The soldiers pounded with the butts of their muskets, but the panels did not yield.
“Smash a window!”
A bayonet was thrust through a pane, and the glass rattled to the ground; the butt of a musket smashed the sash, and a pair of hands grasped the window-sill. Memory recalled a day when two soldiers assaulted her; from that hour a redcoat had been hateful. She seized one of the pistols. Remembering what Pompey had said, she picked the lighted candle from its socket and thrust it into the weapon. The ruffian was astride the window-sill. There was a flash, a loud report, and he dropped with a thud to the ground.
From the balcony came a flood of boiling water upon the astonished ruffians.
“I’ll give it to ye, b’ilin’ hot!” shouted Phillis. The ruffians saw the muzzle of a gun pointed towards them from the window, and the stalwart form of Pompey as he raised it to take aim. The astonished villains fled, leaving Ruth, Pompey, and Phillis victors in the encounter.
Morning dawned fair and beautiful. The robins and bluebirds were singing in the garden. Ruth heard again the beating of drums, the blast of bugles. General Washington was entering the town. By his side rode Major Robert Walden.
What surprise! A white handkerchief was waving from the balcony of the Newville home. She was there, more beautiful and queenly than ever before! Not an alien, not an exile, but loyal to liberty, to him! He must leap from his saddle and clasp her in his arms! No. He must accompany his great commander in the triumphal entry. That accomplished, then the unspeakable joy.
There came an evening when the Newville home was aglow with lights, and Pompey was bowing low to General and Mrs. Washington, Generals Greene, Putnam, Thomas, to colonels, majors, captains, councilors, the selectmen of the town, Reverend Doctor Cooper, Colonel Henry and Lucy Knox, Captain and Mrs. Brandon, Berinthia, Abraham Duncan, Major Tom Brandon, Rachel Walden; young ladies in the bloom of maidenhood, matronly mothers, fathers resolute of countenance,—all rejoicing that the redcoats were gone.