Perhaps ten minutes later, Captain Perez Hamlin might have been seen
pricking his jaded horse across the deserted green. He looked around
curiously at the new buildings and recent changes in the appearance of
the village, and once or twice seemed a little at loss about his
route. But finally he turned into a lane leading northerly toward the
hill, just at the foot of which, beside the brook that skirted it,
stood a weather-beaten house of a story and a half. As he caught sight
of this, Perez spurred his horse to a gallop, and in a few moments the
mother, through her tears of joy, was studying out in the stern face
of the man, the lineaments of the boy whose soldier's belt she had
buckled round him nine years before.




CHAPTER FIFTH

THAT MEANS REBELLION!


Elnathan was the only one of the family who went to church the
following day. Mrs. Hamlin was too infirm to climb the hill to the
meeting-house, and Perez' mood was more inclined to blood-spilling
than to God's worship. All day he walked the house, his fists
clenched, muttering curses through his set teeth, and looking not
unlike a lion, ferociously pacing his cage. For his mother was
tearfully relating to him the share of the general misery that had
fallen to their lot, as a family, in the past nine years, how Elnathan
had not been able to carry on his farm, without the aid of the boys,