Finding it was no use now to prevaricate, Israel boldly confesses
himself a prisoner-of-war. The officer, a good fellow as it turned out,
had him escorted back to the inn; where, observing to the landlord that
this must needs be a true-blooded Yankee, he calls for liquors to
refresh Israel after his run. Two soldiers are then appointed to guard
him for the present. This was towards evening; and up to a late hour at
night, the inn was filled with strangers crowding to see the Yankee
rebel, as they politely termed him. These honest rustics seemed to think
that Yankees were a sort of wild creatures, a species of 'possum or
kangaroo. But Israel is very affable with them. That liquor he drank
from the hand of his foe, has perhaps warmed his heart towards all the
rest of his enemies. Yet this may not be wholly so. We shall see. At any
rate, still he keeps his eye on the main chance--escape. Neither the
jokes nor the insults of the mob does he suffer to molest him. He is
cogitating a little plot to himself.

It seems that the good officer--not more true to the king his master
than indulgent towards the prisoner which that same loyalty made--had
left orders that Israel should be supplied with whatever liquor he
wanted that night. So, calling for the can again and again, Israel
invites the two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length, a wag of the
company proposes that Israel should entertain the public with a jig, he
(the wag) having heard that the Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A
fiddle is brought in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut
to think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be diverted at
the expense of an unfortunate prisoner, Israel, while jigging it up and
down, still conspires away at his private plot, resolving ere long to
give the enemy a touch of certain Yankee steps, as yet undreamed of in
their simple philosophy. They would not permit any cessation of his