'I'll give you a quarter of an hour more,' says my father, 'till the light leaves that rock up there; after that,' says he, 'by the Mass! I'll be off, av it cost me what it may.' "Well, sure enough, his courage was not needed this time; for what did he see at the same moment but a shadow of something coming down the road opposite the bridge.

He looked again; and then he made out the general himself, that was walking his horse down the steep part of the mountain, followed by the orderly.

My father immediately took up his musket off the wall, settled his belts, shook the ashes out of his pipe and put it into his pocket, making himself as smart and neat-looking as he could be, determining, when ould Cohoon came up, to ask him for leave to go home, at least for the night.

Well, by this time the general was turning a sharp part of the cliff that looks down upon the bridge, from where you might look five miles round on every side.

'He sees me,' says my father; 'but I'll be just as quick as himself.' No sooner said than done; for coming forward to the parapet of the bridge, he up with his musket to his shoulder, and presented it straight at the general.