his senses. For doors were not locked in Stockbridge in those days.




CHAPTER THIRD

THE TAVERN-JAIL AT BARRINGTON


Peleg's information, although of a hearsay character, was correct.
Perez Hamlin was coming home. The day following the conversation in
the barroom of Stockbridge tavern, which I have briefly sketched in
the last chapter, about an hour after noon, a horseman might have been
seen approaching the village of Great Barrington, on the road from
Sheffield. He wore the buff and blue uniform of a captain in the late
Continental army, and strapped to the saddle was a steel hilted sword
which had apparently experienced a good many hard knocks. The lack of
any other baggage to speak of, as well as the frayed and stained
condition of his uniform, indicated that however rich the rider might
be in glory, he was tolerably destitute of more palpable forms of
wealth.

Poverty, in fact, had been the chief reason that had prevented Captain
Hamlin from returning home before. The close of the war had found him
serving under General Greene in South Carolina, and on the disbandment
of the troops he had been left without means of support. Since then he
had been slowly working his way homewards, stopping a few months
wherever employment or hospitality offered. What with the lack and
insecurity of mails, and his frequent movements, he had not heard from