We packed up all our effects, not forgetting our two blankets, and waited the return of the hostess. In about an hour she entered the room. “I have spoken to my husband’s sister, who lives about two miles on the road to Middleburg. She is in town now, for it is market-day, and you will be safe where she hides you. I told her it was by my husband’s request, or she would not have consented. Here, boy, put on these clothes: I will assist you.” Once more I was dressed as a girl, and when my clothes were on, O’Brien burst out into laughter at my blue stockings and short petticoats. “Il n’est pas mal,” observed the hostess, as she fixed a small cap on my head, and then tied a kerchief under my chin, which partly hid my face. O’Brien put on a great coat, which the woman handed to him, with a wide-brimmed hat. “Now follow me!” She led us into the street, which was thronged, till we arrived at the market-place when she met another women, who joined her. At the end of the marketplace stood a small horse and cart, into which the strange woman and I mounted, while O’Brien, by the directions of the landlady, led the horse through the crowd until we arrived at the barriers, when she wished us good day in a loud voice before the guard. The guard took no notice of us, and we passed safely through, and found ourselves upon a neatly-paved road, as straight as an arrow, and lined on each side with high trees and a ditch. In about an hour we stopped near to the farm-house of the woman who was in charge of us. “Do you observe that wood?” said she to O’Brien, pointing to one about half-a-mile from the road. “I dare not take you into the house, my husband is so violent against the English, who captured his schuyt, and made him a poor man, that he would inform against you immediately; but go you there, make yourselves as comfortable as you can to-night, and to-morrow I will send you what you want. Adieu! Je vous plains, pauvre enfant,” said she looking at me as she drove off in the cart towards her own house.
“Peter,” said O’Brien, “I think that her kicking us out of her house is a proof of her sincerity, and therefore I say no more about it; we have the brandy-flask to keep up our spirits. Now then for the wood, though, by the powers, I shall have no relish for any of your pic-nic parties, as they call them, for the next twelve years.”
“But, O’Brien, how can I get over this ditch in petticoats? I could hardly leap it in my clothes.”
“You must tie your petticoats round your waist and make a good run; get over as far as you can, and I will drag you through the rest.”
“But you forget that we are to sleep in the wood, and that it’s no laughing matter to get wet through, freezing so hard as it does now.”
“Very true, Peter; but as the snow lies so deep upon the ditch, perhaps the ice may bear. I’ll try; if it bears me, it will not condescend to bend at your shrimp of carcass.”
O’Brien tried the ice, which was firm, and we both walked over, and making all the haste we could, arrived at the wood, as the woman called it, but which was not more than a clump of trees of about half an acre. We cleared away the snow for about six feet round a very hollow part, and then O’Brien cut stakes and fixed them in the earth, to which we stretched one blanket. The snow being about two feet deep, there was plenty of room to creep underneath the blanket. We then collected all the leaves we could, beating the snow off them, and laid them at the bottom of the hole; over the leaves we spread the other blanket, and taking our bundles in, we then stopped up with snow every side of the upper blanket, except the hole to creep in at. It was quite astonishing what a warm place this became in a short time after we had remained in it. It was almost too warm, although the weather outside was piercingly cold. After a good meal and a dose of brandy, we both fell fast asleep, but not until I had taken off my woman’s attire and resumed my own clothes. We never slept better or more warmly than we did in this hole which we had made on the ground, covered with ice and snow.