“No, sir,” she answered.
“There’s no house for miles,” declared the man who had discovered Anne, “and there’s some older person about, you may be sure.”
As he spoke Anne said to herself that she would not let them know how she came there. “If I do perhaps they will kill Mr. Freeman,” thought the frightened child. So when they questioned her she would not answer, and the men now had some reason to believe that Anne had older companions who might indeed be spies upon those who sympathized with the Americans.
“Is it safe to go to Mains’ house?” questioned one of the men, and there was a little talk among them over the matter, but they decided to go on; and, holding Anne fast by the hand, the man who had drawn her out from her hiding-place led the way, and Anne had not been away from the shingled house but an hour or two before she found herself again at the front door.
In response to a low whistle the door opened and the men filed into the room. Bill Mains, holding a candle in his hand, stood in the little passageway and as he saw Anne he nearly let the candle fall, and exclaimed in amazement:
“Where did you find that child? I had her double locked up in the brick room.”
“Are you sure of it?” asked the man who kept so tight a grasp on Anne’s arm that the mark of his fingers showed for several days after.
“Of course I’m sure; locked two of them up there before the thunder-storm, and have their father tied up in the kitchen. Tory spies they are.”
At the sound of the hated words Anne exclaimed: “Indeed we are not Tory spies. We are not either of those things. Mr. Freeman is a patriot, and his son is with Washington. How dare you say we are Tories and treat us so!” and the little girl quite forgot her fear, and, as the hold on her arm loosened, she took a step away from the man and said: “We were going to Boston, and going to stop at Suet to see Captain Sears, and that man,” and she pointed at Bill Mains, “shut us up because Rose and I peeked under a blanket at some guns.”