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 "Curse ye!" he snarled, returning to Young Cy. Tis well ye'll pay for this night's work. 'Tis not the Sugar House you'll be lodged in, if I have my way; but one o' our beauties on water, and the prison ship you're bound for will knock that fight out o' ye!"

Young Cy only smiled. Now that Charity had made her escape from the sloop, though she were forced to land in enemy country, he felt that he could bear whate'er might befall him.

Charity, drifting away from the sloop's stern, finally slipped her oars into the water. She found it far different from rowing in the Httle home-made boat on the pond at home. The North River, as it widened into New York Bay, looked as vast as the ocean to her, with its black water and the surge and ripple of its swells. It was no mean task for a young girl. Yet Charity, it must be remembered, although not as strong and lusty as Mehitable, was a country-bred girl, and the tide was with her. After a while, to her great joy she heard the grating of rocks beneath the prow of her boat and letting her oars fall as they pleased, she scrambled forward and leaped ashore.

In the darkness she could not tell where she had landed. Indeed, had it been daylight, it is doubtful whether she would have known. John had described the town which the Dutch had built upon an island; but he had dwelt more upon its manners and customs and citizens than anything else, so now Charity looked around her forlornly. Perceiving some distant lights inland, she climbed over the rocks toward them, hoping that her rowboat would drift off from the rocks and

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 out to sea, so that all trace of her should be lost to Captain Jaffray when the morning came.

Afterward she never had any more than the most hazy impression of her first night's adventures in New York. She remembered reaching some farmhouses built upon the point of what is now the Battery, of tramping past them until she came to a house standing in the midst of fine grounds, a pretentious place, well lighted by many sconces visible through the windows. She discovered, by almost running into him, that a sentry guarded the gate to this mansion; but watching her chance when he was at the other end of his beat, she crept like a shadow through the gate and scuttled across the wind-swept lawns toward the rear of the building and past that to some outhouses.

There she stole through the door of one and stopped, with beating heart, to listen. The odor and the occasional stamping of hoofs soon told her that she was in a stable. She groped her way forward with outstretched hands. If only she might be able to find the ladder that led to the hayloft! And at that moment she gave a gasp of incredulous joy, for almost miraculously it would seem, she had touched first the stable wall, then the ladder to the haymow, built against it.

It did not take her long to mount into the warm, sweet-smelling loft. Nor did it take long for her to cuddle down into the hay and go fast asleep!

The next day she did not dare to leave her hiding place, nor the next night, nor even the day after that. When the stable man came up into the loft to

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 pitch hay down to the horses below, she burrowed deeply into the stack and quite unsuspecting, the man whistled and sang at his tasks, all unconscious of his trembling, terrified little listener.

But at the end of her forty-eight hours Charity was driven forth by her dreadful hunger, though she had stolen down to drink out of the horses' watering pails quite a number of times in the dark. She felt faint and dizzy as she faltered down the ladder and through the open stable door. Then she gave a little shriek, for she walked straight into the arms of the hostler.

Fright and hunger made her reel, and for a little while she lay against him motionless, like a poor, stormdriven little bird. Perhaps her helplessness touched his heart, for the hostler carried her into the kitchen of the mansion and, after one look at her white, drawn face, bade the Negro cook fetch some food.

"Here's a lass, an I don't miss my guess, who be starvin'," he said shortly, though not ill-naturedly. "Where she comes from and where she be a-goin' to I know not; but I do know hunger when I see it!"

The cook, a fat, comfortable old negress, came over and looked down at Charity as she lay drooping upon a chair.

"Laws, yas'r, she sho' does want food!"

So, forthwith, food was set before the famished girl. But the cook was wise and allowed her only a small quantity and that mostly liquid.

"I'll gib yo some t' tote wif yo, honey," said the negress, cutting some slabs of beef and slapping them

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 between great hunks of bread. "But doan yo eat it f'r awhile yit! Yo is likely t'die an ye do!"

Charity thanked her gratefully. She had half a mind to ask permission to tarry in that big, warm kitchen; but a strange restlessness drove her on. Besides her anxiety for Young Cy, she was afraid that the mansion might be headquarters for the British, from its size and magnificence.

The kind-hearted stableman escorted her past the sentry, unchallenged. When they separated. Charity tried to tell him of her gratitude; but he cut her short.

"I once had a daughter like you," he told her abruptly and swung upon his heel. As he did so, Charity was both amazed and made sorry to hear him utter a short, hoarse groan. But he did not wait for sympathy, and after a moment Charity hugged her bundle of sandwiches to her and trudged away, wondering if the hostler's daughter were dead or lost, as she was now lost.

"These be such strange, queer times," she murmured to herself. She drifted into a reverie, wondering mournfully if she were ever to see her father and mother and Mehitable again. But Charity was a brave little soul and after a while she blinked the tears from her eyes and looked around her.

If John had been there he could have told her at once that she was in Broadway, that long thoroughfare which stretched out and out until eventually it led to distant places, up the Hudson River through Yonkers and Tarrytown and on until it became the postroad

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 to Albany. But here the houses were built closely together, forming a fine residential section. She came, then, to the stark ruins of Trinity Church, which had been burned almost to the ground some months before in the great New York fire when so many families had been made homeless that the town had had to erect tents to care for the sufferers. Now, just a few of the massive walls stood, a dark mass above the glimmering ghostliness of the old graveyard. As she gazed, an idea came to Charity. Why not hide behind those walls? They would act as windshields and protect her from enemy eyes! On the morrow something might turn up, she might find trace of Young Cy, but for to-night they would be just the place for her!

The cold and the darkness, to say nothing of the ghostly proximity of the gravestones, might well have appalled an even stouter heart than Charity's; but for all her gentleness and quiet, she had a certain grim tenacity in her make-up, partly inherited from her strong-willed parents, partly developed by these last war-filled months. She had made up her mind not to leave New York, not to try to escape to New Jersey until she could carry home tidings of poor Young Cy!

It was not as cold as she had dreaded inside the church ruins. Still, it was a dreary enough bed that she spread with her cape upon a great block of stone in one corner of the ruined church, and little sleep was forthcoming that night.

At last the darkness fled before the lantern of the sun and dawn found Charity stumbling stiffly to her feet.

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 "If only I could make neat my hair and wash my face!" thought the little girl longingly. She pushed back the hood to her cape and ran her fingers through her matted curls. Busily her thoughts ran on as she shook out her wrinkled clothing. "Oh, me, if I could only know where they have taken Young Cy!"

Now, doubtless, had Charity gone straight to the British commandant. Lord Howe would have been touched by her plight and so have seen to it that she reached Newark safely. But besides desiring to learn of her companion's whereabouts. Charity had heard such tales of British cruelty—much of which was only too true, for part of the British policy in this war was to terrify the Americans into submission—that she did not dare to venture forth openly. She was like a pathetic little field mouse carried away to the terrors of city attics—her whole instinct was to hide and creep forth only when the darkness protected her.

However, her curiosity became very great as the light increased. She had had no opportunity to see her surroundings the previous night, the few candle lanterns hanging outside every seventh residence in the city blocks not giving much light. She began to peek from the opening of one of the walls, darting her head back like a turtle at every sound; but the only thing visible being a farm wagon lumbering down Broadway with its driver asleep upon his seat, she grew bolder and bolder.

Thus it was that, as she stared down Wall Street, she saw a young girl walking aimlessly toward her. And as the other neared and looked up each uttered a wild

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 cry of joy and amazement. For the young girl was Mehitable! And Charity, her mouth full of beef sandwich, stumbled out of her hiding place with outstretched arms, feeling that the world was right again and not such a dreary place, after all.

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Page:The practice of typography - a treatise on the processes of type-making, the point system, the names, sizes, styles and prices of plain printing types by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/17

 who are expert in two or three of these departments, but the ordinary workman has knowledge and practice in one department only. Punch-cutting is the first process, which must be preceded by a careful drawing of the characters. No operation in typography requires more skill than this, and in none is error more disastrous. The modern punch-cutter is not fettered by arbitrary rules: he does not conform to the models devised by Albert Dürer, nor those subsequently made by French theorists in type-founding. He is at liberty to design characters that may be taller or broader, thicker or thinner, than any heretofore made, but he is required to make all the characters of a full font uniform as to style, so as to show perfect correlation. The characters must seem uniform as to height, line, stroke, serif, curve, and angle; they should be in proper relative proportion as to size, and as to nearness and distance in all combinations. The beauty of text-types is in their precision. That freedom of drawing which is permitted, and some-


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OR a breathless space of time after her frantic departure from Mistress Hicks's Tory household, Mehitable stared wildly about her, not knowing which way to turn to go back to the Hunters and the Hounds tavern. Indeed, when her first anger against her father for having placed her so blindly in such an ignominious position and against Mistress Hicks for not having informed him frankly of her sentiments had passed, Mehitable was not sure that she wanted to go back to the inn. She was, as a matter of fact, rather afraid to disobey her father in returning to the tavern. Yet, clenching her hands beneath her mother's cardinal, she swore to herself that she would not return to Mistress Hicks. So, turning, she wandered aimlessly away.

It was by mere luck that after walking up different deserted lanes she should come within sight of the few dim lights of Broad and Market streets. But it did not take her long to make her way hastily across the intersection of those lanes to the tavern. She hesitated, however, before the tavern door. Did she dare, after her father had forbidden her to enter there, actually to disobey him?

As she stood miserably hesitating, bar of light

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 shot out into the gloom and she shrank back into the shadows just in time to prevent being stumbled over by three men who issued from the taproom at that moment.

Turning away and raising her cape to shield her face, Mehitable flattened herself against the side of the building. She would have escaped detection save for the fact that the stagecoach for New York drove up at that instant and the lights from its side lanterns threw her form into relief against the tavern wall.

One of the travelers, swinging around, caught sight of her and at once strode toward her.

"Gadzooks, what have we here—a ghost?" he ejaculated, seizing her by the arm and trying to peer into her face.

Mehitable's frightened eyes stared at him from the depths of her hood.

"Oh, sir!" she pleaded and stopped, puzzled. There was something vaguely familiar about the man. Although all she could see of him was his eyes, for his face was hidden by the upturned collar of his greatcoat, Mehitable was almost sure she had met him before.

"Oh, sir," she said again, in a low voice, "I do but look for my father in the tavern!"

Instantly he stepped back and removed his hat with a flourish.

"Let me not stop you, then, young mistress," he said gravely. And this time the girl was struck by the familiar tones of his deep voice. Where had she heard that voice before?

Unheeding his companions' jibing remarks, which

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 they flung at him as they stood beside the stagecoach, the man walked over to the tavern door and threw it open for Mehitable.

"Pray enter!" he said courteously.

It was just as she passed him that Mehitable saw him start. The light from the taproom had struck full upon her face. Then, as she walked forward into the glare and the noise of the tavern room, she recognized him in turn. It was Lieutenant Freeman in civilian attire! But when she would have whirled around she found the great door had closed behind her and her friend of the Trenton visit had gone without a word.

Bewildered by the singing and the laughter which greeted her through the smoke-laden air, she stood there, a butt for all the village wits and boobies until Mr. Gifford, catching sight of her over his counter, came hurrying toward her.

"What is it, my dear?" he asked kindly.

He drew her into the shelter of the counter end.

"Didst want to see anyone?" he puisued, as Mehitable stood silent.

"Art Mr. Gifford?" inquired the girl unsteadily.

"Aye."

"I thought you were not to return until late."

Mr. Gifford smiled down at her. "My mistress and I came home earlier than we had planned."

"Is my father, Samuel Condit, here?" asked Mehitable hurriedly.

Mr. Gifford shook his head. "Nay, child! Your father left a full half hour ago with Mr. Jones. I know not where he went!"

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 Mehitable's face fell. But a second later she raised it with an eager inquiry.

"Didst have aught to tell him concerning my sister Charity and Young Cy Jones?" she asked, quivering.

"Aye," nodded Mr. Gifford.

"Oh, dost know where they be, now?" Mehitable looked at him with wild hope in her eyes.

But he shook his head. "Nay," he answered quickly, "do not raise your hopes thus! I know not where they are, now! I could but tell him that I served them—I and Sturgins here—on the day your father said they were last seen in Newark."

Mehitable's glance sought the tow-headed servant, Sturgins, and found his unpleasant gaze fixed upon her, an ugly sneer only half hidden.

"But he said" began shrugged shoulders wearily. Of what use to stir up trouble here even if the servant were a Tory! Doubtless he performed his tasks well enough, and servants, even with the bound help and the slaves, were scarce. Many days later Mehitable was to regret bitterly not having denounced Sturgins at that moment for a Tory. But now she remained silent.

"He said?" prompted Mr. Gifford encouragingly.

"Nothing." So Mehitable dismissed the subject and stood pondering anxiously. Then she turned toward the door. "I think I will go and seek my father."

"Best wait here," commenced Master Gifford. But Mehitable had already passed out once more into the darkness.

As she stood hesitating by the taproom door her

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 glance fell upon the stagecoach and she heard the driver exclaim to the group of travelers gathered around one of the off horses.

"Gentlemen, this is a sick horse. We shall be delayed until I can procure another beast."

As she gazed a wild plan came to Mehitable. Why not go to New York and search for Charity? And suiting the action to the word, she drifted forward from shadow to shadow until, reaching the deserted side of the coach, she climbed swiftly and surely to the top where, because of the cold, she knew that she would be unmolested the entire trip. She found someone's buffalo robe and, snuggling down into it she fell asleep.

She was awakened by the coach being rolled off from the ferry on to terra firma. Rubbing her eyes, she sleepily got to the edge of the coach and was over it. What were her fright and dismay, however, when she reached the ground, to find herself caught in a rough embrace and held prisoner.

"Ha!" gasped a hoarse voice. "What have we here, forsooth?"

A light was flashed into her face.

"A lass!" said the hoarse voice in surprise. But his grasp did not relax. Then a new voice broke into the astonished monologue of Mehitable's captor.

"What hast thou there, Jerry?" drawled the voice. And the girl, blinking at the light of the lanthorne thrust again into her face, looked up into the amused eyes of Lieutenant Freeman. To her bewilderment he began to laugh heartily and, still laughing, came toward her and

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 gently but firmly removed her from the clasp of the man, Jerry.

"Why, Hitty, by all that's comical and outrageous!" he cried swinging her protectingly into the curve of his left arm, though his mirth still seemed to overcome him.

The man, Jerry, stared in stupid surprise.

"What hast thou for a joke, sir?" he growled, not ill-naturedly. Indeed, an uncouth kindliness rumbled in his fogbound voice, and now that she was no longer in close proximity to him, Mehitable did not think him so terrible.

"Nay, ask—ask me not!" sputtered Lieutenant Freeman. He waved a feeble right arm, weak from laughter. "I vow 'tis the best fun o' the year!"

"Aye?" said Jerry doubtfully. "But"

Suddenly Lieutenant Freeman sobered, though hie eyes still twinkled.

Tis my harum-scarum little sister!" he explained merrily. "She wagered me she would follow me to New York and of course I wagered the minx she could not. Well"—he burst out laughing again—tis I will have to pay the madcap her wager and scurry around and find her a passport, besides, unless"—he paused suggestively—"unless means could be arranged to smuggle her in with me before the guard comes?"

"We—ell," returned Jerry hesitatingly, "if this be true about ye wager—and mind, sir, I don't doubt your word—I should think means could be arranged to save ye the bother o' getting a passport."

There was a silence, a clink of metal against metal, then Lieutenant Freeman moved away.

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 "We will go, I think," he observed abstractedly, "to our aunt's in Broad Street."

"Aye, sir," answered Jerry, adding quickly, "best go at once! I hear ye sentry!"

For ten minutes the young man hurried Mehitable along. Then, reaching the shelter of some houses, he stopped abruptly.

"Mistress Hitty," he said gravely, "art mad?"

Mehitable, who had been waiting impatiently for an opportunity to speak, poured out her story. But when she had finished, the other shook his head.

"I cannot see why thy father allowed thee to come," he said.

When he had grasped the fact that Squire Condit knew nothing of his impetuous daughter's adventure as yet, the young officer whistled in astonishment, though the girl was relieved to find the inevitable twinkle in his eye.

"I will say," he drawled then, "thou art not lacking in spirit, little Mistress Madcap! But come, we must be on our way!"

"Whither do we go?" asked Mehitable.

"To my aunt's, Mistress Livingston, on Broad Street."

"Be she Tory?"

"Well, she is married to an Englishman." Lieutenant Freeman smiled. If he had not been such a tease he might have explained that his aunt, in that city of enemies, was a fiery patriot, as was her daughter, Mistress Nancy, and that his uncle was a good-natured

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 man who cared about neither party so long as he could carry on his business.

But he realized his grave error in teasing Mehitable thus only when he reached his aunt's stoop. For when he turned around, expecting to find the girl at his heels in the little vestibule, she had disappeared.

Poor Mehitable! She spent the night, because of her principles, which would not let her accept Tory hospitahty, in roaming the streets. But when morning came her patriotism was rewarded. For nearing the ruins of Trinity Church, which stood bleak and forlorn in the gray dawn, whom should she see staring out at her, from behind a ruined, tottering church wall, but Charity.

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UT the sisters' joy was short-lived. Scarcely had Mehitable started forward to greet Charity when a hand fell heavily upon her shoulder and she whirled around to find herself in the grasp of a British soldier.

"What be a-doing?" asked the soldier in a growl.

For a moment her alarm showed plainly in the pulse that beat in her slender throat; but, regaining composure as she spoke, she answered him pertly.

"Has not a body a right to look where she will?" she queried coolly.

She did not dare to glance where Charity had stood, hoping against hope that the little sister had hidden herself once more before the sentry had seen her. But his next words shattered that hope.

"Not in war-times," he said, answering her audacious inquiry. Then he raised his voice. "Come out o' yon!" he bawled. "Hear me, wench?"

Mehitable's heart dropped. So he had seen Charity! Then her eyes filled with tears as the younger girl climbed forlornly over some débris and came slowly toward them through the churchyard.

Now had Mehitable had the good sense to remain silent at this point and let her and Charity's plight

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 speak for itself, all might have gone well, for the soldier could not have helped but be touched, especially when Charity raised her great blue eyes to him in piteous, silent appeal. But no, she needs must burst forth in an elaborate explanation in which she baldly contradicted herself more than once, so that at last an open sneer appeared upon the soldier's face.

"Your father brought ye to town this morning from your farm?" he asked suspiciously. "But I thought ye just said as how your father lay ill and that was why you and your sister were in town, delivering the milk?"

"So he did! So I was!" declared Mehitable wildly. "I left my milk cart down Broad Street a pace while I and my sister walked up to see Trinity Church ruins and"

"Nay, nay!" interrupted the sentry at that point, out of patience. "I be no fool, lass! Show me y'r passports!"

"I—I—lost them," faltered Mehitable, stammering.

"Lost them, eh? That is what everyone says!" ejaculated the soldier, scornfully. He smiled in a knowing manner. "More like ye had never had any! 'Tis best we go to the Debtors' Prison and there ye can do all your explaining to Provost-Marshal Cunningham!"

So tearfully and terror-stricken by this new misfortune, the two sisters found themselves walking up Broadway.

"Dost think we shall ever see Newark Mountains again?" whispered Charity tremulously.

But with a sharp "No whispering!" their guard bade

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 them be silent, and so they marched along, uncomfortably aware of the musket and the man behind them.

It was yet so early that the streets were quite empty, for which Mehitable was thankful. Charity, dazed by this new misfortune and still weak from her long fast and exposure, stumbled miserably along and would have fallen more than once but for her sister's quick and affectionate arm.

"Be not down-hearted, dear Cherry!" Mehitable managed to whisper half under her breath; but at sight of the speechless misery in the younger girl's eyes, her own filled with tears. She dashed them away. Not for anything would she allow the British soldier to see them!

And so they came to the "Fields." This was a stretch of land reserved as a common outdoor gathering place for the people of Colonial New York and in the days before the Revolution used as a grazing place for cattle. Immediately prior to the War of 1776, it was there that the Sons of Liberty erected their Liberty Poles as fast as the British authorities destroyed them. It was at the foot of one of these Liberty Poles that Cunningham, who was in charge at the time, received the wounds for which afterward he made every rebel prisoner unfortunate enough to come underneath his jurisdiction pay so dearly. It was to this man, noted for his brutality and cruelty thus early in the war, that the sentry marched his young prisoners now.

Crossing the "Fields" they came within sight of a nearly square, small stone building, three stories high,

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 with the usual Colonial public-building ornament—a belfry rising from the center. This was the New Gaol, afterwards renamed the Debtors' Prison, where so many American prisoners were tortured and sent to their death by the scoundrel, Cunningham.

Even Mehitable's stout heart quailed as they passed through its great doors into a dark hall, the entrance to which was guarded by two sentries. As for Charity, her eyes were like flames set in two great black holes, so deeply were they encircled. The elder sister's heart was torn by anguish as she looked at her.

Thrusting the two girls roughly into a guardroom, opposite to which on the right hand side of the main door, were Captain Cunningham's quarters, and clanging the grated door ominously behind him, the soldier strode across the hall and pounded loudly, imperatively, upon the marshal's door.

A peevish voice bade him enter. He was not gone long. In a very few moments he reappeared in the hall, thrust violently through the door as though ejected from behind, his face red and angry. A furious torrent of oaths and abuse followed him before the door was slammed, in which the trembling listeners behind the opposite door distinguished such ejaculations as "varlet waking me thus early!" and "teach the fool military discipline" and "Numb-skull! Dunce-head! Brainless musket bearer!"

The soldier, pausing for a second to readjust his disarrayed clothing, stalked back to inform his prisoners in a gruff, sullen voice that they would have to await Captain Cunningham's pleasure. With which curt

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 information he vanished, looking much like a ruffled turkey-cock.

Then, indeed, ensued a dreary wait. The city slowly awakened outside the barred windows of the guardroom, the sun slanted for an all too brief while in at the one window to lighten the old, dingy stone walls opposite it.

The two little maids drew silently together. Pitifully, Mehitable gathered Charity's slight figure within her embrace, as they sat huddled together on the rough bench near the grated door; but neither spoke. Their hearts were too full for that. Anxiety and fear and their surroundings them quite speechless.

At last a sharp sound penetrated through the building. There was a stir and a clanging of iron doors, the measured tramp of approaching feet, and presently a company of soldiers, a cheerful splotch of red in their bright uniforms, came marching down the dark corridor to halt before Captain Cunningham's door. This time, when the sergeant stepped forward and rapped smartly upon the door, it opened promptly and an officer in dress uniform issued across its threshold. As he returned their salute, the officer inspected his company briefly and then, giving a curt order, he stepped forward to lead his company, as it about-faced, back to a large inner hall where he held his court. This was Captain Cunningham, the much dreaded provost marshal.

Taking his place behind a wooden table, with the guard drawn up solemnly behind him, the provost marshal summoned the prisoners before him.

It would have beers laughable had it not been pa-

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 thetic, to any one viewing this scene. There were the soldiers with their bristling array of firearms, there was the provost marshal in all the dignity of his office, there were the great bars and bolts and high stone walls of the cavernous hall and—there were the two, slender, shrinking little figures of Mehitable and Charity being marched into court and delivered over with all due formality by their captor to Cunningham!

He looked at them sharply as their names, ages, and home were being carefully recorded in a great book. Then he waved his hand indifferently.

"The Long Room, of course," he said, hiding a yawn and rising to dismiss the guard.

Charity gave a Httle sob as she turned, with Mehitable, to follow the guard appointed to conduct them to their new prison. The "Long Room" sounded ominous indeed to her ears.

"Oh, Hitty!" she moaned under her breath. "Think you we are to be shot?"

Mehitable tried to laugh; but it was a sorry failure, for she, too, was dubious of their future. She had to steady her trembling lips before she could attempt an answer.

"W-why should w-we be?" she stammered, then. "What have w-we done. Cherry?"

"I know not!" wept Charity. "That awful man—Hitty, he's the one—why, he's the one Ebenezer Lamson said had Nathan Hale hung as a spy—taunted him so, Ebenezer did say—and would not let poor Mr. Hale have even a Bible before he was executed! Dost not remember? He is the tyrant, too, who tore up Nathan

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 Hale's last letter to his sweetheart before his very face and"

"Silence, wenches!" thundered the guard at this point and the two girls at once relapsed into obedient speechlessness.

The Bridewell, to which they were being conducted, which also faced the "Fields" a short distance away, had been built only the previous year, in 1775, the Debtors' Prison having proved too small to accommodate all classes of prisoners. It was, as a matter of fact, still uncompleted in many respects, as to windows, through which the winter's cold swept in upon the unfortunate war-prisoners and as to numerous other comforts, besides.

It was a small gray stone building, two stories high, with a basement. On its first floor to the right of the entrance was the "Long Room," occupied by women, the white prisoners in front, the colored ones at the rear of the apartment, a partition between.

It was into this room that Mehitable and Charity were pushed by the brutal-looking keeper to whom they had been turned over by their guard.

As they instinctively paused upon the threshold, such a burst of noise greeted them that they faltered back. A shriek of crazy laughter, someone weeping, groans and cries of every description all mingled into a bedlam of noise. It seemed not to affect the prison keeper in the least. He merely grinned as he relocked the grated door.

For a little while the two girls were too frightened to move. They cowered back sharp eyes inspected

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 them, as rough fingers plucked at their apparel and rude voices jeeringly bade them welcome. But soon a rougher jerk than before made Mehitable draw back and repel, with flashing eyes, the prisoner who had dared to touch her mother's cardinal. Taken aback, the woman slunk away and the others, laughing at her discomfiture, turned more respectful eyes upon the two young newcomers.

"Hist!" said a hoarse voice. "I hear ye guard returning!"

Instantly, the clamor, which had died away when the guard had disappeared, was resumed. Mehitable and Charity now realized that this was the usual procedure at every fresh opening of the door into the "Long Room."

Only one prisoner had sat apart, drawing back haughtily if any one approached her, and she it was whom the keeper ordered forth to depart with him. He was rather afraid of her for all his blustering bravado, and merely spoke to her in a surly voice, not offering to touch her.

Mehitable was sorry to see her go, especially as she did not return, for the remaining prisoners were plainly the riff-raff of the city and uncouth, sordid creatures, not political prisoners, as both she and her sister and this one other lady had been.

The day passed drearily to noontime. There was no attempt made to feed them other than the few crusts of dry bread thrown at them through the grating as though they were animals. In truth, however, some of the poor things acted as though they were,

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 diving wildly for the mouldy bread and fighting among themselves.

Mehitable tried to procure from the pewter ewer set upon the floor within the door a drink of water for Charity, whose flushed cheeks looked as though she had been stricken by fever. But in the noisy arguments which ensued around the water, from which the girl shrank back appalled, the ewer was upset and few were bettered for the water having been placed within the room.

Charity pulled feebly at Mehitable's arm.

"Nay, do not try to get any for me!" she whispered. "I—I—do not think it looked overly clear, Hitty. I do not think I want any!"

Mehitable gave a short, angry laugh and pointed at the pool of wasted water which was slowly spreading across the stone floor.

"I do not think ye will have a chance to want it, Cherry!" she returned dryly. "Methinks it may do this filthy floor a little good, however!"

Poor Charity's lips trembled, for her throat was parched and dry. She turned away, sick at heart.

But toward two o'clock there was another stir among the prisoners. Someone's keen ears had caught the approaching footsteps of the guard once more and as soon as this was verified, the howling and clamor arose as usual.

The guard threw open the door and shouted something; but it was lost in the noise until he threatened a few of the prisoners nearest to him with the butt of his musket and the excitement died away in a sullen murmur.

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 "Silence, in the King's name!" shouted the guard again. He looked at a paper which he held in his hand. "Mistress Mehitable and Charity Condit, step forth!"

Mehitable, who had held her breath, took a quick step forward. Then she turned and leaned over Charity, who was iying in a half stupor on the cold floor.

"Cherry, get up! We are sent for! Get up, dear!" She tried to rouse her.

Charity, muttering something, shifted her position a trifle.

"Mistress Mehitable and Mistress Charity, step forth," bawled the guard again. His voice grew impatient. "Come, be lively with ye! I cannot wait here until night comes!"

He pushed his way roughly through the curious group which had gathered around the two girls. Mehitable looked up with frightened eyes.

"I cannot waken her!" she cried, wringing her hands.

But the guard, leaning over in turn, jerked Charity to her feet in short order. Still holding her by the arm, as she stumbled along obediently beside him, he shoved his way back to the door where, calling his underling, he put the "Long Room" in his charge and departed from the Bridewell.

The cold air and sunshine seemed to revive Charity a little as she marched falteringly beside her sister, to whom the guard had relinquished her. Mehitable's arm was through hers to keep her from falling. She looked around her in bewilderment after a short distance paced in dreamlike silence.

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 "I—why, Hitty, I" she began.

"Nay," interrupted Mehitable tenderly, with a fleeting glance over her shoulder at the grim-faced man who was following them with his musket over his shoulder. "Nay, do not bother thee, Charity! All will yet be well."

And then, as though to verify this hopeful expression, after they had reëntered the Debtors' Prison and were once more in Provost Marshal Cunningham's presence, it seemed to the girl that things would be right, indeed. For there, beside the captain's table, with a beautiful lady standing beside him, was the smiling faced, broad-shouldered friend of her Trenton visit, Lieutenant Freeman!

The lady, a saucy smile on her red lips and a twinkle in her lov'ely eyes, was speaking to the provost marshal as they approached with their guard. Captain Cunningham was plainly carried away by her charm and sat fumbling embarrassedly among his papers on the table as he listened to her merry banter.

"I vow, Captain," the lady was laughing, "I shall strike your name from my dance list an you imprison any more of my friends in your dreadful old Bridewell. And how do you do, Hitty, my dear!" Smilingly, she turned and saluted Mehitable familiarly by her name, as though she had known her all of her life. "And Charity, too!" For a fleeting instant, grave concern showed in her face as she noted the younger girl's feverish color and the blank look in her eyes; but she was all gay flattery and jollity as she turned back to the cruel-looking man behind the table.

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 "La!" she went on carelessly, "will you make out the pass for my cousins or must I really treat ye as ye deserve?"

"Nay," protested the provost marshal eagerly, "do not be unkind to me! I swear I merit not such inhuman treatment! Give me but another chance and I will make amends."

A barely perceptible glance passed between the lady and Lieutenant Freeman which Captain Cunningham, busily writing the release and passports for Mehitable and Charity did not see. But she had her most coquettish smile ready for him when he rose and handed her the papers.

"And when do we meet again?" he asked imploringly.

"La, how can I tell?" the lady answered carelessly. "Perhaps to-night at Lord Howe's rout."

Turning, she motioned to Lieutenant Freeman, who at once offered his arm.

"Come, cousin, I am aweary of this dark place." She glanced back over her shoulder at the captain, who was gazing after her rather mournfully. "I should think you would feel like a great potato in the cold, dark ground in here, Captain. Ugh, 'tis a terrible hole!"

She shivered. Suddenly she seemed to remember Mehitable and Charity, who had remained passive onlookers. She stopped and glanced inquiringly at Captain Cunningham.

"They are to come with me?" she asked, though indifferently, as if, now that she had accomplished her object, she was uninterested in the result. Perhaps an

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 acute observer might have read aright the look in her beautiful eyes, however, the trembling of her little white hand as it lay upon Lieutenant Freeman's arm.

"Aye, Mistress Nancy. They were arrested only on suspicion for loitering. There is no other charge against them. But you understand, with the city under martial law we cannot be too careful!"

"But you could throw them into that horrible place, the 'Long Room,' among pickpockets and thieves, two little innocent maids, on such a charge as that?"

For a dangerous moment all affectation of gayety forsook her voice and honest indignation was apparent in it. The captain scowled at the rebuke and the poor little prisoners' fate hung fire as he took an involuntary step forward to snatch the passports out of her hand. Then ordinary politeness made him pause and the lady snapped her fingers mischievously in his face, changing the scene magically back into the laughing farce she intended it to be. She left the captain smiling amorously after her.

"Oh, you naughty men!" she cried, as she tripped away, followed by Mehitable and Charity, with Lieutenant Freeman bringing up the rear like a bodyguard.

But outside, on the edge of the "Fields," when they had passed beyond the range of the Debtors' Prison, she became a tender, compassionate woman, all her coquetry and flippancy vanishing before her genuine pity.

"Ah, Anthony!" she cried, stooping to place her arms around poor, sick little Charity, Tis so pitiful, this war, when it comes to babies like this!"

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UT her down there on yon settle, Squire, where I have ye blankets piled!" beamed Mistress Livingston.

Squire Condit came slowly down the stairs carrying a very precious if a frail burden, while Mistress Condit and Mehitable followed. It was Charity's first day downstairs after an almost fatal attack of fever, induced by the hardships she had undergone in New York.

When the little invalid had been made comfortable before the fire, the others lingered for a moment. Mistress Condit turned to Mistress Nancy gratefully.

"Never will I forget how good you have been to us, Nancy," she whispered, the tears starting to her eyes.

"I know not what we should have done had ye not come to Newark that time Lieutenant Freeman brought Charity home! Not many strangers would have offered help as ye did!"

The girl blushed. "Nay, 'tis what any one would have done, dear Mistress Condit," she returned. "I was glad to come!"

They turned to hear what Squire Condit was saying to Mehitable.

"Master Jones reports that the 'Jersey Blues' have

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 sent a man Into New York Town itself seeking Young Cy. 'Tis a hanging matter an he be caught"

"Ahem!" Mistress Condit gave a warning cough and the blundering Squire glanced down to see Charity's wide eyes of horror fixed upon him. A moment later, however, she had drifted off into a doze and her parents hoped she had not grasped the Squire's meaning. She did not stir when, presently, the others having dispersed to their morning tasks, there came a thundering knock upon the door.

"Nancy!" called Mistress Condit softly from the table where she was kneading bread. "Canst answer the door? My hands be floury!

"Aye!" From the buttery, where she was helping Mehitable with the churning, the other came hurrying. After a little, Mistress Condit, busily thumping the great mass of dough before her, felt a draft from the open door.

"Who was it, Nancy?" she asked idly.

"Madam," began a deep voice, and Mistress Condit whirled around with a little cry to see General Washington standing there, with Mistress Nancy speechless from sheer surprise behind him. Beyond, through the open door, the rain slanted across the March-blown garden.

"Madam, I cry your pardon," began His Excellencv once more, as Mistress Nancy closed the door. "I have been riding since long before dawn and recalling your hospitality of some months ago, I ventured to stop again. My welcome may be the more assured when I tell you that your son is among my escort. I came on alone while they reconnoitered the neighborhood."

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 "Indeed, Your Excellency needs no assurance"—Mistress Condit swept him a curtsey—"though I shall be glad to see my son!"

The general walked over to the fire, spreading his hands gratefully to its warmth. Noticing Charity asleep, he was careful to lower his voice, showing the unfailing courtesy which was characteristic of him.

Tis not so bitter as raw outside," he observed. "But these March gales up here in Jersey take one's vitality, methinks."

Suddenly the buttery door was thrown open impetuously and Mehitable, her dark curls tumbling from under her cap, her cheeks flushed crimson, appeared.

"Mother, who" she commenced. Then, seeing the guest, she stopped and stared.

Tis General Washington," admonished Mistress Condit sharply, not well pleased at her daughter's awkwardness. But the great man held up his hand leniently, a grave smile dawning in his eyes.

Tis my little friend Angeline," he welcomed.

Mistress Condit had left the room, so Mehitable came forward shyly, dropping a belated curtsey. Then, as Mistress Nancy also departed and General Washington, with a weary sigh, seated himself, the young girl pointed to her sister.

"Dost see poor Cherry?" she asked in a whisper.

Nodding, with a few skillful questions, he was soon in possession of all the facts of Charity's abduction, Mehitable pouring it out in breathless, indignant words.

"And poor Young Cy—no one knows where he be imprisoned!" she finished sorrowfully. "His mother

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 be lying at the point o' death for lack o' news of him!"

Tis indeed beyond endurance!" ejaculated General Washington, with flashing eyes. "The wretches who, in the name o' war, bring wanton injury upon the innocent, ought to be and shall be punished as felons!"

Mistress Nancy returned to the kitchen just as the door opened and a party of young officers entered hurriedly to escape the downpour. For a second she and the leader of the group stared at each other, then she gave ever so slight a shrug and looked proudly past him. John Condit's ruddy face, glowing from' his battle with the elements, deepened in color. He stood silent, but not for long. There was an exclamation of joy, another one, and both Mistress Condit and Mehitable had their arms around his neck.

"My son, my son!" Mistress Condit's eyes were full of joyful tears.

There was a brief interval of greetings, then John Condit turned and saluted his chief, who had risen and was waiting in grave silence.

"Your Excellency, from what we could gather, the roads are unwatched and it seems safe to move the supplies from Newark which have arrived by boat from Philadelphia."

"Very good, sir!" Washington bent his head in acquiescence. "It seems best to me, since you are familiar with this country," he continued, after a thoughtful pause, "that you be the one to ride to Newark and there notify the authorities in charge to move the supplies to Morristown as soon as possible.

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 Stay," he smiled kindly, "best refresh yourself first with the dinner I see your mother is preparing for us."

Mistress Nancy's clear voice, as she conversed vivaciously with the other young officers who crowded around her eagerly, faltered a moment. Her back, turned toward John, looked haughty, however, and as he saluted his general he turned sadly away.

Mehitable, who had been watching Mistress Nancy in amazement, at once joined her brother.

"What be the matter with you, John?" she whispered.

"Nay, little sister, nothing is the matter save that I am stiff from my ride. He looked down at her humorously.

"I be so ancient, ye know."

"Yes, 'tis true, you are old," agreed Mehitable soberly.

John laughed. "Why, Hitty, twenty-three be not so old!" he protested.

"It seems pretty old," answered Mehitable. Twenty-three ever seems old to fifteen! And thirty! Oh dear!"

As they were eating the excellent meal Mistress Condit and Nancy had prepared, miraculously, it would seem, out of nothing, Amos entered to inform his mistress that Squire Condit had been called away. Soon afterward, John Condit left for Newark. Oddly enough, with his departure, Mistress Nancy's bright gayety vanished and she fell thoughtful. Then, while she fed Charity her dinner, she gazed often into the fire. General Washington, watching her as she sat oblivious to his presence near by, spoke at last.

"Such daydreams," he said, "can mean but one thing!"

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 The girl turned with a start, covered with confusion.

"Why—Your Excellency—" Blushing, she popped the spoonful of milk she had been holding in into Charity's patient little mouth.

"Daydreams mean, ye know, that" began the general teasingly. But at her imploring gesture he stopped. "Nay, I did not mean to be rude," he apologized. Tis my unseemly habit to like to watch people when they know it not. It is not fair to them, so I always apologize—and go on watching!"

Joining his amused chuckle, Mistress Nancy cast a cautious look over her shoulder. Mehitable, assisted by two of the officers, was washing the dishes. Mistress Condit was overseeing the task, watching her precious china rather anxiously. The rest of the general's staff were gathered about the windows, where they gazed out at the torrents of rain which blurred the panes and dripped dismally from the house roof.

"Your Excellency," said Mistress Nancy in a low voice, "think you this—this Newark mission be a—a—dangerous one?"

The general glanced at her smilingly, as though he had guessed a secret. Then, after the thoughtful pause which was habitual with him, for he was a man to weigh his statements, he answered her.

"Nay, my dear, I think not. We hold Newark, now, ye know."

"Aye, 'tis so," admitted Mistress Nancy. "Still"

She was interrupted by a sharp exclamation from one of the officers at the window.

"Who comes there?" he cried, bending forward to

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 peer through the baffling curtain of rain. For a moment tense listening held everyone motionless. Even Charity held her breath as she half started up from her settle.

General Washington turned toward the door, and at that instant it was unceremoniously thrown open. A dripping, streaming figure was revealed upon the threshold. Mistress Condit, who had slipped forward, uttered an astonished cry as the newcomer threw back the wet hood which concealed her face.

"Why, Miranda, what doth bring you out this dreadful day?"

Miranda Briggs swayed forward where she stood. "I've—be—been running all the way!" she gasped. And indeed, she looked spent. "Somehow the—Tories have discovered His—Excellency's presence here. They gathered at my father's house—I overheard them—one o' them"

She put her hands to her forehead and the others were horrified to see a great black bruise there.

"One of them struck me! They locked me up; but—I escaped—oh, hurry, Your Excellency! They come—the Tories come"

Then, as one of the young officers sprang forward, poor Miranda fell forward into his arms, unconscious.

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HERE was confusion in the Condit kitchen for a short time as the young officer carried Miranda over to the settle opposite Charity, and Mistress Nancy flew for cold water with which to restore her to consciousness.

But Mehitable turned a blanched face to General Washington.

"There be no man here who knows the way over the mountain passes!" she gasped. "Ye have not time, either, to summon Amos from the barn!"

General Washington, who had been fastening the collar of his cape hastily around his neck, for his keen mind told him that the hope of the American Army must not be caught in such a trap as this, paused to regard her thoughtfully.

Tis true!" he admitted. "Captain Mason," he raised his voice, "know ye the short route back to Morristown over the mountains."

"Nay, sir!" The young officer, struggling into his greatcoat, looked at him in dismay. "Only through Millburn! And that way come ye Tories!"

"Here, sip this!" Mistress Nancy's voice could be heard admonishing Miranda in the silence that followed. Mehitable wrung her hands.

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 "But ye must not be found here by the Tories!" she panted. "Poor Miranda's bravery must not go thus unrewarded, Your Excellency!"

The officers gathered in a close circle around their general.

Tis twenty against five, sir!" one of them protested earnestly. "Surely ye will decide to flee?"

General Washington glanced at him impatiently.

"Of course," he said. He strode forward.

But at the kitchen door he was met by Mehitable, wrapped in her mother's cardinal, the hood of which was drawn tightly around her determined young face.

"I know the way!" she said. "I will go with you and guide you over ye mountain pass! I know almost every inch of this country in that direction!"

"Nay, child!" General Washington started back in quick denial. "I cannot let you put yourself in such danger! 'Tis most brave of you; but I cannot permit it!"

Mistress Condit attracted by the brief argument, raising her head and seeing that her guests were about to depart, hurried across the kitchen to them.

"Your Excellency, Mehitable would be most proud an you let her guide you!" she said earnestly.

"But, madam!" The general turned to her. "Even now 'tis growing dusk"

He was interrupted by Mehitable.

"They come!" she exclaimed. "Ye Tories come!"

The little party of Americans wasted no more time, then. With hastily spoken farewells to the hostess, they were down the path and upon their horses' backs

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 which, blanketed and tethered, had been waiting patiently in the rain for just such an emergency as this. One of the young officers, however, found himself deprived of a horse, for Mehitable was in the saddle before him.

"Ride double!" she shouted at him through the storm.

Never as long as she lived, would Mehitable forget the wild ride. Straight away from the Condit farmhouse to the north, on the Second Road, they rode, then they swerved into the Northfield Road that led up over the mountains to the little settlement of Northfield. But just before they left the Second Road, they met a solitary horseman riding in the opposite direction. With his head sunk into the protection of his upturned collar and his hat pulled low over his forehead, he did not appear to see them until the party were upon him then Mehitable wanted to laugh at the visible start he gave, as they dashed past him. Had she glanced over her shoulder, she might have seen him rein in his horse to stare after them malevolently; but she was riding low in her saddle, her face along the horse's neck, guiding him more by low-voiced commands than by the bit.

The road was mounting upward, now, through the dense forest that stood, threatening and gloom-filled in the stormy twilight, on either side. The others, not so sure of the rocky way—indeed, it had narrowed into the inevitable cart path—labored far behind, so that at last Mehitable, not to be too far in advance, halted her horse and blinked the raindrops from her eyelashes to glance around her. As she did so she had the eld

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 feeling of being watched! Sure enough, turning in her saddle, she caught sight of the Indian lurking behind a tree not more than ten feet away.

But this time instead of vanishing into the forest like a wood creature he stepped out of concealment and, approaching her, he raised his right hand, palm outward, in the Indian salutation.

"Go north—notch way!" he grunted, then.

"Why?" asked Mehitable, in surprise. The other road, through a deep cut in the mountain called the notch, was a much longer route.

The Indian would not tell her, however, merely repeating his command, or advice, she could not tell which, and disappearing before the others could reach them, so that she had time to debate the question with herself. Should she return to the foot of the mountain to the Second Road and follow that north to the Notch Road or should she hold to her original determination to go straight west over the mountains to Northfield?

The decision was taken out of her hands, for when General Washington arrived at her side he looked at her rather sharply.

"That was an Indian?" he asked curtly.

"Aye, Your Excellency. I have had warning to turn back! I know not what danger threatens, but I believe the warning to be sincere."

"You know this Indian, do you?"

"Not more than that he has rescued me from peril several times, Your Excellency. He was the messenger who came wounded to us that time I went up the mountain for him, to set the signal fires, last Fall."

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 "Could it be Great Bear?" General Washington turned to one of his staff who had arrived beside them.

"But he would have waited to salute Your Excellency," answered the other shrewdly.

"Aye, true! This Indian, methinks, seemed not overly anxious to be seen." General Washington sat with his head bowed in anxious thought. So many times during those long, hard years of warfare must he have sat thus, in sad and troubled and silent debate, for always the burden of decision rested upon his shoulders!

At last, as his horse began to dance impatiently, he looked up.

"Forward!" he ordered. And the dreary climb recommenced.

But now Mehitable rode with every sense alert, her wide gaze searching out the depths of the forest. Nothing moved, however. There was no sign of ambush by beasts or men. Not until they had left the trees behind and were rounding the path approaching the base of a great cliff of trap rock did she relax, though, and then it was but a momentary relaxation. For soon her keen country-bred ears caught an odd sound, a grinding, splintering noise that just at first she was unable to define!

But when she did she gave a scream of terror and whirled her horse.

"Back! Back! The rocks. Down the trail!"

The whole party, as one man, wheeled in the opposite direction and fled pell-mell back down the insecure path. They were none too quick, for a few seconds later there

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 was a tremendous crash, a thunderous sound that seemed to rend the lowering clouds themselves. And a greater part of the face of trap rock, loosened by the winter's freezing and the spring thawing, lay upon that part of the path they had been traversing, blocking the way as completely as an enemy breastworks!

For a little while Mehitable could only gasp at their narrow escape. Once again had the Indian saved her from a death too awful to contemplate, for had she or her horse been caught beneath that avalanche of rock and ice, had any of them been caught, death might have been only too slow in coming to relieve them.

The little party, beyond any danger from a further landslide, halted as by common impulse to stare back at the scene of the near-accident. Finally General Washington turned to Mehitable, a pale smile upon his haggard face.

"God is good to us," he said simply; "and Dame Nature has reversed my decision. We must take the other path over the mountains. Lead you the way, my little friend, and accept my apology for not having allowed you to decide before as to our route."

As she descended back toward Second Road, Mehitable was filled with admiration for the man who, hardpressed by treacherous foes, fleeing for more than his life—his country's hope of ultimate victory—could yet find the time and the broad-minded ability to apologize to the little country girl for having taken the guidance out of her more competent hands. Not a word of complaint, though he and his staff had ridden fast and far since dawn that day, was heard from any of them.

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 Not one exclamation of dismay at their enforced return into the dangers of the lower road was uttered. Majestic though near possible defeat, courageous even though nature itself seemed to be trying to thwart their escape, the great general followed close upon Mehitable's horse and his men rode along single file behind him.

It was not until they had reached the junction of the Northfield Road with Second Road once more that General Washington spoke. Then he rode forward, abreast with Mehitable.

"Knowst whether we pass any Tory household on this road?" he queried.

"Aye, Your Excellency," answered Mehitable anxiously. "We pass the house of Amos Williams—that horseman who was riding the other way before—and he do be a very bitter partisan of the King! Though he was, without any doubt, on his vray to join those Tories already gathered at Squire Briggs's, seeing us, he may have turned back or he may have met the others and may even now be lying in ambush"

The girl's voice faltered. Oh, if she were to fail now! She set her lips tightly together. She would not fail, she told herself fiercely!

They were traveling more rapidly again. The highway, poorly constructed as it was, was far different from the uncertain, narrow mountain trail with its rolling stones and the torrents of rain washing down its gulleys on either side which ever threatened an unpleasant bath if one's horse slipped. So that it was not many more minutes before they came within sight of

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 Amos Williams's farmhouse. Instinctively they lagged a little, everyone trying to pierce the curtain of rain with straining eyes.

Mehitable caught her breath.

"Dost see aught, Your Excellency?" she stammered.

General Washington stared ahead of him.

"Nay, I think not," he said at last. "Forward!"

They drew closer together as they galloped on. The officers would have passed ahead to protect their general had he given them opportunity; but he did not pause.

The house stood silent and lonely at the side of the road as they neared it, but they all drew a combined breath of relief when they had actually passed it. Then suddenly, straight over the rail fence which fronted the dwelling, leaped a dark form.

As her horse swerved aside, Mehitable uttered a shriek, then another, as General Washington's mount, startled by this quick swerving, lost its footing and crashed down in a bog hole. But General Washington with an agility unbelievable in a man of his years, had leaped clear of the brute as it floundered in the mud, and throwing the bridle over its head he had jerked it to its feet and was again upon its back before the others could do more than gasp. The next instant Mehitable was laughing hysterically.

"It be only—only old Shep, Mistress Williams's watchdog!" she explained when she could speak. "He is more harmless than his master, in sooth!"

To prove it, as their horses danced and circled around one another, old Shep, reassured by Mehitable's familiar voice, sneaked rather sheepishly into his own

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 yard and ventured forth no more. Then once more they were off!

The road began to lead upward, now, with the steepest part of the grade almost at the foot of the mountain. This meant that their horses would be winded before they had fairly started their climb, so that, despite every nerve urging her to put as much ground between her and possible pursuit, Mehitable very sensibly set a slower pace. But no one spoke. Escape was still too unassured to permit any light conversation or repartee between the younger men, and as they neared the base of another cliff of trap rock, which farther, back from the road, did not present much danger from an avalanche or landslide, yet offered a good place for an ambush, they all moved forward more and more cautiously. But no one molested them. To the girl's infinite relief the stillness was undisturbed by anything except the sound of the rain beating against the bare tree branches and the rush of the descending torrents in the gulleys.

When they arrived upon the mountain ridge, Mehitable turned sharply to her left to recover the Northfield Road above the place where the falling trap rock had blocked their advance. And at last they reached that point where, had it been daylight, they might have seen that the road, descending, led down the western slope into the Pleasant Valley and across to the Second Mountain. There General Washington stopped her.

"There is no more need for you to guide us, now," he said kindly. Tis straight west, now, is it not, over yon mountain? Ah, I thought so! And then on to Whippany?"

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 "Aye, Your Excellency, and then on to Morristown."

"I see." He held out his hand and the young girl, guiding her horse closer to him to extend hers, he carried it to his lips in his courtly fashion.

"My dear little friend," he said in a moved voice, "I hope some day that I may have the opportunity to repay this service you have done us this night. And now, how can you get home? Had not Captain Mason better escort you?"

"Nay, Your Excellency!" protested Mehitable in horror. Twould be, perhaps, into the very arms of the Tories!"

And in her eagerness not to allow the young officer to be placed in any such peril for her sake, the girl touched her horse's sides with her heels and was off into the stormbound night, her long cardinal flung out behind her like a banner as the east gale caught it. The last they saw of the gallant little figure she seemed to be riding into the teeth of the storm, and as General Washington turned his horse to resume his journey he sighed.

"Much that is bravest in this war," he observed to Captain Mason who had spurred ahead of the other officers to bear his general company, "will ne'er be told. Mason."

Tis true, Your Excellency," the young man agreed thoughtfully.

Mehitable, meanwhile, found that, despite the climb coming up, it was far more difficult to face the full force of the wind as she had to in going down the mountain side. Besides, she was alone, no longer

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 upheld by the presence of others. Far from being the undaunted guide, she was merely a tired, rain-soaked little girl, wearily anxious to reach home and rest.

Crunch! Slip! Crunch! went her horse's feet. Halfway down the mountain, three quarters of the way down—all the way down! Now she was trotting the last half mile. But arrived at her own gate she drew rein abruptly. There were twelve or fifteen riderless horses tethered there.

Slipping from her own horse and remembering how General Washington and his staff had so tied their horses that they could make a hasty escape if needful, Mehitable led her weary beast across the road and secured him, in the safety of the underbrush, to a sapling.

Her anxiety carried her flying to the kitchen door; but when she opened it, the world seemed to go black at what met her eyes. There, in the grasp of his Tory neighbors, stood Squire Condit at bay, his usually ruddy face a terrible gray-white from passion, his kind eyes blazing with bitter hatred, his trembling hands tied behind him like a common felon's!

Behind him, crouching on a settle, was Mehitable's mother with her arms around Charity, who lay motionless. Miranda stood sobbing in a corner.

"Charity is dead!" thought Mehitable, her heart turning to ice.

The awfulness of that moment was etched forever upon the girl's soul!

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O ONE, in the excitement of the moment, noticed Mehitable as she stood stricken motionless in the open door behind the group of angry men. Amos Williams was speaking.

"Ye deserve death for treason to your king," he snarled, his lips twisted in a kind of fanatical fury. "But we are merciful, Condit. We will give ye trial before your peers and pass judgment upon ye!"

"Merciful!" Mehitable started at the change in her father's heretofore friendly voice. "What do you know of mercy, those o' you who would take a neighbor's child and treat her as ye have in the name o' warfare? Why, most o' ye," and here his bitter, scornful glance rested upon Squire Briggs, "are only in this warfare for what money ye can make out of it!"

Squire Briggs turned an angry red and shuffled his feet.

"Why wait we here?" he snapped. Tis but a waste o' time!"

A low, sullen murmur came from the crowd. The girl heard someone say impatiently, "Aye, hang him now!" Instantly it was taken up by the rest. A roar went up.

"Hang the dog! Hang him for treason!"

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 But Amos Williams held up his hand imperatively.

"I have promised him trial!" he growled. "And trial he shall have! We are no murderers!"

At that Mehitable sprang forward to face them with flaming glance.

"But ye are worse than murderers!" she cried, pointing her finger at them. "Fifteen against one! Brave men all, are ye not! You who would murder not only a man but outrage neighborly love and old friendships. You, Eliphalet Pierson"—her relentless finger sought him out in the group—"why, I can remember when my father rode into the storm one night for the doctor when your baby lay dying! Where IS that baby to-day? Not in ye Old Burial Ground, I can tell ye that, for the doctor saved his life because my father brought him to ye in time! And you, Thomas Ogden, hiding there behind the others! What about that fifteen pounds in good money my father lent ye to buy food when your children were hungry? And you, over there, Bethuel Harris, are ye forgetting that time my father spent a winter's night trying to find your lost sheep when it snowed and sleeted and he saved them all for you? Oh, you who talk o' mercy!" Her voice broke on a sob. "All of ye—all of ye—he has helped and ye treat him thus!"

The men, who at first had been too taken aback by Mehitable's unexpected appearance to interrupt her, now began to argue among themselves. But the bitter animosity of Squire Briggs and Amos Williams prevailed upon the more lenient ones.

"Peace!" snarled Amos Williams, when Mehitable

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 would have spoken again. "We have had enough o' thy gab, young mistress! Be thankful we do not take ye, too, for giving aid to ye enemy—I saw ye, don't lorget that!"

"I am proud of it!" blazed the girl. But Squire Condit, whose passion had left him and who had stood in broken silence since, turned to her warningly.

"It but fans ye flame, Hitty, and does no good to speak!" he said gently. And Amos Williams nodded.

"Forward with ye prisoner!" he ordered briskly.

Mistress Condit, who had been sitting in stupefied terror all this time uttered a low moan as the men surrounded her husband. She laid Charity upon the settle and stumbled to her feet to run to him.

"Oh, Samuel!" she panted. "What be they going to do with you?"

He bent his head to kiss her reassuringly.

"I know not, Mary," but the quiet self-possession of his tone restored her fainting courage. "There is but One Who knows! Yet will He care for us, my love!"

Then, though his hands were tied behind him, he walked out into the storm with such a firm tread, such a look of quiet pride upon his face that his wife threw back her head to watch him, though her love and anxiety made the tears rain down her cheeks.

Mehitable, meanwhile, was bending over her little sister.

"Not dead!" She sank sobbing to her knees all at once.

Mistress Condit, who had been straining her ears for

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 the last sound of her husband's footsteps, turned at Mehitable's cry.

"Poor Hitty!" She came over to smooth the girl's hair with tender, motherly fingers. "Why, my dear, did ye not know 'twas but a swoon?"

"Nay!"

"The rough voices frightened her, weak as she was. Come, she must be gotten to bed!" Stooping, Mistress Condit gathered the emaciated little form into her arms. She sighed heavily. "Duties must go on!"

"Cannot Hitty and I care for Cherry?" asked Miranda, coming forward.

"Nay, Miranda, though I thank ye," answered Mistress Condit gratefully. She disappeared up the stairs.

"But where is Mistress Nancy?" asked Mehitable.

"Nay, I know not!" answered the other in surprise, looking around.

"Randy, think you she could be a Tory spy? Could she have been the one to have given warning to the Tories, think you? After all, we know naught o' her save she be Lieutenant Freeman's cousin!"

"Nay, Hitty!" Miranda shook her head. "As well think me spy!"

Mehitable looked at her friend gravely. "Miranda, ye have forever proven your loyalty to America, methinks!"

There was a little silence in the kitchen, then Mehitable moved toward the door, pulling her hood once more over her curls.

"Where art going, Hitty?" asked Miranda, quickly.

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 "To find where they have jailed my father," answered Mehitable. "Tell my mother—I dare not say farewell for fear she will stop me—that I go to seek him."

"But, Hitty, 'twill break your mother's heart an aught happens to you, too!" exclaimed Miranda. "Besides, the Tories have promised to give your father a fair trial!"

"Randy," Mehitable stopped short and looked at the other searchingly, "think you it will be a fair trial with your father and Amos Williams in charge o't?"

Miranda's eyes fell and she slowly shook her head.

"I—I—fear not, Hitty."

"I fear not, too," responded Mehitable grimly. "Therefore I am going."

At Master Jones's house Jemima opened the door for her.

"Nay, I know not where my father is," she said apathetically in answer to Mehitable's eager question. Jemima seemed to be living in some nightmare of her own so that she walked and talked mechanically. As Mehitable saw the change in her, remembering when Jemima Jones had been the wit and life of every gathering, before her brother's kidnapping and her mother's serious illness, she realized that war was more than deprivation, that it meant tragedy as well. All the way to Newark, after she had left the Joneses' farmhouse far behind, she seemed to see Jemima's dulled eyes, hear her hoarse voice.

When she arrived at the Hunters and the Hounds tavern, Mehitable was surprised to see the lower windows blazing with light. She opened the door full upon

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 a crowd of men who turned amazed eyes toward her. Master Gifford soon caught sight of her and hurried to her.

Tis little Mistress Mehitable Condit!" Courteously he led her away from the staring eyes into an inglenook. "Now," he went on kindly, "why are ye so far from your mountain this night? Didst have some message from your father for me?"

Tears filled Mehitable's eyes. "My father has been taken by ye Tories, Master Gifford. I—I—have come for help!"

"Alack, is't true?" The other's honest face showed his concern. He turned around and spoke to the room at large. "Samuel Condit, of Newark Mountains has been taken by Tories in his neighborhood," he announced.

An excited clamor greeted this information.

"He is to be tried for treason," continued Mehitable indignantly.

"Hear ye that! Tried for treason, no less!" exclaimed Master Gifford. Mehitable, raising her glance, suddenly encountered the crafty stare of the inn servant, Sturgins, but as she gazed he disappeared.

The taproom resounded to a great buzz of conversation. Some of the men present were in favor of riding at once to Squire Condit's rescue.

"We have enough o' fighting," cried one man, however, who, hands across his fat paunch, looked as though he had never, in his life, exerted himself for right or wrong.

"What, dost thou know aught o' fighting, Joseph

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 Grumfield?" sneered a scornful voice. And the fat man, to Mehitable's satisfaction, flushing, relapsed into angry silence.

"Nay, nay." Master Gifford was frowning down a too-rash suggestion of firing all the houses known to be Tory homes in the surrounding country. "That but calls for like measures by ye enemy." Then, as the kitchen door opened and there was a stir among those present, he turned in that direction with an air of relief. "What say you, Captain Littell?"

The alert, fine-looking man who now entered sent him an inquiring look.

"Have ye suggestion to make concerning Squire Condit's rescue from ye Tories?" exclaimed Master Gifford.

Captain Littell smiled and motioned to someone in the kitchen to come forward. "Ah, yes, we have been discussing the means to be taken. This lady has sought our help and the 'Jersey Blues' will be honored to help!"

And with that he stepped aside to disclose the slender figure of Mistress Nancy. Mehitable stared and thought with shame of her suspicions. As soon as the other caught sight of her she hurried to her side.

"Why, Hitty, did ye not guess I had come for help?" she asked.

Mehitable shook her head, while all the way home, following their escort of "Jersey Blues," she reproached herself for her unkind suspicions of Mistress Nancy.

At the Condit gate Captain Littell bade them a courteous farewell, assuring them that he would report any word from Squire Condit.

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 In the kitchen, when they entered, they were surprised to see John Condit sitting in quiet conversation with his mother. Mistress Condit soon retired and Mistress Nancy was about to follow when Mehitable, turning unexpectedly upon the stairs, was amazed at the long strange look the two young people were bestowing upon each other. John's was full of wistful appeal; but Mistress Nancy turned away with a curl of her lips. Mehitable wondered if she imagined the quick step John took after that dainty contemptuous figure, wondered if she heard aright his low-breathed, fervent "Nancy!" Such an agony of imploring, of love sounded in John's voice that the heart of the little eavesdropper gave a great throb of excited pity.

But without a word, without one backward glance, Mistress Nancy walked unheeding toward the stairs, her round chin lifted. Silently, with shoulders back, she ascended the stairs so swiftly that Mehitable, panic-stricken at being caught in her accidental spying, almost dropped her candle in her effort to reach their joint bedroom. She found it hard to get undressed without betraying her excitement at this discovery of romance beneath her very nose. It must be confessed, however, that she was almost angry with the girl who could spurn her wonderful, big, handsome brother.

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OHN! John!"

John Condit sat up in bed and looked bewilderedly around his little low-ceilinged room under the eaves. Again came the voice and this time he recognized it as Mehitable's.

"Why, enter, Hitty!" he called out. "The latch be not drawn!"

In answer to this the rough-hewn door was suddenly flung open and Mehitable, crimson-faced from pushing against it, bounced in.

"It be not drawn, 'tis true!" she ejaculated drolly. Tis not needed, with a door that sticks like that!"

She came over to gaze down at her brother who had snuggled down shiveringly beneath his coverlet upon the narrow pallet again.

"Nay, you must be out and on your way this afternoon, John!" she told him half falteringly. Ever was it hard to have her brother leave on the dangerous and uncertain missions of war! She held out an official-looking paper to him. "Here be your summons from His Excellency which but now came by messenger. You must go back to Morristown!"

John took the message and read it eagerly. "Aye!" He nodded his head. Then he looked at his sister, who

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 seemed Inclined to linger. "An ye give me a chance, Hitty," he told her impatiently, "I will dress and join ye at breakfast presently."

Mehitable giggled irrepressibly and fled down the steep, narrow stairs to her mother's kitchen.

"See that ye do not linger overly long primping and fussing, John," she flung back with sisterly impudence. "Mistress Nancy will be too sleepy to notice your attire this early in the morn!"

Jonn Condit grinned to himself as he leaped from his bed. Ten minutes later, however, his usual immaculate self, he came down to the roaring kitchen fire and kissed his mother. Mistress Nancy, upon her way to the table with a loaf of bread, bestowed a cold smile upon him.

"Breakfast be served," she announced a moment later. And the others, with the exception of Charity, who, still an invalid, did not come down as early as this, drew up their chairs.

Mistress Condit opened the conversation with a sigh.

"I vow, John, though I shall miss ye sadly, I am glad ye are summoned back to Morristown. Every time a horseman passes upon the road my heart is in my mouth for fear he be Tory!"

"Nay, Mother, I can care for myself! But I do dislike leaving ye here with the burden of the farm upon ye and my father away," answered her son gravely.

"Why dost not ask General Washington for leave o' absence to search for our father?" asked Mehitable curiously, her mouth full of porridge.

John Condit smiled grimly. "Nay, Hitty, think you

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 His Excellency can make exception of me? Our family affairs loom small against those of the country!"

Mistress Nancy, coming down the stairs an hour later with Charity's breakfast tray in her hands, looked around the kitchen in obvious dismay.

"What, art alone, Hitty?" she asked, her face falling.

Mehitable, busily washing dishes, loked up with a naughty grin.

"Why, John is out in the woodshed polishing his boots, an that is what ye mean," she answered coolly. "He has not yet departed."

Setting the tray down with a Httle slam, Mistress Nancy bit her lips.

"Indeed, I asked not for information concerning your—your—brother!" she retorted, the color flooding her face.

Mehitable polished a pewter trencher; then, placing It upon the table, she turned and came over to her with an air of determination.

"Nancy," she said, her honest eyes looking straight into the older girl's, "I could not help seeing you and John last night. Why do you treat my brother thus? I guessed, of course, that you had met before—perhaps in New York."

Mistress Nancy drew herself up proudly. "I know not who gave you thus charge o' my affairs, Hitty. Ye know nothing about them. But come"—her face changed and coming close to Mehitable she held out a three-cornered note—"knowst aught o' this, my child?"

Mehitable, feeling snubbed, took the note silently;

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 but spreading it open and reading it she glanced up in surprise.

"Why, it purports to be" she commenced.

"Exactly. It purports to be one I have written; but which I swear I never saw until your mother drew it out of my reticule, which hung in my closet. Had Mistress Condit been of suspicious nature it might have made matters vastly unpleasant. I had asked your mother to hand me my kerchief, which was in the reticule. Do not think she was prying."

Mehitable read the note aloud.

"But when one looks closely it is not your handwriting, Nancy," went on Mehitable. "Why it looks more like"

She stopped abruptly, but Mistress Nancy had not heard her, having moved over to look out of the window. Rain was falling again, the freezing winter weather having suddenly melted into the warmth of spring. It was all grayness and drabness, even the fire seeming to have lost its cheeriness as it sputtered and scolded upon the hearth. Mehitable joined the other and stared out at the rain, too.

But as she gazed she beheld an ominous sight. Around a turn in Second Road, trotting biiskly from the north, was just such a party of men as had come for

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text:
Page:The practice of typography - a treatise on the processes of type-making, the point system, the names, sizes, styles and prices of plain printing types by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/18

 times approved, in the letters of a good penman, or in engraving, or in the types of job printers, is not-tolerated in the text-types of books, which must be precise.

The assortment of characters known to printers as a font of roman book-type requires the engraving of 150 punches: 29 large capitals, including &, Æ, and Œ; 29 small capitals, including &,, and ; 33 lower-case characters, including ﬁ, ﬂ, ﬀ, ﬃ, ﬄ, æ, and œ; 19 figures and fractions; 22 points, references, and signs; 18 other characters. Accents and the special signs required for some books are not furnished in the regular assortment.

These characters are divided into six classes of irregular heights of face: (1) Full-bodied letters, like Q and j—that occupy the entire body of the


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 Squire Condit. Indeed, in the van were two figures, the sight of which sent a spasm of fear through Mehitable.

"Squire Briggs and that man Hawtree!" she gasped. She raised her voice in a frantic cry. "John! John! The Tories!"

In hasty answer, John Condit appeared in the woodshed door. "Where is Mother?" he asked.

"Gone to the Briggs's," answered Mehitable. She pointed wildly. "But fly! The Tories have come for ye!"

Mistress Nancy, who had been standing as though frozen, now spoke.

"Cannot he go through the buttery and escape by the rear?" she asked, tremulously.

"Nay!" Mehitable shook her head despairingly. "They will at once surround the house!"

Running forward Mistress Nancy seized John by the arm. "Ye must hide, John! Quick!"

"But," John Condit shook his head stubbornly, "I be no one to run!"

"There is a chance—they might not search the house," she urged desperately. Mehitable, watching the man outside approach warily, added her pleas, so that at last John yielded. Scarcely had he and Mistress Nancy disappeared upstairs and Mehitable seated herself before her spinning wheel and set it to rotating furiously, as though she had been working there for hours, when the door was flung open and fifteen or more dripping men entered. Some came sullenly, some defiantly, but all were determined, like the usual

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 mob which has been swayed to violence by a bitter tongue. Hawtree approached her roughly.

"Where be thy brother?" he shouted above the whirr of the wheel.

Mehitable stopped her spinning long enough to answer. "John?" she inquired. "Oh, he has been gone since early morn."

She started her spinning wheel again; but Hawtree caught the spokes of it with brutal hand and stared down at her, his face working with hatred and passion.

"Ye lie!" he said then.

Mehitable leaped to her feet. Anger leaped to meet anger. Her eyes were fully as vindictive as Hawtree's when she snatched up a glove left upon a near by table by Mistress Nancy and, reaching a-tiptoe, slapped the cruel, malicious face before her.

Hawtree staggered back with a smothered cry. Then Mehitable felt her arm wrenched in a grip of steel and there was no telling what might have happened had not one of the men muttered protest.

"Be we here to fight petticoats?" he grumbled. And Squire Briggs's hurried voice broke in.

"Be not a fool again, Hawtree!" he snapped. "The girl be young and ye angered her. Now, look you, Hitty"—he turned to Mehitable—"we know that John is here hidden, so bid him come forth!"

"I tell ye he be gone," insisted Mehitable stonily, scarcely knowing why she was keeping up the farce, since capture seemed inevitable.

"Where be your mother?" asked Squire Briggs shortly.

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 Mehitable looked at him. Her mother had gone to care for Mistress Briggs, who was ill. The irony of it struck her.

"My mother!" Her voice shook with anger. "Ye dare to ask for my"

Her voice died away into speechlessness. For at that moment the stair-door opened and Mistress Condit, attired in her long, red cardinal, with its hood drawn low over her face, entered.

Now Mehitable had seen her mother depart early that morning, she had been in the kitchen constantly since then and no one had passed through from the outside door, while the stair door was to be reached only by going through the kitchen. Mehitable blinked at the mystery and subsided upon a chair.

Advancing directly to the fire, paying no attention to the company beyond a brief, hurried curtsey, Mistress Condit knelt upon the hearth and poked briskly at the fire. Then, as the men watched her embarrassedly, she spoke in a husky whisper, keeping her back to them.

"Pardon me, gentlemen, I have such a touch of bronchitis as has robbed me o' my voice." She poked busily at the blazing logs.

"Madam," said one of the men, "we would search your house an ye give us permission!"

"But, sir," began Mistress Condit hoarsely.

"Then we search it without your permission!" exclaimed Hawtree rudely.

And he swept most of the men toward the stairs, up which they disappeared noisily. The few remaining in

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 the kitchen soon departed. Plainly, making war upon women was not to their liking. Mehitable saw them mount and ride away. Finally only Squire Briggs was left in the kitchen.

Mistress Condit now rose quietly, and taking a basket from the dresser she placed some food in it. Then she crossed to the outside door.

"I be going to your poor wife, Squire Briggs," she whispered. From beneath the shadows of her hood she cast an oblique glance at him. Mehitable, watching silently, saw a shamed patch of red leap to the little man's face.

"Nay, Mistress Condit, I" he stammered awkwardly. But Mistress Condit had already slipped out of the door and was gone.

Mehitable, at the window, then saw a strange sight. She saw her mother at the gate select an unguarded horse—for now the men were all in the house, the others having ridden away—and then Mehitable gasped. Her mother, for whom a chair had to be fetched every time she mounted painfully to a pillion on a horse's back leaped into the empty saddle and galloped away!

Squire Briggs was brooding by the fire when Hawtree and his followers came down the stairs.

"You were dreaming when you said the man we seek was here!" snapped Hawtree ill-naturedlyill-naturedly. [sic]

"The maid spoke the truth!" growled one of the men stamping out the door. The rest followed him in angry silence.

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 "How, suppose ye, our bird flew away?" muttered Squire Briggs.

"In sooth, I know not!" retorted Hawtree. "Was he ever here?"

Mehitable, smiling to herself, said nothing. But she paled when a man rushed in.

"One—one o' the horses be gone!" he announced excitedly.

Hawtree, however, looked at him indifferently. "Some boobie forgot to tie him. Doubtless he strayed!" he said sharply. And the fellow, red-faced, backed out of the room. With shrugs and grimaces of disappointment the other two soon followed.

"But, Nancy," cried Mehitable, a little later, when the two girls sat before the fire laughing and crying together, "how did ye ever think o't?"

"In truth, I scarcely know." Mistress Nancy looked into the fire with dreaming eyes. "Love will ever find a way, I think. I saw your mother's red cardinal upon her closet hook and at once the plan came to me. Enveloped in such a cloak and with pretense of cold to help him, I was sure John could escape. Did he not make a splendid woman, Hitty!"

"Aye, wonderful!" agreed the little sister.

"But I think," went on Mistress Nancy softly, "I like him better as a man!"

They were silent for a happy moment. Then Mehitable began to laugh. Mistress Nancy turned sympathetic eyes upon her.

"What be laughing at?" she asked smilingly.

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 "I was wondering what Squire Briggs would think—I should like to see his face!—when he reaches home and sees the green coat my mother really wore to his house to-day!" And Mehitable went off into such a gale of laughter that Charity was heard calling from upstairs demanding to know the joke.

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ISTRESS CONDIT entered the kitchen one stormy day toward the end of March to find Charity crouched beside the fire weeping bitterly.

"Why, my child!' shechild!" she [sic] exclaimed, hurrying to her to draw her into her motherly embrace. "What be the matter?"

"Hitty!" sobbed Charity. "Hitty is gone!"

"Gone!" repeated Mistress Nancy, who had come running down the stairs at that moment.

"Gone!" echoed Mistress Condit. "What meanst thou, Cherry?"

Charity held out a crumpled note. "The Indian brought this," she explained brokenly. "He did not want Hitty to go with him—he was setting forth to Newark; but she would go, Mother!"

"The madcap!" ejaculated Mistress Condit; but to the others' amazement she said it resignedly. She turned to Mistress Nancy. "The Indian has ever seemed to protect her," she explained. "I believe no harm will come to her while she is with him. I know not why I think this save that it has been so before."

Mistress Nancy picked up the note and read it.

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 "Why, this is from that neighbor lad ye were telling me of, Mistress Condit," she said in surprise.

Charity had hushed her sobs, reassured by her mother's composure. "Aye," she interrupted eagerly. "That is why Hitty went. Mother. She thought mayhap though Young Cy wrote the note, Father would be with him. And Master Jones, too!" For Squire Condit's neighbor, not long after his own lawless abduction by the Tories, had been seized while riding home one dark night by these same men and despite the efforts, since, of the "Jersey Blues" to discover his whereabouts had disappeared.

"Perhaps 'tis true," answered Mistress Condit thoughtfully. "Read us the note, Nancy."

To whoever reads this, began Mistress Nancy obediently, know that the Americans who were carried to ye British prison, have been detained by one Jaffray on board ship on ye Passaic River near Newark despite his promise to carry them back to Newark and there set free.' It is signed, 'Cyrus Jones, Junior.

"Doubtless the note was written by Young Cy and given ye Indian to obtain help," observed Mistress Condit. She rose abruptly. "I think I shall go to Mistress Jones and tell her that her son has been heard from at last," she announced.

"But the rain!" protested Mistress Nancy.

"I am not fearful o' rain," returned the other smilingly, throwing her cape around her. "Stay you with Mistress Nancy, Cherry—I shall soon return," she admonished the little girl, who was watching her preparations for a walk through the rain with gloomy eyes.

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Author:August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine

Works

 * "The Haunted Castle" translated by Richard Holcraft (1826) [1829]


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 When she had gone Chanty heaved a deep sigh. Mistress Nancy, who had taken up her knitting, glanced at her sympathetically.

"Dost want to hear a fairy tale?" she asked.

The other nodded eagerly.

"But I fear it has a sad ending," warned Mistress Nancy.

"Perhaps you can make it a happy ending just this once," suggested Charity hopefully. But the other shook her head.

"However, here be the tale," she began briskly. And Charity smiled with pleasure. The story, even with a sad ending would be nice!

"Once upon a time there lived a Princess who was in love with a Prince from a distant country. The Prince was visiting her city studying medicine."

"Like John when he did go to New York Town!" Charity clapped her hands.

"Aye—like John!" Mistress Nancy's eyes were upon her knitting. "Well, they were very happy—at least, the Princess was, until another maid from Eng—from a distant country came a-visiting, and she, too, fell in love with the Prince. She was a flighty maid, given to liking many young men, so when the Princess caught the Prince smiling at this maid one day, she was very angry. She said naught, however, and so time passed until a masked ball was given by one of the fine gentlemen o' the city. The Prince told the Princess he would mask as Night, in somber garb o' black, so she went as Starlight, in gown o' silver.

"When the Princess arrived that night, she looked

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 eagerly around for the Prince and at last she spied him at the other end of the garden. She knew him at once, despite his mask, for he was the only one present in garb of black. But when she drew near him, she saw"

Mistress Nancy paused abruptly. Her hands dropped into her lap and she sat staring into the fire until Charity squirmed impatiently.

"She saw?" prompted the latter. "What did she see, dear Nancy?"

Mistress Nancy started and picked up her knitting. Charity wondered vaguely if the sparkle in her eyes were tears; but her voice was cheerful.

"She saw, little maid, that the Prince was not alone. He was walking with a lady in gown o' silver, much like the Princess wore. Then, as they neared a bower"

"What is a bower?" asked Charity's matter-of-fact little voice.

Tis a lovely spot in woodland or garden of roses or vines, designed for love's sweet tarrying," answered Mistress Nancy dreamily. "But when the maid and the Prince stopped within this bower, the Princess knew the maid was that one from overseas. As the Princess came close—for she had been hurrying, she was at their very heels—she saw—oh, Cherry"

Once more Mistress Nancy's work dropped into her lap, once more her eyes sought the fire.

"But, Mistress Nancy," came Charity's plaintive voice, "always ye do stop at the very best part o' the tale!"

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