"I saw them, too," said the squire. "They needn't have given me
the slip that way. It will leave me short-handed; but I wouldn't
have said nay if they wanted to go."

After breakfast Neville mounted his horse and rode off to the
place appointed for holding the Methodist Conference,--the new
meeting-house near St. David's. He soon overtook the detachment of
militia, which was marching to join, at Long Point, the main force
which Brock was to lead thither from York by way of Ancaster. He
noticed that the men, though tolerably well armed, were very
indifferently shod for their long tramp over rough roads. They had
no pretence to uniform save a belt and cartouch box, and a blanket
rolled up tightly and worn like a huge scarf. As He walked his
horse for awhile beside Tom Loker who had groomed his horse the
night before, he told him what the squire had said about his
joining the militia.

"Did he now?" said Tom. "Then my place will be open for me when I
return. We'll be back time enough to help run in that beef and pork
into the fort, won't we, Sandy?"

"That's as God pleases," said the Scotchman, a sturdy, grave-
visaged man. "Ilka bullet has its billet; an' gin we're to coom
back, back we'll coom, though it rained bullets all the way."

Neville bade them God speed and rode on to "Warner's meeting-
house," as it was called. It was a large frame structure, utterly
devoid of ornament, near the roadside. "Hitching" his horse to the
fence, he went in. A meagre handful of Methodist preachers were