The fair eavesdropper had heard enough. Rarely had key-hole listener been so well rewarded. She glided back to her room, and threw herself on her bed. She was none too soon. In a few minutes afterwards steps were heard in the passage and then came a rap upon her door. The fair conspirator was not to be taken unawares; she feigned not to hear. The rap was repeated a second and a third time. Then the shrewd woman affected to awake, answered in a sleepy tone, and, learning that the adjutant-general and his friends were ready to leave, arose and saw them out.
THE OLD STATE HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA.
Lydia Darrah slept no more that night. The secret she had learned banished slumber. What was to be done? This thought filled her mind the night long. Washington must be warned; but how? Should she trust her husband, or some other member of her family? No, they were all leaky vessels; she would trust herself alone. Before morning she had devised a plan of action, and for the first time since learning that eventful news the anxious woman gave her mind a moment's rest.
At early dawn she was astir. Flour was needed for the household. She woke her husband and told him of this, saying that she must make an early journey to Frankford to supply the needed stores. This was a matter of ordinary occurrence in those days, the people of Philadelphia being largely dependent upon the Frankford mills for their flour, and being obliged to go for it themselves. The idea of house-to-house delivery had not yet been born. Mr. Darrah advised that she should take the maid with her, but she declined. The maid could not be spared from her household duties, she said.
It was a cold December morning. The snow of the day before had left several inches of its white covering upon the ground. It was no very pleasant journey which lay before Mrs. Darrah. Frankford was some five miles away, and she was obliged to traverse this distance afoot, and return over the same route with her load of flour. Certainly comfort was not the ruling consideration in those days of our forefathers. A ten-mile walk through the snow for a bag of flour would be an unmentionable hardship to a nineteenth-century housewife.
On foot, and bag in hand, Mrs. Darrah started on her journey through the almost untrodden snow, stopping at General Howe's head-quarters, on Market Street near Sixth, to obtain the requisite passport to leave the city. It was still early in the day when the devoted woman reached the mills. The British outposts did not extend to this point; those of the Americans were not far beyond. Leaving her bag at the mill to be filled, Mrs. Darrah, full of her vital mission, pushed on through the wintry air, ready to incur any danger or discomfort if thereby she could convey to the patriot army the important information which she had so opportunely learned.
Fortunately, she had not far to go. At a short distance out she met Lieutenant-Colonel Craig, who had been sent out by Washington on a scouting expedition in search of information. She told him her story begged him to hasten to Washington with the momentous tidings and not to reveal her name and hurried back to the mill. Here she shouldered the bag of flour, and trudged her five miles home, reaching there in as reasonably short a time as could have been expected.
Night came. The next day passed. They were a night and day of anxious suspense for Lydia Darrah. From her window, when night had again fallen, she watched anxiously for movements of the British troops. Ah! there at length they go, long lines of them, marching steadily through the darkness, but as noiselessly as possible. It was not advisable to alarm the city. Patriot scouts might be abroad.