THE red-coats!" Charity's face paled. "Yet are we not too near the American encampment to be molested by the British? Would they dare pursue us this far from their own base on Staten Island?" she whispered presently.
"The red-coats would dare anything!" returned Mehitable fiercely. "Besides, mayhap they be lone Tories, out to see what mischief they can bestow on honest patriots!"
But presently, straining her gaze backward over the twilight-lit road, she uttered a cry, half hysterical, half joyful.
"Father! Father! 'Tis John, not red-coats, pursuing us! I vow 'tis John and another man!" And at that instant, as though to confirm his sister's words, John Condit's voice could indeed be heard hailing them.
Squire Condit promptly pulled his horses to a standstill, and taking out his kerchief, wiped away the perspiration that was streaming down his brow.
"I' faith!" he ejaculated angrily. "It seems a pity the boy should ha' thus played such a trick upon us! How now, sirrah!" He greeted his son irately as that young man rode up behind them laughingly. 'What mean ye by frightening your sisters thus! "'Tis not my idea o' a jest!"
"Nay, Father, be not angry!" apologized Doctor Condit, the mirth dying out of his eyes as he saw how seriously the three travelers were upset. He rode his horse close to the side of the sled and snatched a kiss from Charity, who was still trembling. "Poor little maid!" he said remorsefully. "We thought to stop you at the junction o' the roads back yonder," he continued in explanation, turning back to his father. "When we saw ye not, we thought we had missed you until Tony, here—ye remember Captain Freeman, do ye not, Hitty?—until Tony spied you ahead o' us. Then, all unwittingly, we galloped after the sled."
"And a most desperate gallop it was!" added Captain Freeman, laughingly riding forward in turn to greet Squire Freeman and his daughters.
The three responded to him in various ways: Squire Condit in a hearty manner, for he liked the young man who was his son's friend; Charity agitatedly offered him her hand with a surreptitious glance at Mehitable as she did so, while that young lady, to Captain Freeman's obvious surprise, bestowed upon him only a frigid little bow. Puzzled, he glanced at her more than once during the rest of the journey into Morris Town, for he and Mehitable had parted the best of friends three years ago.
Squire Condit reined in his horses at last before a comfortable-looking farmhouse whose great chimneys at either end gave it an air of hospitality and welcome which the hostess, Mistress Lindsley, verified by her friendly smile as soon as she opened the door. But, indeed, the whole place, with its tidy fence, its sprucely trimmed trees, its neat fieldstone-walled well with the long well sweep, its kitchen ell offering two additional windows in the house front, added grace to her greeting, while the candlelight, streaming out through the windowpanes beside her, dispersed the cold gray shadows without and seemed to urge them to hasten within.
Mehitable, helped to the ground by her brother, turned to follow Charity up the walk to where Mistress Lindsley stood outlined against the light in her wide doorway. But she found her path blocked and Captain Freeman standing there, his three-cornered hat in his hand.
"Nay, Mistress Hitty, can we not part more cordially than this?—for John and I must go on to our own quartering. Why, what hath become o' the little friend who waved to me o'er the fence when I rode away three years ago?" he asked reproachfully, as Squire Condit drove his horses toward the barn, and John, passing them, ran up to pay his respects to Mistress Lindsley before going on.
Alone beneath the dusky wintry sky, Mehitable looked up at the handsome, wistful face bending eagerly toward her and opened her lips to speak. A rush of generosity, of forgiveness enveloped her. After all, what had this young man's, or any other young man's, philanderings to do with her! Surely friendship was made of better stuff than of doubt and distrust and suspicion. But glancing up, at this point, into Captain Freeman's dark eyes, she saw—was it an amused twinkle, a condescending, what-a-silly-little-maid-yet-must-I-humor—her expression?
Back came the anger and the injured pride and the real shock which the ending of Charity's fairy tale had aroused in her, so that, instead of answering him, she closed her lips tightly together, a thin, straight line of prim disapproval. Then, giving him a level look, she stepped around him and pursued her way with dignity up the path.
It was too bad that the young man, standing where she had left him to stare after her with amazed, angry eyes, could not have seen the tears which sprang to her own and the trembling lips which she was endeavoring to steady before coming into the yellow circle of light thrown by the open doorway. Perhaps, if he had, he might not have strode back to his horse, a moment later, with such stern tread, or, mounting abruptly, have ridden away so furiously into the twilight!
As for Mehitable, tremulously returning Mistress Lindsley's greeting and straining her ears to hear the last of those retreating hoof-beats, she was filled with a mixture of feelings and hardly knew what she was saying. Her relief was proportionate when, bidding farewell to John Condit, who left then, Mistress Lindsley caught up a candle which had been sputtering upon a table behind her and led the way through a dark hall and a series of small, ill-planned rooms into a big, bright kitchen, full of goodly odors, warm with firelight, and reassuring with its promise of supper upon a long, candle-lit table in the center of the room. Mehitable found, then, given a few precious seconds to regain her self-possession, she could enter the kitchen her own smiling, debonaire self.
"Well," said Mistress Lindsley, "your cousin will indeed be glad to see ye! Poor thing, she hath been much alone, so busy are we wi' the baking we must do for His Excellency, who hath now arrived at the headquarters."
"Do ye indeed bake His Excellency's bread?" asked Mehitable, with a sort of awe in her voice.
Mistress Lindsley laughed as she motioned to her young guests to remove their capes and mittens and tippets and advance to the fire. "I do hate to disappoint ye first thing," she replied dryly, "yet truth compels me to admit we bake only for his guard, General Washington having his own cook at Mistress Ford's. But the guard contains two hunderd and fifty men, so we are kept busy, you see."
"Two hundred and fifty!" Mehitable's jaw dropped. "Why, where do they all sleep? Surely Mistress Ford's house—fine and large as I ha' heard it to be—is not that large!"
Again their hostess laughed. "The guard sleep across the lane from headquarters in huts which have been built for them," she answered.
"What about the rest o' the army? What do the soldiers do for bread?" asked Mehitable inquisitively.
Mistress Lindsley sighed. "There has been much suffering for lack o' bread and already mutinies," she returned sadly. "A good patriot, Christopher Ludwick, was appointed by Congress to take care o' the matter; but always he hath been handicapped by the army not remaining long enough in one place to erect his ovens to bake the bread and afterward, too, he hath had difficulties in getting the bread delivered to the troops. Too, hundreds of pounds of bread, fresh from Master Ludwick's ovens, once delivered, hath been allowed to spoil upon the ground, exposed to noonday sun or night damp, because an officer hath not been properly assigned to care for it, I've heard. 'Tis also common report that poor Master Ludwick hath been expending his private means to pay his bakers, money he made from his gingerbread business before the war, and that he hath lost much because, before he was reimbursed by the military paymasters, our Continental currency did depreciate!"
"What a pity!" ejaculated tender-hearted Charity.
"Is it not!" nodded Mistress Lindsley. "The men," she continued, "drew rations o' flour for awhile and baked their own hard bread—for only the officers like soft bread, it seems; but now a company o' bakers, to help Master Ludwick out, hath been raised in Boston Town, under John Torrey, and ovens hath been erected at Springfield, Massachusetts, in addition to those here. Yet," Mistress Lindsley shook her head pessimistically, "I've heard, too, this hath been costly, that Master Torrey, though well-meaning, hath been bewildered by his difficulties. Time alone can tell what will happen. Ah, Tabitha," she interrupted herself to glance toward the inglenook beyond the fireplace, "wilt not leave your bashful corner and come welcome our young guests?"
A sweet-faced, quiet-looking young girl, at whom Mehitable and Charity had been glancing askance ever since they had entered, got up at this and advanced to them. Giving them a little work-roughened hand, she bade them welcome in a low voice.
"Tabitha be staying here to help me," said Mistress Lindsley, smiling at her. "Ah, Squire Condit," she turned toward the door which led into the side yard, "I hope ye be planning to stay over night?"
"Your health, mistress!" Entering briskly, Squire Condit bowed low over the hand Mistress Lindsley gave him. "An it would not inconvenience ye," he went on, straightening himself and glancing involuntarily toward the supper table. His long ride had given him a sharp appetite.
"Nay—rather would we rest better this night to have once more a man i' the house," responded Mistress Lindsley cordially. "It hath been a trial to have Major Lindsley away, for all they say the red-coats would not dare venture into Morris Town. Still, ye never can tell, and I be nervous!"
Squire Condit threw out his chest. "Indeed, mistress," he answered encouragingly, "ye need not be nervous this night an I remain!"
Here, his daughters' glances crossed mischievously, Mehitable, indeed, almost giggling as she remembered the perturbed glances her father had cast over his shoulder that afternoon at the pursuing figures he had not recognized as John's and Anthony Freeman's, and the perspiration, though it was a bitter cold day, he had afterward wiped away. They said nothing, however, being dutiful daughters—not many children criticized their parents in those days!—and a moment later all moved toward the supper table at Mistress Lindsley's invitation.
"Ye must be well-nigh starved," said their hostess hospitably. "What is it, my child?" For Charity had remained standing uncertainly beside her chair.
"Would ye greatly mind," hesitated Charity, "if I asked first to see dear Cousin Eliza, mistress? I know she must have heard our arrival, and it be hard to lie waiting—I know, for once I was very ill, too."
"And may I also be excused?" exclaimed Mehitable, springing to her feet and wondering why she had not thought of her cousin, lying helpless upstairs.
"Nay, sit ye down, Cherry! You, too, Hitty lass!" bade the Squire frowningly. "Your suppers will be cold, forsooth, an ye go, now! Cousin Eliza minds not waiting, I am sure!"
"May they not go for one moment, Squire Condit?" begged Mistress Lindsley unexpectedly. "Indeed, 'tis sweet o' you, child, to remember. Poor Lizzie—I did forget she was waiting upstairs to see her little cousins!"
"Aye, since ye ask it, they may go," consented the Squire, his mouth full of venison pie. "Forsooth," he added, "this be wondrous tasty! Is it rabbit or chicken or what, an I may ask?"
"It be venison, sir," smiled his hostess. "One o' the neighbors shot a buck up Dover village way. We have very little game hereabouts, since the army took up encampment here in Morris Town, for the soldiers, poor, hungry fellows," she paused and sighed, "ha' already scoured our woods. Won't ye ha' more o' the pastry?" she urged, shoving the dish toward him and well knowing that such a treat was not often available in Mistress Condit's frugal, patriotic household.
"Thank'ee, madam, I don't care an I do!" returned the Squire hungrily, feeling as though it were a holiday, as holidays had been celebrated before the war with a feast of good things.
Mehitable and Charity, meanwhile, had followed Tabitha upstairs. "Mistress Lindsley said your name was Tabitha?" said Mehitable inquiringly.
"Aye." The girl nodded over the candle she was carrying. "But folks mostly call me Tabbie."
"As they call me Hitty and they do Charity by the name o' Cherry," returned Mehitable, laughing. "Well, Tabbie," she went on saucily, when they had reached a door beneath which showed a gleam of light, "an ye return to the supper table,'see that Father does not eat up all the meat pie, for I be ravenously hungry, while Cherry, here, is a monstrous eater!"
"Hitty, how can ye!" protested her embarrassed sister, glancing sidelong at Tabitha.
"Now, Cherry, deny it not! Be truthful, be honest!" insisted the tease. Then, as Tabitha smilingly promised to save them their share of supper, Mehitable pulled her face to solemn length, for sympathy, and tiptoed into Cousin Eliza's sick room after Charity. To her enormous relief, however, they found the invalid reading by the light of a candle and not at all inclined to be self-pitying, as she took off her narrow spectacles and greeted them in a cheerful voice.
"Welcome to Morris Town, my dears!" she said affectionately. "So ye did remember your old coz!" Giving them a smooth, fragrant cheek to kiss, she patted their hands with a tiny, ring-ladened one, for she was a very fine lady, indeed, who had never known work as the girls' mother, her cousin, had. "Methought ye but now arrived! Have ye supped thus quickly?"
"Not yet," answered honest Mehitable.
"It does not matter, indeed," began the more polite Charity.
"But it does!" replied Cousin Eliza. She waved them away. "Good-night, little maids! Greet your father for me and tell him I hope to see him e'er he departs the morrow." She nodded at them smilingly. "Mistress Lindsley was hoping he would plan to stay the night, so that she might rest in peace. Poor woman—she generally sleeps mortal fear o' a British raid, because o' the powder mill so close by!"
"Powder mill?" Interested at once, Mehitable turned back at the door. But her cousin, clapping a hand over her mouth, waved at her silently, and the girl, sensing that the other had told more than she should have, ran down the narrow stairs after Charity. Seated at the supper table, however, Mehitable did not scruple to ask about the powder mill, for Cousin Eliza's words had aroused her wildest curiosity.
Mistress Lindsley glanced around the room uneasily before answering, and when she spoke, she did so in a lowered voice, as though she feared her words might escape to listening Tory ears outside the closed windows.
"Aye, there be a powder mill on the Whippanong River i' the woods behind us," she admitted. "Colonel Ford and his father built it about three years ago. Colonel Benoni Hathaway be in charge, wi' my husband acting as his assistant when he is home. I must warn ye, however"—she turned solemnly to her wide-eyed young guests who, too interested to eat, hungry though they were, were staring at her, breathless—"I must warn ye that no one knows the mill's whereabouts, so hidden is its site i' the woods, and no one must know—for Tories and red-coats—aye, we have occasional spies, Squire—while they may know o' its existence, yet are unaware o' its location. That be why, ye understand, I am e'er nervous at night, with Joseph away, for any attack o' the British will naturally be aimed at the headquarters or—the powder mill!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Mehitable, "what a lovely spot! Think o't, Cherry—spies and the powder mill and—and—the routs we are to attend! 'Tis too heavenly to be true!" She sighed ecstatically.
They all joined in the Squire's burst of laughter, even the quiet Tabitha, who chuckled over the stocking she was knitting at the girl who liked such a conglomeration of things.
As Mistress Lindsley predicted, everyone slept soundly that night, and early the next morning Squire Condit headed his team and the farm sled toward home.
"Tell our mother we be thinking o' her," begged Charity wistfully, evincing a desire to linger near her father.
"And tell her not to forget to water my plants!" Mehitable called after him when he departed. The Squire nodded and smiled, and his two daughters waved to him until he was out of sight and then turned back in rather a homesick fashion toward the house.
They were met at the kitchen door by Mistress Lindsley, whose face was drawn into a worried expression.
"Hitty," she said abruptly, "a heavy package arrived but now for Colonel Hathaway from headquarters, and the messenger returned at once. Now, Colonel Hathaway be over at the powder mill, and the package requires two people to carry it, for it is heavy. I cannot leave my bread, which is still i' the oven. Think you"—she looked at Mehitable hesitatingly—"think you, you could help Tabbie carry it to the mill?"
"Oh, indeed and I could, Mistress Lindsley!" Mehitable followed her joyfully into the kitchen, where Tabitha was already donning her heavy cardinal. "Don't you want to come, too, Cherry?" she asked, loath to have her sister miss any of the fun.
But Charity shrank back in dismay. "Nay," she faltered. "Why, the old powder mill might blow up while I was there! Oh, Hitty, do not go!"—she whispered imploringly, when Mistress Lindsley's back was turned. "I like it not! Suppose a Tory caught ye going thither! He might shoot ye!"
Mehitable laughed at her. "Little silly!" she murmured affectionately. "Stay you here wi' Cousin Eliza, then! Indeed, I would not miss this trip for worlds!"
Chattering blithely in the bright, cold sunshine, Mehitable and Tabitha soon emerged from the Lindsley house and wended their way toward the secret place of the mill. They carried the package between them, suspended from a long wooden stick that the Morris Town girl produced, each end of which rested upon a thin girlish shoulder. Tabitha, looking carefully around, at last held up her hand for silence, then she struck off from the narrow wagon trail, which led toward the river, into an almost impenetrable thicket. Mehitable, struggling along after her, trying to protect her eyes from the vicious back-springing branches and receiving a dozen scratches while so doing, trying, too, to keep the awkward bundle they were carrying from sliding along its stick into Tabitha, thought, whimsically, that Charity had been the wiser of the two, after all. But when they had fought their way beyond the thicket into a small open space, and had traversed to the very door of the mysterious mill, she caught her breath with excitement and would not have exchanged places with Charity if she could have.
She was doomed to disappointment about seeing the interior of the mill, however, for a man answered their knock and stopped them upon the threshold and though he thanked them courteously, they were not invited to enter. Tabitha, apparently used to this treatment, turned quietly back toward the thickets to retrace her steps; but Mehitable, as soon as she had retreated to a safe distance, vented her ire in words.
"In good sooth, they take a maid's service for granted here, Tabbie!" she exclaimed with a low, angry laugh.
Tabitha, crawling along through the underbrush, glanced around at her in mild surprise. "What did ye expect, Hitty?" she asked soothingly.
"I expected, at least, to be invited to inspect the powder mill and see how they made gunpowder!" retorted Mehitable, dodging an especially vicious briar which, though stripped and dried by wintry winds, could yet deal wounds with its thorns. "After carrying the heavy package to them through—through this awful place!" she added bitterly.
"Nay!" Tabitha's voice was shocked. "They cannot stop to dance attendance upon chance Visitors, these men who work here, Hitty! Why," she went on earnestly, "surely ye know that most, if not all, o' the gunpowder used by our Continental Army in New Jersey is made i' this very mill!"
There was huffy silence upon Mehitable's part; but she was too sunshiny of temper to sulk long, and at last her better nature came to the fore.
"I vow ye be right, Tabbie," she said then, good—haturedly. "Have ye ne'er been in the mill, then?"
"Nay," answered Tabitha firmly. "No woman has, to my knowledge, save, mayhap, Mistress Lindsley!" And the two girls fell silent, Tabitha because she was naturally so, and Mehitable because of astonishment at the lack of feminine curiosity in Morris Town.
But, after a little, turning to glance back through the thickets as they proceeded down the bank of the river, where a barge, loaded with barrels, was frozen into the ice, Mehitable exclaimed in a low voice and clutched Tabitha to an abrupt standstill.
"Hawtree!" she gasped, pointing.
Tabitha stared at her. "Hawtree?" she repeated in astonishment. "What mean ye, Hitty?"
"There!" Mehitable's finger still pointing wildly, Tabitha followed its direction with her eyes, and in doing so, caught a glimpse of a cruel, crafty face just disappearing among the thickets on the opposite bank. "Hawtree is a Tory!" Mehitable was wringing her hands now. "Oh, what a pity—I saw him counting the barrels on yon barge!—what a pity for him to be able to carry news o' their number to the British and there dispose o' such information at his own price!"
But Tabitha smiled quietly. "Can ye keep a secret, Hitty?" she demanded. At Mehitable's wondering nod, she smiled again triumphantly. "The information concerning the output o' the mill on yon barge, while it may earn your Tory spy his unworthy fee, will help instead o' hinder our cause! Those barrels be loaded wi' sand instead o' gunpowder, as is Colonel Hathaway's practice, as I happen to be almost the only one to know—I heard him and Major Lindsley talking by chance o' the matter one time when I approached the mill—'tis thus he deceives the enemy! The larger they think our supply o' powder, the less apt they are to attack us here."
Tabitha's voice died away, but the next instant it was her turn to cry out.
"Oh, Hitty"—trembling, she, too, pointed across the little river—"I saw—I saw the face o' a savage!"
This time it was Mehitable's eyes which followed Tabitha's pointing finger. "Gray Hawk! It must be Gray Hawk!" she cried. "Ah, then," her hands flew to her heart and she turned a pale face toward the other girl, "then danger must be lurking near! Ever Gray Hawk appears when danger threatens! Come, we had best depart! Mayhap, danger is threatening e'en while we stand here!" And, hurriedly, she struck back through the thickets toward the rough wagon trail she knew now led from the Lindsley house to the powder mill.
"Who is Gray Hawk?" demanded Tabitha, almost querulously, stumbling after her. "Ye be so queer wi' your 'Hawtrees' and your 'Gray Hawks'! Indeed, I like not such mysteries! One would think we were out i' the wilderness instead o' right here i' Morris Town!"
Mehitable, her eyes resting at last upon the reassuring protection of Mistress Lindsley's house, slackened her hastening steps momentarily.
"Nay, I meant not to anger ye, Tabbie, by not telling ye at once who Gray Hawk is," she said apologetically. "He is John's 'blood brother'—an Indian who, since the beginning o' the war, because o' certain Indian rites he and John performed together, call themselves so. And he it hath been who hath watched o'er our family because John could not be home to do so. More than once"—Mehitable's voice grew tremulous with real gratitude—"he hath rescued me, hath Gray Hawk!"
The two girls fell silent. Safety near, it was a temptation not to break into a run for shelter. They walked along quickly, however, and both were panting when they burst into the kitchen. But they said nothing about their adventures, having agreed to this by mutual consent for fear of making Mistress Lindsley more nervous than she was.
After supper that evening, Tabitha donned her cardinal and, somewhat to the sisters' surprise, bade them farewell.
"I be going home to take care o' my aunt, who be ill," she explained, in her sober voice. "I usually live wi' my aunt, both mine parents being deceased."
"Are ye not afraid, then, to go through the dark, Tabbie?" asked Mehitable significantly, glancing, with a repressed shudder, through the black square that was the window.
But smilingly Tabitha shook her head. "Nay, why should I be afraid to walk along village lanes that I have known all my life?" she asked gently. "'Tis only the unknown which terrifies, Hitty."
"Well, we hope your aunt will soon be recovered, Tabbie, and that ye will be back here wi' us once more," responded Mehitable cordially, echoed, as usual, by Charity.
Mistress Lindsley had already retired when the girls, having barred the heavy door after Tabitha, went slowly upstairs. Unconsciously, as they left the warmth of the kitchen behind, their steps quickened. They peeped into their Cousin Eliza's room; but finding her asleep, with the firelight playing upon her placid face, they went on to their room and soon they, too, were donning nightcaps and climbing into their high feather bed. There, after a few desultory giggles, convulsive wriggles, pokes, and various bits of girlish gossip, they fell asleep, and all was silent in Mistress Lindsley's house.
It seemed hours later that Mehitable awoke. She jerked straight out of her first sound sleep into the awful, strained, listening attention which an unexpected or a seemingly inexplicable noise can produce at night.
"Cherry!" Mehitable, resting cautiously upon one elbow, leaned over and put her lips to her sister's ears. "Cherry," she said noiselessly, "wake up!"
Charity uttered a little moan, shifted her position. "No, no," she muttered incoherently. "Stop tickling, Hitty! Ugh—le' me 'lone!"
"Cherry!" Mehitable shook her desperately. "Oh, please waken, Cherry!"
Charity, in answer, rolled over upon her back, stretched, yawned, adjusted the nightcap Mehitable had disarranged in whispering to her, and with that, became awake.
"What is it, Hitty?" she asked then. Receiving no answer save a spasmodic clutch from Mehitable, she, too, started up, and they both sat motionless in bed, shivering from cold and fear.
At that instant, their door opened, and Mistress Lindsley entered hurriedly. She was a comical-looking figure, with her curl-papers sticking out from beneath her nightcap, with her shadow dancing grotesquely on the wall behind her from the candle she carried as she advanced upon the girls' bed. But grim tragedy stalked at her heels, peeped out of her staring eyes, spoke in her gasping voice.
"Ge—get up!" she stammered. "The—the—the house be surrounded! We are attacked! The—the—red-coats have—have come!"