I forced Horry Sims on from behind, still gagging his mouth with my hand, while Pierre, retaining a firm hold on the Tory's coat-collar, dragged him along in the direction I indicated, Saul assisting as well as he could while in such a state of perplexity.
It was little less than a miracle that we could have stood talking there by Master Bemis's shop and then made our way half around it, without coming in contact with some of the red-coats. Even at this day, as I sit here in safety writing down that which we did in the town of York, it seems to me more than marvelous that we were not taken into custody before little Frenchie had time to give words to his suddenly conceived plan.
I set it down to the fact that all those soldiers of the king were busily engaged throwing up entrenchments, for it was known that not many miles away lay General Lafayette with his army, and my Lord Cornwallis must have said to himself that General Washington, finding he had so many of his majesty's troops in much the same as a trap, would push down from the North all the men he could spare. Therefore it came about that every officer was urging the men under his command to the greatest activity, and, fortunately, this shop of Master Bemis's was at a considerable distance from any part of the British works, which explains, at least to myself, why we were not lodged as prisoners in the British garrison.
I believe that from the first moment Pierre began to speak in a tone of command, Horry Sims understood he was in danger, not of a mere flogging, but of something he could not explain to himself, therefore was his fright all the greater.
When little Frenchie, while we were circling around the building, threatened vengeance even to the shedding of blood if he made any outcry, the lad was so terrified that even though he had had fair opportunity I question whether he could have raised his voice sufficiently loud to have been heard a dozen paces away.
He was as limp as any rag in my grasp as we forced him along, and for an instant I feared the cowardly cur would fall helpless from sheer terror of that which he knew not the nature.
Within the time it would take a tongue-tied man to count ten, we had hustled Horry Sims from the southerly corner of Master Bemis's shop around to the rear, where was the shed of which I had told little Frenchie, and again did fortune favor us, for no horses were stabled there, and the rude structure was so nearly filled with rubbish of all kinds that it would have been impossible to have sheltered even a mule beneath the crazy roof.
We entered with our prisoner, Pierre leading the way grasping Horry by the coat-collar, while I brought up the rear with my arm around the Tory's neck so that I might keep a hand clapped over his mouth.
"Shut the door, and, if it be possible, bar it so that no one may come without giving due warning," little Frenchie said to Saul, and my cousin obeyed as meekly as a well whipped cur obeys his master.
There was a crazy affair made of puncheon planks which had served as door, but it hung loosely on its hinges, and I question whether it had been used for many a year; but Saul was by this time so intent on doing whatsoever he might to repair the mischief wrought while his temper had the best of him, that it was as if he had the strength of two men.