CHAPTER VII.

GENERAL PRESCOTT’S CAPTURE.

Dicky sang very industriously that day, and was lucky, having nearly four shillings to take home to his mother. Jack Bell did not come to the kitchen that evening as usual, but he had been there during the day. After Dicky got his supper he lay down on the settle before the fire and said knowingly to his mother:—

“Please, ma’am, wake me up at ten o’clock.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Stubbs quietly to this uncommon request. She knew well enough what was meant.

Dicky fully intended taking merely a cat nap, but when ten o’clock came his mother had to shake him and pound him and drag him nearly all over the floor to wake him up. However, once waked up he knew in an instant what was required of him, and he put on his shabby greatcoat and hat quickly enough.

“Good night, mother,” he said. “Don’t fret about me—I’ll be home by daylight.”

“Good night, my boy,” said the Widow Stubbs in her calm way. “Be sure you act like a boy of sense.”

“I will,” answered Dicky sturdily as he made for the door.

The night was murky, and as Dick glanced out upon the dark bosom of the bay he could only tell the position of the British ships by the lights twinkling dimly at their mastheads, while the huge bulk of their black hulls made only a deeper shadow in the half-darkness. Dicky trudged along the straggling streets of the town and presently he found himself in a country lane that led toward the Overing House, a comfortable old tavern convenient to the cantonments of the troops, and where General Prescott had established himself temporarily.

The house was not fully alight, as people went to bed earlier in those days and ten o’clock was considered quite late. The kitchen where the host and his humble friends gathered was perfectly dark, but in the northwest corner of the house a light still burned. This was in General Prescott’s room.

Dicky crept close to the fence that surrounded the house. Everything was perfectly quiet—even the housedog slept peacefully on the kitchen steps. After looking about very carefully, he saw a path leading into the underbrush toward the ravine.

He slipped across the yard and into this path, and after what seemed to him a long, long wait, he saw advancing noiselessly through the gloom a man with one hand held up, as Jack Bell had described. Dicky went up and whispered:—

“Everything is quiet. The dog is asleep on the back steps, and General Prescott’s room is directly at the front door.”

In a minute more twenty men had silently appeared, as if out of the ground, and among them was a burly negro known as Sam Ink, from his jetty blackness.

They crept through the fence and noiselessly surrounded three sides of the house, the dog meanwhile sleeping peacefully, as they were careful not to go near enough to rouse him. Almost as soon as their preparations were completed the light in the northwest room was put out. Dicky wondered what means they would take to open the front door, which according to the custom of the time was no doubt barred as well as locked. He was quickly enlightened, though, for as soon as the preparations were complete Sam Ink backed off about twenty yards, and then, starting on a run, he lowered his head and made straight for the door, and the next minute the crash of splintered wood was heard and Sam’s head had gone through the panel of the door.

It was only the work of a second then to undo the lock and take down the bar, and as the sound of shuffling feet in various parts of the house was heard General Prescott himself opened the door of his room to see what was the matter. He had no time to strike a flint, but one of the Americans, who had a dark lantern, suddenly flashed it on the group and then twenty stalwart arms seized the British officer and dragged him out of the door and made a rush for the path through the woods.

Dicky had watched it all, having crept up on the porch, and seeing in the one flash of the lantern that General Prescott had on only his nightclothes, Dicky darted in the room, grabbed a pile of clothes that lay upon a chair, and flew after the party in the boat.

They had already made much headway, and as it was some minutes before the people in the house had been able to get a light from the slow process of the tinder box or raking over the kitchen fire, the Americans had a good start. They changed their direction soon after entering the ravine, and half an hour’s rapid walking, and carrying the British officer, brought them to their boats.

Dicky had expected to hear a loud protest from General Prescott, but when he had followed the party to their boats he saw the reason of the general’s silence. A long horse pistol had been held to his head every step of the way. General Prescott broke silence for the first time as he was being hustled into the boat.

“I have no breeches on,” he said.

“Here they be,” cried Dicky in an excited but subdued voice, and he threw a bundle of clothes into the boat.

Desperate as their circumstances still were, the Americans could not help laughing at this; the more so when Sam Ink, his head uninjured by being used as a battering ram, said politely:

“Lem me be your vally, suh. I’se used to bein’ great men’s vally, suh.”

“Thank you, my good man,” coolly replied General Prescott as Sam with more haste than elegance hustled the general’s clothes on.

The boats then put out for the other side of the bay, and Dick quickly turned and ran toward home. A general alarm had been given by that time, but everybody supposed that the kidnappers were somewhere in the woods near by, or possibly in some deserted quarter of the town. Soldiers were running about, the drum was beating, skyrockets had been sent up, and the alarm had been conveyed to the guardship in the harbor, which sent a boat ashore to find out the cause of the commotion.

Dicky got on all right until just as he reached his mother’s door in the narrow street where they lived, when he ran full tilt into the arms of a sergeant with a searching party. Remembering that he had to play the part of a small and frightened boy, Dicky, who was not frightened in the least, screwed his face up and broke out into a frightful howl as the sergeant caught him by the collar of his jacket.

“Oh! O-o-o-ooh!” yelled Dicky. “Let me go—let me go! Please, sir, let me go! I know my mother will give me a whipping for bein’ out so late!”

“See here,” cried the sergeant gruffly, “have you seen anything of the gang that has carried off General Prescott?”

The door opened just then and the Widow Stubbs appeared with a candle in her hand.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Oh, it’s you, Dicky. Very well, very well. A pretty time of night it is for you to be out. Just hand him over to me, sir,” said the artful Mrs. Stubbs to the sergeant, “and I’ll promise you he won’t be going around the streets at this disreputable hour of the night for a good while.”

Dicky, at this, who could hardly keep from roaring out laughing, opened his mouth and wailed louder than ever, until the sergeant nearly shook the breath out of him.

“Shut that potato trap of yours,” cried the sergeant, “and listen to me. Have you seen a gang of men carrying an officer off into the woods? for that is what has just happened.”

A bright idea struck Dicky.

“A tall, fine looking man, as I’ve seen going in and out of the Overing House?” he whimpered.

At this Mrs. Stubbs turned pale, thinking Dicky meant to turn traitor; but the sergeant answered him eagerly:—

“Yes, yes.”

“Well, sir,” said Dicky, stammering and hesitating, “I see a crowd o’ men carryin’ somebody off, and they was on horseback—gallopin’ along. The officer was tied to the saddle”—Dicky here remembered about the pistol. “They had a pistol to his head, and they took the main road through Tiverton, sir. The officer was on a white horse, sir. I seen that, though it was so dark.”

It was impossible not to believe this circumstantial account. The sergeant and his men doublequicked it back to the barracks to send mounted scouts out on the Tiverton road. And meanwhile the Americans had rowed with muffled oars across the bay and had landed their prisoner on the opposite shore.

Dicky went into the house, and his mother securely locked and barred the door and put out the light; and when safe in darkness and silence she caught Dicky in her arms and cried:—

“My brave lad! My sensible boy!”

Dicky never felt in all his life so proud and happy before. And at that moment, they heard Jack Bell, marching up and down the streets, and roaring out, at the top of his lungs,—

“Two bells, and Gineral Prescott is tooken!”