CHAPTER XIX.

THE TWO LIEUTENANTS.

As the little boat, with the two fishermen rowing and the silent figure sitting in the stern-sheets, dipped and tossed through the racing tide, which was at the flood, the wind began to blow up cold and nipping from the north. The spray froze as it splashed now and then over the gunwales of the boat.

It was quite midnight before they reached the New Jersey shore and pulled in beneath the shelter of a point of rocks that rose steeply out of the water. Here for the first time words were spoken.

"You have done well, my men, and here is a 'bright yellow' for each of you," said the young man in the cloak.

As he extended his hand, Roger, the younger, grasped it in a friendly way.

"I remember you, sir. I was one of the boatmen who rowed you across after the battle of Long Island. We are both good patriots."

The older man at this allusion respectfully touched his oil-skin cap. Then the boat was shoved out once more into the current.

The young man on the shore watched until it had disappeared.

"Now for a horse!" he exclaimed aloud.

Climbing up the rocks, and following closely a road which ran through a wide meadow, he saw a farm-house to the right. A light in one of the windows had first attracted his attention. He walked up the little lane, and stopped for a moment before knocking at the door.

"Tory or patriot, I wonder?" he queried. He had hesitated before pronouncing the last word.

In response to the tapping of his cold knuckles, the door was opened.

Before him stood a tall woman, and back of her a boy of thirteen or fourteen. The latter had a large bell-mouthed blunderbuss in the hollow of his arm.

"What is it at this time of night?" the woman inquired, in a deep voice like a man's.

"A word of direction," was the answer. "Could you tell me where I can find a horse? I will pay well for him."

"Where are you from?" asked the woman.

"From New York, but I would go on to the westward, and must hurry or I will be caught."

"Oh!" said the woman. "Come in by the fire. You are alone?"

"Yes," was the response.

The boy, who at first had looked suspiciously from the stranger to the tall figure of his mother, placed the blunderbuss in the corner, and the three walked into the kitchen.

"Are you going to join the army?" inquired the woman at length.

"I am in the army," was the reply; "but I must hasten. I have just been rowed across the river, and should I be captured it might go hard with me."

"I understand," said the woman, "and I will assist you if I can."

"You will be well paid," rejoined the young officer.

"Do not think of it," answered the woman. "I have given one son; and my husband and brother are with Washington. We must give our all. I can see what you have been afraid to tell. You have escaped. One has to be careful. Might I ask you your name?"

"Frothingham."

"I know that name well," said she. "I have heard my brother speak of a young Mr. Frothingham who was employed with him. He was at Mr. Wyeth's, the merchant's."

"Ah, indeed!" was the answer.

The young soldier drew forth a bag of gold. As he did so the light from the fireplace shone clearly upon his left hand. Across the back of it ran a scar.

"Eugene," said the woman, turning to the boy, "make haste to the stable and put the saddle on the colt. 'Tis all we have left, sir, but you are welcome. When you reach Morristown you may be able to send him back again. Perhaps you know my husband. My name is Ralston, and my brother's name is Samuel Thomas. You must remember him. My son was killed on Long Island. Were you there?"

"No, madam," was the thoughtful answer; "I was not."

The woman left the room, and the young man gazed into the fire.

He had had no idea of the devotion of these people to this cause. In far-away England he had suspected nothing of the intensity of feeling or the self-sacrifice and patriotism that animated the country.

A qualm of misgiving came over him. Was it not rather an uncomfortable part to play--taking his brother's place, as it were, and accepting the help and hospitality of these brave folk, who would give "their all," as the woman had said, for what they considered their rights and liberties! A feeling akin to pride had swept over him when the woman had spoken of his brother George; it could have been no other.

He struck his knee a blow with his closed fist.

"It is for the King," he said, beneath his breath.

At this moment the trampling of hoofs on the crisp earth outside attracted his attention.

The woman came to the door.

The lad was holding a small horse at the stone step.

"You have done me a great service, and I pray you will accept--" began the supposed fugitive.

Mrs. Ralston interrupted him.

"Think you, sir, that I would take one penny? 'Twould burn my fingers. It is for our country."

"Thank you, good friend, then," he said, and the tears came to his eyes despite himself.

The lad gave him a leg-up into the saddle. "I wish I were old enough to fight, sir," he said. "Good-by. Take the first road to the left and you are on the highway."

William mumbled a confused sentence of thanks and rode away.

This endeavor of his to prove his loyalty did not appear so glorious an undertaking as he had at first supposed. His thoughts ran back to his brother George in that cramped prison cell, where he supposed him still to be.

But the latter, a free man again, was at this moment seated before a fireplace in a large wainscoted room in a large house not far from Fraunce's Tavern.

On the opposite side was sitting the burly figure of Rivington!

When George had found that no boat was waiting for him at Striker's wharf, he had bethought himself at once of two places where he might hide--Mrs. Mack's and School-master Anderson's. How stupid he had been that he had not discovered the latter's character before! Putting the incidents together, he could read all plain enough.

Anderson was the one to see.

As he was about to sound the knocker gently on the schoolmaster's door, some one spoke to him and called softly,

"Number Four, I say!"

There was a touch on his elbow (he still carried his right hand in a sling), and Rivington was standing beside him.

"Do not fear, my son," he said; "I am one of the seven." There was the sound of laughing coming from within the house. "Some of our friends from across the water are in there," said the printer. "It was lucky I was in time to stop you. We must entertain them, you know. I have been following you for some time to make sure. Come with me."

He had piloted George to the street, and opened the door of his own house with a huge key, ushering him into the large room in which they were now seated.

It was odd, George kept thinking to himself, and hard to believe, that Rivington, the hated Tory, had turned patriot.

"Now, young Frothingham," said Rivington, after a pause, "this is an extraordinary occasion. You are the first one with whom I have held conversation upon any such dangerous subjects. But you must know two or three things that I believe most thoroughly. I have no faith in hopeless ventures, but, mark me, though this war lasts six months or six years, America will never again belong to England. I am so fully convinced of this that I have risked my safety to help end the struggle. Peace will come sooner or later, but the sooner the better, of course. Some day when my fellow-citizens learn what I have done they will not hang me in effigy or sink my presses in the bay. But enough of that. I have forgiven them.--To something of greater moment.--You cannot remain another day in this city. I doubt your being able to cross the river to-night. To-morrow morning early I go to Paulus Hook, and will take you with me as my servant. 'Tis a risk, perhaps, but it is the safest thing I can think of. I am supposed to go there on some business for General Howe. I am afraid that I shall muddle it, but I may learn something. Sleep here behind this heavy screen. We start early." Without another word he left the room.

At daybreak the next morning Rivington and George, in a small sail-boat, were making for the New Jersey shore.

George was dressed in a groom's livery, and carried a large despatch-box on his knees.

Almost all the dwellers in the country surrounding the Hook had found it to their best interests to hide any desire that they might have to show their leaning toward patriotism, and, to tell the truth, most of them were advanced Tories.

It was to visit one of these men, a dealer in live-stock, that Mr. Rivington was making the trip.

They had ridden but a short distance in the lurching one-horse chaise that had met them at the ferry, when Rivington pulled up.

"Here I say good-by," he said. "At the fifth house along this path from here stop and ask for the owner. He is a very aged man. His name has slipped me; but tell him frankly who you are, and that you have escaped from a British prison, and he will do his best to send you on your way. Do not fear that he will betray you. He hates me well, and would rejoice to see me hanged, but some day he may think better thoughts. Of course, do not mention my name to him. Good-by, lad. There is one person to whom you can present my best respects--General Washington. Success to him!"

George shook his benefactor's enormous hand, and took the path through a thicket of scrub-oaks.

Rivington had driven on but a short distance, when he thumped the bottom of the chaise with both feet. "You may shoot me for a lunkhead," he exclaimed, "if I did not forget to tell him of his brother's being in this country. I wonder if he knows it? He made no mention. It would have been best for him to know it."

But it was too late to call George's notice now, and he cut the horse a sharp flick with the whip.