thought that here were reconciliation and the assurance of future
peace.

Ned's home-coming brought trouble in its train, as indeed did his
every reappearance afterward. It came out that he and another boy--the
one in whose house he had found refuge on the night of his running
away--had started off for the North to lead the lives of hunters and
trappers, a career so inviting that they could not wait to provide a
sufficient equipment. They travelled afoot by the Albany post-road,
soliciting food at farmhouses, passing their nights in barns; and got
as far as Tarrytown, ere either one in his pride would admit to the
other, through chattering teeth, that he had had his fill of snow and
hunger and the raw winds of the Hudson River. So footsore, leg-weary,
empty, and frozen were they on their way back, that they helped
themselves to one of Jacob Post's horses, near the Philipse
manor-house; and not daring to ride into town on this beast,
thoughtlessly turned it loose in the Bowery lane, never thinking how
certainly it and they could be traced--for they had been noticed at
Van Cortlandt's, again at Kingsbridge, and again at the Blue Bell
tavern. After receiving its liberty, the horse had been seen once,
galloping toward Turtle Bay, and never again.

So, a few days after Ned's reentrance into the bosom of his family,
there came to the house a constable, of our own town, with a deputy
sent by the sheriff of Westchester County, wanting Master Edward
Faringfield.

Frightened and disgraced, his mother sent for her husband; and for the
sake of the family name, Mr. Faringfield adjusted matters by the
payment of twice or thrice what the horse was worth. Thus the would-be