These were difficulties to be mastered by his own vigilance and care.
Drawing off his troops to the heights, in the northern part of the
county, he had bidden defiance to the attacks of the royal army, and Sir
William Howe fell back to the enjoyment of his barren conquest--a
deserted city. Never afterwards did the opposing armies make the trial
of strength within the limits of Westchester; yet hardly a day passed,
that the partisans did not make their inroads; or a sun rise, that the
inhabitants were spared the relation of excesses which the preceding
darkness had served to conceal. Most of the movements of the peddler
were made at the hours which others allotted to repose. The evening sun
would frequently leave him at one extremity of the county, and the
morning find him at the other. His pack was his never-failing companion;
and there were those who closely studied him, in his moments of traffic,
and thought his only purpose was the accumulation of gold. He would be
often seen near the Highlands, with a body bending under its load; and
again near the Harlem River, traveling with lighter steps, with his face
towards the setting sun. But these glances at him were uncertain and
fleeting. The intermediate time no eye could penetrate. For months he
disappeared, and no traces of his course were ever known.
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