Page:The Adventures Of A Revolutionary Soldier.pdf/59

Rh all things being put in order, we marched again, and about nine or ten o'clock we tried the waters of the Schuylkill once more, at the same place where we crossed the preceding night. It was not so cold as it was then and the crossing was not so tedious, but it was bad enough at this time.

We marched slowly the remainder of the night. At the dawn of day we found ourselves in the neighbourhood of the enemy; I mean, in the neighbourhood of where they had been, for when we were about to spring the net, we discovered that the birds had flown, and there was not one on the bed. There was a British guard at a little distance from the bridge, upon the opposite side of the river; they turned out to do us honour and sent off an express to the city, to inform their friends that the Yankees had come to pay them a visit, but they were so unmannerly as to take no notice of us;—after we had taken so much pains and been at so much trouble to come to see them, they might have shown a little more politeness, considering that it would not have cost them half the trouble to meet us as we had been at to meet them. But perhaps they thought, that as we had undergone so much fatigue and vexation on our journey, we might feel cross and peevish, and perchance some unlucky accidents might have happened. The British were politic, and it is good to be cautious and discreet.

We had nothing to do now but to return as we came; accordingly, we marched off slowly, hoping that the enemy would think better of it and follow us, for we were loath to return without seeing them;—however, they kept to themselves and we went on. I was hungry, tired and sleepy;—about noon we halted an hour or two, and I went a little way into the fields, where I found a black walnut tree with a plenty of nuts under it; these nuts are very nutricious, and I cracked and ate of them till I was satisfied.

We marched again. In the course of the afternoon, I somewhere procured about half a dozen turnips, which I carried all the way to camp in my hand; so much did we value any thing that we could get to eat. About sun-setting we again waded the Schuylkill, at a ford a little higher up the river. The river was not so wide here as at the former place, but the water was deeper; it was to