“But the farm?”

 

“We will raise as much as we can in money, and let the rest go. To tell the

truth, Lucy, it isn’t the first time I have thought of doing it. I don’t care

about knuckling under to any man, as these folk do to their darned prophet. I’m

a free-born American, and it’s all new to me. Guess I’m too old to learn. If he

comes browsing about this farm, he might chance to run up against a charge of

buckshot travelling in the opposite direction.”

 

“But they won’t let us leave,” his daughter objected.

 

“Wait till Jefferson comes, and we’ll soon manage that. In the meantime, don’t

you fret yourself, my dearie, and don’t get your eyes swelled up, else he’ll be

walking into me when he sees you. There’s nothing to be afeared about, and

there’s no danger at all.”

 

John Ferrier uttered these consoling remarks in a very confident tone, but she

could not help observing that he paid unusual care to the fastening of the doors

that night, and that he carefully cleaned and loaded the rusty old shotgun which

hung upon the wall of his bedroom.

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

A FLIGHT FOR LIFE.