He pricked forward however with speed through wind and rain, and at Bedford village, took the northern of the two roads leading to Poundridge. As he approached this last place, his guide in front inquired of a farmer, who was standing in the door of his house, respecting the shortest route to Sheldon's head-quarters. Mistaking the husbandman's directions, when about three quarters of a mile from Poundridge Church, at a place where the road forks, the guide pressed forward upon the

38 THE McDONALD PAPERS

straight branch which leads to Ridgefield, instead of taking that which turns abruptly to the right. Before this blunder was disclosed to the commanding officer by another guide, the British forces had gone half a mile out of their way, and were seen and examined by one of Sheldon's videttes. Sheldon meanwhile, was not entirely unapprised of the approaching danger. The Committee of Safety had long maintained a spy at West-Farms, within the enemy's lines; upon whom, under a fictitious name, our great novelist has conferred a species of immortality. Luther Kinnicutt, the secret agent alluded to, was a person who about this time did the State good service, playing with great address and for a long time, the part of a British, but performing assidu-ously all the duties of an American spy. This man, in the course of his communications with the British officers, had the address to draw from them the fact, that an attempt was about to be made upon the post at Poundridge. He did not know the precise day fixed upon for the attack, but had clearly ascertained their intentions, and he well knew the hostile feel-ings that Major Lockwood's activity had excited among the Westchester refugees. Under pretense of obtaining inform-ation for the King's service, he, on one of the last days of June, went on foot and in disguise, mostly through the fields, to Poundridge, where he communicated to Sheldon and Lockwood, the designs of the enemy.