“It's a lie, a wicked lie!” cried the girl, whirling around, and confronting her father, with blazing cheeks and eyes.
She had been in a ferment ever since she had heard the proclamation read that afternoon at meeting, and her father's words had added the last aggravation to the already explosive state of her nerves. Squire Edwards looked dumbfounded, and Mrs. Edwards cried in astonishment:
“Desire, child, what's all this?”
But before the girl could speak, there was an effectual diversion. Jonathan came rushing in from outdoors, crying:
“They're burning the governor!”
“What!” gasped his father.
“They've stuffed some clothes with straw, so's to look like a man, and put that hat of Justice Goodrich they fetched back from Barrington, on top and they're burning it for Governor Bowdoin, on the hill,” cried Jonathan. “See there! You can see it from the window. See the light!”
Sure enough, on the summit of Laurel Hill the light of a big bonfire shone like a beacon.
“It's just where they burned Benedict Arnold's effigy in the war,” continued Jonathan. “There's more'n a hundred men up there. They're awful mad with the governor. There was some powder put in the straw, and when the fire came to't, it blew up, and the people laughed. But Cap'n Hamlin said 'twas a pity to waste the powder. They might need it all before this business was through with. And then they cheered again. He meant there'd be fighting, father.”
In the new excitement there was no thought of resuming the conversation which Jonathan's advent had broken off so opportunely for Desire, and the latter was able without further challenge to escape to her own room. Scarcely had she reached it when there was a sound of fife and drum, and presently a hundred men or more with hemlock in their hats came marching by on their way from Laurel Hill, and Perez Hamlin was riding ahead. They were singing in rude chorus one of the popular songs of the late war, or rather of the stamp act agitation preceding it: