THAT be it! He hath stolen Mary because o' my wounding him! The villain! I would I had killed him as he lay there i' the lane." Master Todd's face was distorted with rage.
"Samuel! Stolen my Mary! Stolen" Mary's mother, who had started up at Master Todd's words, now fell back upon the settle as though death itself had struck her down. Uzal Ball sprang to aid his neighbor in restoring the poor woman. The two men chafed her hands and forehead, and finally Master Todd spoke over his shoulder: "Sally, some cold water, quick!"
There was no answer and impatiently he glanced around the room. The kitchen, save for themselves, was empty! Sally was gone! With an exclamation of anger. Master Todd fetched the cold water himself. There was no time, now, to discover Sally!
Sally had indeed fled. Seated upon old Dot, she had paused at the gate with but one idea in her head. She must find Jerry and make him restore little Mary to her parents. Frantically, she looked up and down the silent road. No one was in sight, and there seemed to be no choice. Anyone escaping to the safety of the British stronghold on Staten Island would ride south on the Second Road—the lane past the Todd farm—to Elizabeth Town and the Point and thence across Kill von Kull. Yet a flight to New York and British protection there would lead one north on the Second Road to Orange Valley and so to Newark and across the swamos to Paulus Hook and the ferry.
Choosing the road to the settlement, Sally noticed a queer, unearthly light succeeding the late afternoon glow, the forerunner of a storm. The trees, which all day long had drooped motionless beneath the abnormal heat, were now tossing their branches in a moaning wind, and miniature whirlwinds tore up the thick dust that lay over road and underbrush alike. A zigzag of lightning tore across the sky upon her left, ripping open a great black cloud which had thrust its threatening head up over the mountain.
Sally shuddered. Almost more than anything else in the world was she afraid of a thunderstorm! More often than she cared to admit before the ridicule of Master Todd had she sought the protection of her feather bed during the frequent electrical storms which every summer were wont to play up and down the valley between Newark and the First Mountain. But now she gritted her teeth; and bending her head before the little clouds of swirling dust, she urged old Dot to a faster and yet faster pace.
Master Tompkins's tavern at Freemantown, a few scattered farmhouses, with always the black swamp to her right and occasional spots of tall timber to her left as she rode along—this was what stormy darkness was swiftly eradicating from Sally's sight. She breathed a sigh as she turned at last on to the First Road. There were still four or five miles to Newark; but her journey ever seemed half accomplished, though in reality but a mile had been passed, when she reached this junction of the roads, where the Dark Lane, at this end of the Second Road, joined the First Road at what is now West Orange Center. The burial ground at her right now took the place of the great swamp, though the girl imagined she saw distant glimpses of the latter as she trotted along.
But now the storm was upon her! Furiously, with rain, hail, and much noise of wind and thunder, it broke with almost tropical violence after the day's heat. Sally was drenched to her skin at once, and as old Dot slipped and slid in the water-swept road, the girl realized miserably just how wild and impractical had been her impulse to find Jerry. No one passed her upon the road, for no one was abroad this dark night. Each isolated farmhouse, with its twinkling candle in the window, was an invitation to stop and dry herself. It took all of her determination to urge poor old Dot on through the driving rain.
At last she reached the church. This was a plain stone structure built lengthwise to the road, with its steeple upon the eastern end. Sally pulled Dot up short before it and pondered desperately. Though there was no sign of let-up to the storm as yet, still it might clear in a short space of time, when it would be much easier to continue her quest. Meanwhile, any shelter would be welcome, especially one where she would not be eyed askance, asked to give an explanation of her presence, alone and unprotected, with perhaps an unceremonious return to Master Todd in the end. Yes, she thought, the church was just the place; though she felt wicked and sacrilegious in using it as a mere shelter. She could almost feel Parson Chapman's and Deacon Riggs's reproving eyes upon her as she stalked through the rain-drenched grass to the front door of the edifice. But the door was locked.
She turned away in keen disappointment. Darkness had now completely blotted out every visible thing; she could not even see old Dot at the edge of the road, standing with patient bowed head in the wet. There were the windows to try, two of them in front on each side of the door and some in the eastern end beneath the steeple, though she was doubtful about their having been left unlocked. Still, it would do no harm to try them! But each window disappointed Sally afresh.
At last, turning the corner upon the eastern end, she remembered that there was a door there—a fact her anxiety had eradicated from her memory, though she had entered often enough on Sundays with Mistress Todd and the other women—that being their side, with the men seated upon the opposite side and the boys at the back of the church, with a tithing man to keep them in order. This door, to Sally's great joy, proved to be ajar, and she stepped inside.
A warm, musty odor came rushing to meet her, the church interior evidently having retained its heat from the day; and now Sally shrugged her wet, dripping shoulders, grateful for the warmth she had been protesting earlier. Opening a near-by pew door which, with outspread, groping hand she succeeded in locating, she stepped inside the pew and, seating herself upon the warm wooden bench, spread out her wet skirts to dry.
The intense darkness denied her gaze. But she did not need vision to know how the pulpit, bare save for its narrow bench built against the wall, its four wooden pegs above that bench, faced her, flanked right and left by Church officials' pews. The drumming of the rain upon the roof was like a bombardment, thrum, bang, boom! Then with a swish stopped suddenly. And in the abrupt silence the girl heard low, sinister voices whispering!
Now the darkness of the stormy night seemed to menace her. No longer was it a pretty curtain shutting out familiar scenes. Rather it was like a smothering black curtain, enfolding her, dulling the senses with which she would have striven to discern intangible danger.
She stirred—restlessly. Her foot kicked the pew door. And with her unguarded movement the whispering ceased. In vain she peered in every direction—only shadows met her straining gaze. As she stared, however, her eyes became accustomed to the darkness and vague outlines sprang to meet her gaze. That was the pulpit, there, and there Squire Riggs's pew! Across from the latter's pew was that of Master Eleazer Lamson! One by one she identified the familiar pews, foot by foot her eyes travelled over the big bare room. Then, as she leaned forward, staring, a green-yellow glare of lightning etched each window into place and revealed all that her seeking vision had attempted to discover. She uttered an exclamation of fright and jumped to her feet. For, crouched beside the pulpit, upon the floor were Stockton and Jerry!
Apparently her entrance into the church had been unnoticed by the red-coats, engrossed as they had been in their own conversation. But now as they were shown to Sally, so her wide eyes and slender, unkempt figure stood out in the lightning flash. Before she could do more than wrench the pew door open, she felt her arm seized, and she was a prisoner! Almost immediately, she knew that it was Stockton and not Gerald Lawrence who held her in his grip.
"Easy on the maid!" Jerry's good-natured voice came from his place beside the pulpit. He had not stirred. Plainly he had been more than willing to give Sally a chance to escape back into the night whence she had come; but not so Stockton. He dragged her roughly out of the pew and thrust her up the aisle to Jerry.
"Wouldst have had the maid escape," growled Stockton, when he had pushed poor Sally down upon a pulpit step and had seated himself beside her and retained a grasp upon her thin wrist.
"What harm an she had?" queried Jerry lightly. "I fain would not bother wi' her!"
"Art a fool?" asked Stockton gruffly. "Ye do not know how much nor how little she hath o'erhead!"
"She hath proved herself our friend—did I not tell ye she gave me warning?" Young Lawrence's voice grew a little sharper, and for a moment there was hostile silence between the two men.
Then Sally broke it. "Your friend!" she said in a low, bitter voice. "Aye, but how did ye reward me, Jerry Lawrence?"
Jerry got slowly to his feet and walked over to her. "Well," he demanded, when Sally's lips closed over the hot words she longed to hurl at him, "well, how did I reward ye?"
"Ye know!"
"Nay, I prithee, tell me!"
"The maid be play-acting!" interrupted Stockton impatiently. "Come, let us decide what to do wi' her!"
"How did I reward ye?" Inexorably Jerry's voice repeated his question.
Stockton, ignored, fell to muttering.
"Ye rewarded me by stealing Mary Todd, that IS what ye did!" burst out Sally. "A varlet thou art—a rogue, I dub ye! Ungrateful wretch! What did the poor Todds do to ye that ye should ha' taken little Mary wi' ye!"
"But wait!" Jerry's voice was bewildered. "I take Mary wi' me, ye say?"
"Aye, you!" Sally's voice was scornful. "Do not play-act in your turn and affect not to know her whereabouts. Master Lawrence!" she added. "Where is she? Where is little Mary?"
Before Stockton could guess her intention, Sally had slipped out of his grasp to go on to her knees before Jerry, who was standing stock still in the darkness before her. "Oh, please let me take Mary home!" implored the girl, a sob in her voice. "Surely the war be cruel enow without stealing her away from her home and her father and mother!"
Jerry made a strangled noise in his throat. "But I did not take her!" he shouted. "Say what ye will, believe what ye will, I did not take her!"
Sally sprang to her feet and shook his arm. "Then where is she?" she gasped. "Where is little Mary Todd?"
"I know not," answered the young British soldier sullenly. "The last I saw o' the child she was going across the road toward the swamp, after following me a short way up the lane, teasing me to take her. That was as I rode away—my parole ended—after finding the horse that Stockton, here, did"
"Enough!" Stockton's voice was violent, and he rose in a threatening manner. "Lieutenant Lawrence, report to your company immediately!"
But Gerald Lawrence did not budge. He shook his head obstinately until he realized that in the darkness that was no answer. Then he spoke: "Nay, Captain Stockton, I cannot desert Sally! These people were kind to me, though they were my captors, sir! I must stay and help search for the child!"
"Ye would again run into danger, sir, in such a fashion!" returned Stockton contemptuously. "Ye ha' strange ideas o' honor, indeed! Did ye not escape when still on parole?"
"Nay, sir!" Jerry took an impetuous step in the other's direction, stopped. Sally, standing beside him, could feel the effort he made toward self-control. "Nay, sir, ye wrong me, I do protest," said the boy more quietly, then. "I ha' said that I waited until my parole had expired, about an hour before sundown!"
"Ah, Jerry," the light was suddenly breaking across Sally's mind, "was that why ye did not go last night after I had warned ye?"
"Aye, Sally," answered the boy gently.
"Very honorable, indeed!" sneered Stockton. His tone changed: "I had intended to let ye escape the reprimand ye so richly deserved for disobeying me, sir: but now I give ye fair warning, Lawrence, that this be insubordination for the second time in thus defying me, your superior officer. Wilt risk serious punishment on both charges, wi' death dealt ye by the rebels, mayhap, an ye return to be caught?"
"Aye, Captain Stockton," answered Jerry steadily.
Sally clasped her hands. "Then come!" she cried, starting forward impatiently. "Do not waste any more time an ye will help me to find Mary!"
"One moment!" Stockton's cold voice stopped her. "Ye realize, young mistress, ye be leading a man into sure death by asking him to return to the Orange Valley?"
Sally hesitated. There was something in Stockton's voice, much as she disliked the man, which told her that in the letter of warfare he was right; yet her heart cried "Hurry!" and her heart guided her as usual.
"An Master Lawrence cares not for the danger he encounters, why should ye care, sir?" she asked impudently.
Fury shook Stockton's voice when he spoke. "Lieutenant Lawrence, ye are bent on defying my orders, sir?"
"Aye, Captain Stockton, until I find the child, little Mary Todd."
"Then I dub ye in revolt, sir, and must deal wi' ye accordingly!" So saying, Stockton drew out his pistol and fired point-blank.
At the flash, Sally shrieked; but the next instant she felt herself being hurried along toward the church door.
"Run ye, Sally!" gasped Jerry's breathless voice and grimly, bent only upon escape, she obeyed him.
A moment to unfasten old Dot, once that patient beast was reached, a second or so to mount, and she was off, followed by Jerry, who had miraculously found his horse in the darkness. The flare of lightning, now faint and far off, revealed to their backward glances the figure of Stockton in the open door of the church, shaking a malevolent fist after them.
For a while they galloped along in silence. The rain had stopped, as Sally had hoped, and now a tiny star, like faint hope, had crept through a rift in the murky clouds. Soon there was another star and another. Then the moon sailed into glorious freedom, as the two turned their galloping steeds into the Second Road—no longer fittingly named the Dark Lane—and the whole world turned silver-white.
Sally shuddered as she glanced aside into the swamp shadows that even the most brilliant moon ray could not strip of their weird mystery.
"Think ye—think ye—there be quicksand i' there?" stammered Jerry, noticing her sidelong glance.
"I know not, indeed," returned Sally faintly. She looked into Jerry's pale face as he drew abreast her horse, seated upon his own. "Oh, why did ye not stop Mary, an ye saw her going toward the swamp this afternoon?" she reproached him.
"Ye would turn a soldier's duty into that o' a nursemaid!" retorted the other bitterly. But Sally recognized the pain beneath his words. "How knew I she was not allowed across the road?" he groaned after a pause. "Poor little maid! She was but a babe, after all!"
Sally shut her teeth upon the edge of a sob. With work to do this night, she would not yield to weakness, she told herself fiercely. There would be plenty of time for weeping afterward if But her heart shrank away from the hideous possibilities of little Mary Todd's disappearance; for besides the war, wild beasts still roamed the Newark Mountains, and always there was the danger of the swamp. "There must be no if! Mary Todd must be found!" Sally thought. However, her young face grew strained and white.
Approaching Ned Tompkins's inn at Freemantown, Sally pulled old Dot to a standstill. "I think," she said slowly, "I will borrow a lanthorn."
Young Lawrence nodded. "Aye, 'tis wise. Best go in alone, though," he added, glancing down at his red uniform wearily.
How reluctant were Sally's feet as she went up the stepping stones to the inn's back door. Only Mistress Tompkins was in the big kitchen, though; and since she was deaf, she made out but half of what Sally tried to tell her. At last she gestured toward the lantern hanging upon its peg. "Take it," she said in the breathless voice of one who cannot hear. "I cannot understand why ye wish it," she smiled resignedly, "but I will trust ye, Sally!" Sweeping her a grateful curtsey, Sally seized the lantern and, removing its tallow candle, lighted the candle wick in the supper embers still glowing upon the hearth. Then nodding again gratefully, the girl rejoined Jerry outside.
At sight of his drooping figure, however, a pang of pity swept over Sally. For the first time that night she remembered that he had been wounded, that he was in the land of his enemies, and that—more prosaic but equally important—like herself, he was doubtless supperless. She hesitated, for she was afraid of the risk of being detained by the tavern hostess; but finally setting the lantern down upon a stump in the yard, she turned and sped back to the kitchen door. With her hand upon the latch, though, she paused, startled. Loud voices were now exclaiming in the kitchen.
"Run away, ye say, Todd!" That was mine host's voice.
"Aye," answered a sad voice. "Run away! And we know not where to search for Mary, either! I ha' been scouring the Mountain wi'out result this night! I fear, indeed, the young red-coat took her wi' him for revenge!"
"The varlet!" growled Master Tompkins. "An we find him, we will make short work o' stringing him up!"
He turned and shouted the tale into his wife's deaf ear, so that in the ensuing confusion—for the poor lady got everything twisted—Sally escaped without detection. Dashing past the little shed at the rear of the house, the girl halted. It was the dairy, she knew, and she tried the door. Yes, it was open, and a little later Jerry was staring down with unbelieving eyes at the brimming gourd of milk Sally held up to him.
Then as the girl hastily, in a low voice, informed him of events within the tavern, he gulped down the milk gratefully. When he handed back the gourd, he looked and felt much better. Sally threw the gourd back into the inn yard, then quickly remounted old Dot.
"They ha' not spied us because o' the great trees sheltering us here and because we stopped at the rear door i'stead o' the front one!" she exclaimed. "But we'd best away, Jerry!"
They were too late! Master Todd, followed by Uzal Ball, issuing from the tap-room door of the inn just as they started away in the bright moonlight, recognized both boy and girl. The men gave a loud shout and ran for their horses; but the others had a head start and galloped off.
"Hast any plan?" asked Jerry grimly, as they galloped neck to neck.
"Aye!" shouted Sally in his ear. "Follow me!"
And the next moment she pulled up. Jerry doing likewise, she guided them both aside and rode directly into the swamp. Splashing through standing water, with Jerry following closely, she drew up behind a thick screen of underbrush and saplings upon what seemed to be a tiny islet. When Master Todd and Uzal, galloping past them unsuspectingly—for Sally and Jerry, slipping aside, had been hidden by a turn of the road as they had done so—to disappear up the road, Sally used her heels as spurs and regained the lane in short order to gallop in the opposite direction, toward home.
"Now," she said, when Jerry had come up with her once more, "let us hurry!" She whispered suddenly: "Oh, what be the use o' hurrying when it may be too late!"
"Courage!" returned Jerry. "The little Mary will yet be found safe!"
At last they reached the old stone wall whence had come the fatal shot from Master Todd's musket. Across the way was another opening into the swamp which Sally knew. Once more she guided old Dot into water knee-deep to the horse, followed by Jerry. Once more they reached a strip of higher ground, above the water. And there, slipping off from old Dot, Sally tied her to a tree and helped Jerry tie his nag, also, for his abused and wounded arm was now paining him again—a fact he had tried to hide from the girl; but which her sharp scrutiny had detected and pitied. At last, free to set forth upon their search for the missing child, they faced each other.
"Hast any idea which direction Mary might ha' taken?" asked Jerry in a hopeless manner.
Sally, shaking her head, jumped in nervous terror. Was that a snake she had stepped upon! Examination proved it to be but a stick. "Nay," she said. "We must keep to high land, an we can—though, i' truth, I ha' never heard o' anyone finding quicksand here for certain, as they have i' the Newark swamps! Give me the lanthorn, please!" she added, extending her hand.
"The lanthorn! Nay—I—I" Jerry's voice trailed off into silence.
"Ye must ha' dropped it!" said Sally bitterly, after a little. "Nay, stay, I mind I left it myself upon that stump in the inn yard! Well," she squared her shoulders in a debonair fashion, "an we come to the worst shadows we—we—will wait and—and—see what they be! Besides, the moonlight doth filter through enough to—to—let us see, most o' the time!"
So, chatting forlornly, to keep up her show of bravery, Sally led the way into the depths of the swamp.
It was in vain! No sign was there of little Mary Todd anywhere! They fell to calling her name presently in a last hope that somewhere in that great, shadowy place she would hear and answer them. But again and again they listened, and nothing could be heard in response save perhaps the flight of a swamp rat or the scolding of a chipmunk upon a near-by stump.
It was their calling, as they neared the road once more, which was Sally's undoing. Master Todd, passing by and hearing her voice, came bursting through the underbrush, and when she would have run, caught her in an angry grasp.
"How now!" he exclaimed fiercely. "What foolishness be this, Sarah?"
Sally, glancing over her shoulder and seeing Jerry slip safely away behind the chipmunk's tree stump, allowed herself to be haled out of the swamp and hurried along the road toward the Todd farmhouse. "I—I—was—was looking i' the swamp for—for—little Mary," she explained at last, wearily, in answer to the indignant questions Master Todd kept shouting at her as he half dragged, half carried her along by her thin arm.
He seemed beside himself with fatigue and anxiety. His tone softened as he glanced down at the childish figure staggering along beside him, with downcast eyes and bowed head of auburn curls. "All this time, Sally?" he asked. Without waiting for a reply, to Sally's intense relief, for she had hesitated in answering him, not wishing to tell him an outright falsehood, Master Todd continued more gently: "Ye must be tired, then, lass! Best home wi' ye to bed!"
"But Mary!" cried the girl despairingly. She gave a little sob. "I could not sleep—I must help to find her!"
"I will keep up the search, Sally, never fear!" Grimly, determinedly, the father looked down at her out of eyes like sunken coals. "Ye had better get some sleep, though, for to-morrow—to-morrow ye may ha' much to do." His voice broke and he turned away for an instant. Then, clearing his throat, he made a pretense of looking over his shoulder; and Sally, glancing up at him, saw a rough homespun sleeve drawn across his eyes. He immediately became very brisk and matter-offact, however. "Uzal!" he shouted into the night. "Bring the horses to the house, will ye?"
"Aye, Squire!" came back the answer.
"What made ye think o' looking i' the swamp, Sally?" asked Master Todd suddenly, jerking a thumb backward over his shoulder as they turned in at the farm gate.
"Why not there?" returned Sally evasively. "When one searches, one must look—everywhere!"
Her voice now broke in turn, and, stumbling, she would have fallen but for Master Todd's hand upon her arm. All at once she seemed pathetically little to him, and stooping, he picked her up and thus carried her into the house.
His wife, seeing him burdened, started up from the settle with wild hope in her eyes, then in the candlelight, perceiving it to be Sally, she burst into tears and sank back. Her attitude of utter hopelessness touched Sally, pierced through her dislike and resentment toward the other; and when she was placed gently upon her feet inside the door by Master Todd, the girl went over to place her hand in pitying tenderness upon the poor woman's shoulder. The other did not move, however, did not utter a word. She merely sat there, staring stonily ahead of her at nothing, the great tears rolling silently down her cheeks.
"Well," it was Master Todd's husky voice which finally broke the stillness, "I shall go out again, Molly!" He waited a moment; but his wife did rot speak or move, and he slowly withdrew into the night.
Scarcely had he gone, however, when he wis back. There was a rush of feet in the doorway, a man's rapturous cry, and Master Todd burst in upon them again. "Mary is found!" He strode over to shake his wife, who looked up at him bewilderedly. "Ye hear, Moll! Our Mary!"
They all turned toward the door, and an instant later Jerry staggered across the threshold with little Mary in his arms. Swiftly, silently he leaped across the room and placed the chubby form in her mother's outstretched arms. He alone saw the terrible appeal in Mistress Todd's eyes. "Aye, she is alive!" he said simply.