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“Lady, this is the time to say a word to you. Ask about me among the other sailors, if they come here, so that you may know that I have lived an honest life. Does not your goodman need a guard?”

“I had never thought of such a thing.”

“You are sending soldiers and food and cattle to the camps, I hear; who knows what General Gage might be led to do? They have secret guards in foreign parts, men of the ‘secret service,’ as they call them. Lady, there are things that come to one, down from the skies, or up from the soul. It is all like the ‘pattern on the mount of vision’ that they preach about. A voice within me has been saying, ‘Go and work for the Governor among the hills, and watch out for him.’ But you must test me first, lady. I would keep you from harm; there is nothing that should ever stand between these two fists of Dennis O’Hay and such as you. But that day will come. I will go to the tavern now, and God and all the saints bless you, and your goodman forever, and make a great nation of this green land of America, and keep the same Dennis O’Hay, which I am that, in the way of his duty.”