MEHITABLE was worried. Early that morning Mistress Condit, reluctantly, for the girls had been home from Trenton only a week, had gone to the farm of Matthias Dodd, whither she had been called to take care of Mistress Dodd, who had fallen and injured herself. Mehitable, left in charge, had been appealed to by Charity and by Young Cy, who had come for that purpose, for permission for the former to accompany the latter to the Town by the River. Against her better judgment, the older sister had yielded, though as soon as the other two started off gaily she regretted it. Now it was dusk and though Young Cy had promised to have his little charge back in the early afternoon, there was no sign of them upon the cart road before the Condit farmhouse.
"If only my father were home instead of off to Millburn!" sighed Mehitable to herself anxiously. "Or Mother! Indeed, I fear what they will say to me for letting Charity go with Young Cy! And perhaps I was foolish, though Charity did beg so! And Young Cy, too!"
At last, just as she thought she could bear being alone no longer, Amos, one of the men-of-all-work, entered the kitchen abruptly. He wore a grave face.
"The master not back, yet?" he asked.
"Nay. Be there anything the matter?"
"Nothing serious," he answered slowly. "'Tis this—three o' our horses be sick; methinks they act like they've been poisoned, and indeed, I would not put it above the Tories!—and Judd and I will have to work o'er them this night. Mayhap ye will give me a bit o' bread and cheese so that we can sup in the barn, Mistress Hitty?"
Agreeing, Mehitable told him of her anxiety concerning Charity, adding that she would take one of the well horses and ride as far as the Joneses'.
Amos protested; but Mehitable was perverse and less than half an hour later she was pounding at the Joneses' front door. Jemima, Young Cy's sister, appeared, but seeing Mehitable she burst into tears, and the latter, her heart sinking, discovered that Jemima's parents had also, like good neighbors, hastened to the Dodd farm, that the young girl and her old grandmother and a little brother were alone and greatly worried by Young Cy's inexplicable tarrying.
"Nay, keep thy courage," murmured Mehitable, her own lips trembling. "I will ride toward Newark to meet them. Doubtless they are delayed."
So saying, she rode off once more. When she reached the meeting house she was surprised to see a number of horses tethered to posts before it and still more surprised to hear a loud voice issuing in tirade from within it.
"I tell ye, gentlemen," said the voice grimly, "these Whig sentiments be stamped out. Disloyalty to our king must be punished—aye, even by death! And"
A tumult of conversation interrupted the speaker for a moment; then he continued.
"There are certain men in ye Newark mountains neighborhood who not only have gi'en their sons to the rebel army, but have otherwise supported this pernicious cause. These men should be driven forth. Among them are Jones, Dodd, Baldwin, Aaron Harrison, Samuel Condit"
Here Mehitable drew a sharp breath as she now realized what it was she was overhearing. A Tory meeting in patriotic Parson Chapman's own meeting house! It was the essence of irony!
She looked indignantly around her. Night had fallen, with bright moonlight to soften its murk. If only she could warn those men who were so calmly being sentenced to death or exile by their erstwhile neighbors. She had recognized the speaker as being one Josiah Felton, a bitter partisan of the king and long a person to be avoided. But only silence, with the occasional stamping of horses' hoofs, answered her until—a strange feeling made her glance at the meetinghouse door. There, staring at her vindictively, was the man she had thought safe in some patriot prison camp—Hawtree! And as she gazed in horror another figure joined him. It was Squire Briggs!
A sharp cut of her whip sent her horse flying down the road; but her brave little attempt at escape ended in sorry failure. Her steed stumbled and fell to his knees and before she could resume her flight upon foot the two men were beside her.
"How now, mistress?" sneered Hawtree. "Art caught again?"
"Let me go!" commanded the girl furiously, as his fingers caught her wrist in a rough grasp. But paying no attention to her, the rascal dragged her to one side of the road, where he consulted with his shifty-eyed companion.
"I know of a cabin," Mehitable heard Squire Briggs say. "'Twill do until"
His voice sank. Mehitable, standing hopeless now, felt her heart contract. Until—what? she asked herself. Her mind refused to believe the conclusion to that question, despite what she had overheard in in front of the meeting house. Then the Tories turned toward her and, each grasping an arm, they half led, half carried her into the swamp bordering the road.
Afterward she reproached herself for not fighting bitterly every step of the way, making her captors pay in the way of scratches and bites from her sharp teeth. Dazed, however by her sudden misfortune, she stumbled along meekly enough until Hawtree, noticing her head turning frantically in an effort to see the path they were following into the depths of the swamp, laughed tauntingly.
"Ye know now how I felt Christmas morn when that jackanapes traitor, Von Garten, took me prisoner for the while," he mocked.
"He was no traitor, sir!" burst out Mehitable, forgetful of her sorry plight.
"He wore the Hessian uniform. He was a spy and traitor, mistress!" repeated Hawtree angrily.
"Spy, perhaps, for his country; but no traitor to your miserable king!" cried Mehitable. And scarce had spoken the words when she staggered beneath the other's cowardly blow. She would have fallen but for Squire Briggs's grasp. He stopped and faced the other with snarling lips.
"Fool!" was all he said, however.
At last, after long tramping, during which Mehitable's heart and head ached alike, they reached a tiny hut. Desolate and alone it stood, surrounded by black, partly frozen water and accessible only by one path leading to the door in its front.
But once across the threshold Mehitable stopped in sheer amazement. The interior of the cabin, in contrast to its wild and lonely surroundings, was comfortable, even luxurious for those days. A fire burned cozily upon the hearth, skins of various animals lay here and there upon the hard dirt floor, and a bunk built into one corner was piled high with blankets, with even a pillow for its occupant's head. Chairs and a table completed the room's furnishings save for some shelves with a scanty array of pewter dishes upon them. Except that stout bars across each of the two windows were visible, it might have been the home of some young Colonial farmer and his bride.
Thrusting her into a chair, the two men again consulted together. Her weary ears caught such scraps of conversation as "not safe—she must have overheard," "knows too much," and again that ominous "until." She could have wept from terror and the pain in her head.
At last Squire Briggs turned toward her. "An ye try not to escape, Mehitable," he said briefly, careful not to meet her eyes, "we will let ye have the freedom o' this cabin. If not"
He paused significantly and Hawtree finished his sentence with an evil laugh.
"If not—ye had a taste before, mistress," he said nastily.
Mehitable looking at them silently, they took it for assent and withdrew, when she staggered wearily over to the bunk and fell asleep, with the knowledge that Charity and her parents were in danger and she could not warn them!
Morning, like an ancient hag, showed a worn and gray face as it crept past the wooden bars. Squire Briggs was early with her plain, cold breakfast and, somewhat to the girl's surprise, allowed her to go outside to make her toilet. As she stooped to dash the icy water over her hands and face, Mehitable thought of making a wild attempt to escape; but one glance around her showed how hopeless would be that attempt. The swamp seemed impenetrable, even in the daylight.
That day passed and the next. There had been a plentiful supply of logs upon the hearth. But now it was the last log! And already the piercing cold of a freezing night was beginning to creep in at every chink.
Finally the log was consumed. And poor Mehitable had to walk up and down the narrow space of the cabin, swinging her arms to keep warm. She curled up in the bunk after a while and pulled the blankets around her. Her relief was enormous when the door opened and Squire Briggs appeared with her supper and a fresh supply of logs.
Casting them down upon the hearth, he kindled the fire once more and spoke into the shadows.
"I know not why ye cannot be a good girl like my 'Randy, 'stead o' traipsing around the country hearing things ye should not!" he burst out irritably.
Mehitable had to laugh at this and, offended, the Squire slammed down the trenchers he held upon the hearth and stalked from the cabin.
The girl waited until the fire blazed high, then jumped from the bunk and approached the trenchers which held her supper. But hungry as she was, she snatched back her hand without touching them and sprang to her feet. Retreating to the opposite wall she stood staring, rigid with horror. For there beside the trencher she had almost touched, with head erect, with tongue darting like a flame, with tail moving, was a large rattlesnake!
Mehitable could scarcely believe her eyes. Real country girl that she was she knew that all species of snakes retire to their holes the first cold night to sleep for months, not to waken from their torpor until the bright spring sunshine brings them forth. Yet here was this snake, not only alive but ready to attack, on one of the coldest nights of the year, with the thermometer at zero!
At last as she stood perfectly motionless, the facts of the case flashed over her. The snake must have crawled into the cabin, and the door subsequently having been closed, finding itself caught, it had found a hole in the fireplaces and had gone to sleep for the winter. The furious heat of Mehitable's fire had roused it and forth it had come in search of food. Finding the trencher, there, it had naturally resented Mehitable's unexpected appearance, and now it was ready to give battle.
She edged cautiously along the wall to the door, which she tried with trembling fingers. It held firm, though she had hoped against hope it might not, and for the first time she cried out. The utter horror of it struck her. She was alone and locked in with a rattlesnake!
But the snake did not move from its place before the fire. Gradually, it dawned upon Mehitable that as long as she remained quiet, the snake would, too.
The fire blazed up merrily. After a while the food, reheated by the leaping flames, began to send forth tantalizing odors. Mehitable looked hungrily and desperately around for a pole or something similar to try to draw the trencher toward her; but at her first movement the snake lifted its head and rattled its warning so spitefully that the girl, terrified, desisted.
Once she thought of attempting to reach her bunk which, raised from the floor, would offer her protection; but this thought was instantly followed by the memory of what her father had once told her—that snakes travel in pairs and that after killing one deadly snake, it is always wise to hunt for the mate. Her face blanched as she realized that even now that mate might be lying hidden in the blankets of the bunk.
"I shall have to stand here all night!" she thought despairingly.
Stand there with her back to the door she did, hour after weary hour. Once or twice her head nodded in acute fatigue and she virtually went to sleep upon her feet; but each time her danger forced her awake again. The fire not being attended to, died down, and when even the embers smoldered and went out, poor Mehitable had the added horror of not being able to see her enemy.
Dawn came lagging at last. There was just the suggestion of light when the exhausted girl caught? slight sound outside the cabin, a rustling of swamp grass. She uttered a low cry of relief. Any one would have been welcome at that moment, even Hawtree!
It was not Hawtree, however, who a moment later tried the door. As the door swung slowly open, Mehitable moved so that she stood shielded behind it. But the newcomer entered so swiftly and so silently that he was bending over the hearth with his load of logs before she could utter a warning.
Her cry came too late! There was a terrible rattle, the flash of a brown body, the downward onslaught of a heavy piece of wood and then Mehitable found herself staring at an old acquaintance—the Indian! He, in turn, was staring down at the dead snake that still wriggled convulsively at his feet.
"But the snake! I—I—saw it leap at you!" panted Mehitable, feeling suddenly very sick and queer and commencing weakly to cry.
The Indian turned at the sound of her voice and regarded her stoically.
"Ugh," he agreed. "It bite! I die!"
And to prove it he turned and displayed his shoulder, for his blanket had dropped to the floor. Already upon his smooth brown skin the fatal result of the snake bite was revealing itself!