The woman looked at the little shoes, damp with the morning dew, and at the draggled skirts. Then she came out, shut the door behind her, and beckoned Alaine around the corner of the house to the back door, where she pointed to a mat on the step outside the kitchen. Alaine understood. She gave her shoes many rubbings upon the mat and stepped into the kitchen, warm from the wood-fire crackling upon the hearth. After a moment’s gazing at the girl the woman pattered off into the house, and came back with a lady, who looked with curious eyes at the intruder. “Who are you, and where do you come from, my child?” she asked. Alaine in her broken English began to stammer out her story. The eyes of the lady lighted up as the stranger’s accent bespoke her nationality, and she rapidly put her questions in French, and to these Alaine was able to reply clearly. “Poor little one, a refugee and a tool of enemies. Ah, me, how much wickedness there is in this world! Come see my husband; he is French, a Protestant and an émigré, so you may consult together and, companions in misery, may help each other. We are but guests here ourselves, but Annetje, guessing your French birth, brought me to you. She is not so stupid as she looks, that good Annetje.”
Alaine followed her guide to an inner room. Before a window stood a grave-looking man. “Nicholas, I have brought you a compatriot,” said his wife, “and, like a good knight, you must lend your aid to a maiden in distress. This is my husband, Nicholas Bayard,” she said, turning to Alaine, “and you are?”
“Alaine Mercier, of the Huguenot colony at New Rochelle. I was carried away from my home yesterday.” And she told the details.
Her new-found friends listened attentively. “A plot!” cried Nicholas Bayard, striking his hands together. “French spies, without doubt, those men. Ah, that I had the power to drag them from their retreat! These friends of yours, can you imagine why these men are trying to secure them?”
Alaine answered in the negative.
“I can tell you. They have been commissioned as bearers of messages to certain points. They were to have started to-morrow. Doubtless these men desire to get them into their hands, knowing they are refugees, and that a threat to return them to France will cause them to divulge all they know of the affairs of the colonies. They will probably offer to take them into their service as spies, offering them such reward as they think will be of value to them in return for their promise to act in complicity with them. I think that explains it. We fear a descent of the French and Indians, and I feel quite sure these men are acting for the enemy. As for me, I am a friend of the government, but not of Jacob Leisler, consequently, as an office-holder under James II., I am suspected of upholding the papists. Now you understand why I am here in hiding. You say these messages to your friends mentioned this evening as the time to find you. We must, then, return you before then, but, mind you, not a word of whom you have seen here. These friends of yours are all for Leisler, I suppose.”
“Yes, they are Protestant, you know.”
“And am I not Protestant? Is not Van Cortlandt Protestant? Bah! ’tis a poor excuse to gain the encouragement of the people. He is a vile upstart and usurper, that Leisler. To hale us out of town, who are the proper upholders of the government. Yet, I suppose you, mademoiselle, also believe in Leisler.”
Alaine nodded. She was nothing if not truthful.
“Then no friend of mine,” he returned, but he smiled as he spoke. “Poor little dove with the hawks after her,” he said, half to himself; “we must send her under safe escort to her home. Where is Lendert, my wife?”