But as she stooped to raise the lid the Scotchman dealt her a blow with the flat of his sword which materially interfered with her investigations, and when she arose in wrath and advanced upon him with the meat-hook (without giving the countersign) he dealt her another thwack with his broadsword which sent her staggering to the door, from which she retreated in the direction of the camp, hurling anathemas like Parthian arrows at the soldier, by which, however, as they were couched in an unknown tongue, he was not much dismayed.

"As the war progressed it assumed an aspeat of increased and continuous i)eril. Families living between the lines of the two hostile camps were constantly exposed to plunder and violence. One night, as the family at the old (Coutant) homestead were sitting quietly around tha hearthstone, the doors were unceremoniously burst open by a company of these unscrupulous plunderers. Isaac Coutant, a man advanced in years, was by them greeted roughly. He and his sons were ordered out into the yanl, and their money demanded at the point of the bayonet. What they had about them was given up. Suspecting him of having a concealed horde somewhere, they punched him in the back with their guns at full cock, to induce him to surrender it. Failing to discover what did not exist, they marched the young men across the fields to the north of the house, down to the border of a dense swamp, and tried by means of threats and promises to induce them to confess the locality of the supposed concealed treasure. The boys, however, were no wiser than their father with regard to this imaginary deposit ; so that, in the end, their captore seem to have become convinced of their mistake and allowed them to return home.