Page:Tomlinson--The rider of the black horse.djvu/226

210 "He won't have to. There are other ways of doing it; but if the men who have been robbed and whose houses have been set on fire by that villain, once lay their hands on him, I would n't give much for his life."

"You seem to take the burning of your home as if it did n't amount to anything."

"Oh, I do, do I?" Joseph, as he spoke, turned sharply to his companion and his voice was harsh and hard, but only for the moment, for quickly he laughed lightly and then said: "We expected when we went into this affair that it would not fill our pockets. We 've lost everything except the dirt of our farm, and the only reason why we have n't lost that is because the Tories or the cowboys could n't steal it or burn it. I don't mind the redcoats so much as I do the Dutch butchers, and I can stand them better than I can the Tories, and the Tories are saints in glory compared with the cowboys. If my father and mother did n't whimper when the house was burned, I don't think I 've very much call to do it, do you?" he added with a laugh.

"No," replied Robert thoughtfully. "Did you know there was a man, who acted as if he had been hit on the head, in those lilac bushes out behind your house?"