It was not yet eleven o’clock when a boat crossed the river with a single passenger who had obtained his transportation at that unusual hour by promising an extra fare. While the youth stood on the landing place searching in his pockets for money, the ferryman lifted a lantern, by the aid of which, together with the newly risen moon, he took a very accurate survey of the stranger’s figure. He was a young man of barely eighteen years, evidently country bred, and now, as it seemed, on his first visit to town. He was wearing a rough gray coat, which was in good shape, but which had seen many winters before this one. The garments under his coat were well constructed of leather, and fitted tightly to a pair of muscular legs; his stockings of blue yarn must have been the work of a mother or sister, and on his head was a three cornered hat, which in its better days had perhaps sheltered the grayer head of his father. In his left hand was a walking stick, and his equipment was completed by a leather bag not so abundantly stocked as to inconvenience the strong shoulders on which it hung. Brown, curly hair, well-shaped figures, bright, cheerful eyes were nature’s gifts, and worth all that art could have done for his adornment. The youth whose name was Robin, paid the boatman, and then walked forward into the town with a light step, as if he had not already traveled more than thirty miles that day. As he walked he surveyed his surroundings as eagerly as if he were entering London or Madrid, instead of the little town of a New England colony. The boatman was willing to take Robin across the river because he .