"I guess not," interrupted the watchman. "I was opposite your house when I heard the door open and shut, but no one came out, until you made your appearance."
"Say you so? then the rascal has secreted himself in the cellar or in the back yard." And the doctor ran back to the house without stopping to apologize to the reverend gentleman whom he had shaken so violently, and frightened almost out of his senses.
When the doctor left the house, Burr justly presumed that he would soon return, and made the best use of his time. He slipped on his clothes, and had scarcely buttoned them when he heard the angry husband's footsteps on the pavement under the window. He fled to the back door, which he opened quickly and closed silently, just as his indignant pursuer entered the house. He ran through the yard to the back door of a house that abutted on the doctor's premises and plunged into the first apartment that presented itself; but not until he had bolted the door after him.
The doctor went down to the cellar with a light in one hand, and a pistol in the other, which gave Burr ample time to say to the lady of the house which he entered, and whom he found still up and engaged in sewing.
"Don't be alarmed, madam. I am an American officer, pursued by three virulent tories, who have sworn to take my life, as I officiated at the tarring and feathering of one of their number."
The lady at once banished her fears, and replied:
"Then, sir, you shall be protected as far as it can be done. We are no friends to the British here. They burned my father's house over his head, and we only ask that Washington and his army may drive the whole swarm of red coats out of the country."
"I am an officer of the army at Cambridge," was the brief reply of Burr, for the doctor had found nothing in the cellar, and was now thundering at the back door of the house which our hero had entered.
"There they are now!" exclaimed the lady.
"You may as well go to the door, and tell the rascals that I am not here; but ask them what they want first."
The lady ran out to the door, and cried:
"Who is there, and what do you want?"
"I am your neighbor, Dr. W—," was the reply; "I want a rascal who is concealed somewhere in the neighborhood, and I thought he might have entered your house."
"Merciful heaven!" said the woman to herself, "is the doctor among the tories? I'll never employ him in my family again as long as I live!" Then she added aloud:
"You see the door is fastened. How could he have got in here?"
