jersey. Reinhart might go to Philadelphia without danger, but I believe he will do as well, or better, in Bridgeton." As Recompense had predicted, Caspar was ready to take a brighter view of his circumstances after he had eaten his broiled chicken. The prospect which his friend held out to him was certainly alluring. The trade of war was utterly hateful to him, and particularly so the business of war and oppression, in which his countrymen were so largely engaged. He enjoyed the thought of returning to his old trade and living in peace with all mankind once more. Money, it was true, was likely to be scarce in the colonies, but it would go hard but he would lay up enough to purchase a bit of land, build himself a house, and make a home ready for his wife and the children against the time when he could send for them.