"How long shall we have to stay here?" she asked in a trembling whisper.
"Hast thou forgotten mother's words already? how she bade us stay close in the cellar until the Lord sent His messenger to deliver us?"
"But it is so dark," objected Dorothy; for now that the house was left in peace, the child thought she might peep out and see what mischief had been done, and she said so.
"Nay; nay," replied Bessie in a solemn whisper; "we must obey mother, and wait here for the Lord's messenger."
Her fingers were stiff and cramped, and her arm ached from holding the string so tightly, but she would not let it fall. "We are safe here; mother said they would not come to the cellar, and thee seest she was right. Now we must wait; the Lord will nathless send His messenger soon." And then Bessie relapsed into silence, to listen for the messenger who should come to their rescue.
The day before, their father had been carried off while preaching a few yards from his own house, and at sunrise that morning a party of soldiers had knocked at the door with a warrant to take their mother to gaol also, for she had been preaching and teaching, in spite of the warnings issued to all Quakers and seditious persons against unlawful assemblies.
Before she went away, she bade Bessie take her younger sisters and hide with them in the cellar. And here they, had been crouching in one corner ever since, too frightened to feel hungry, and sick and faint from terror and exhaustion, yet confidently expecting that God would send help to them, though who would be brave enough to come to the rescue of poor Quaker children, Bessie did not know.
Meanwhile, the prisoner, as she was hurried along the streets by the soldiers, was recognised by one and another she knew, so some of the little Society of Friends soon heard that one of their number had been arrested, and several went to the court where the prisoner was first taken, and there contrived to get a word with her, and to these she said, "The children are in the cellar."
It would be sufficient, she knew, for the committee of suffering formed for the relief of distress would help them somehow, and the brave-hearted woman felt she could go to prison cheerfully if her children were taken care of.
An hour later there was a meeting at the house of one who knew the Westlands, to consider the case of the children, and there it was decided that a messenger should fetch them by water from the Tower Stairs, and they would be quartered upon three Friends living near, one of their number undertaking to manage this delicate business.