After supper they remained in the inn parlor talking with the two strangers for a time; at length Revere, looking at a massive silver watch that he carried, said:
“It’s coming nine o’clock, lads. Let’s to bed. We’ll needs be up in the morning early to get a good start.”
Willingly enough the three boys arose and began gathering up their belongings. Nat saw the hungry eyes of the two men upon the pigskin saddle-bags, which now hung from Ezra’s arm, and he smiled grimly.
“It’s one thing to want a thing and another thing to get it,” he muttered. “You may get Mr. Adams’ message in the end, my friend, but if you do, you’ll have harder work of it than you think.”
CHAPTER XV
HOW THE PROMISE WAS KEPT
But that Nat Brewster was not the only one who had noticed something odd in the evening’s proceedings was made evident as they all four ascended the wide stairs of the inn. Lowering his voice to a husky whisper, Paul Revere said:
“On the road it’s best, my lads, to pin your confidence upon no one—unless you are sure who he is.”
“Hello,” said Ben Cooper, “what’s brought that out?”
Revere held up his flaring candle, for the landlady had provided each of them with one; the light danced in their faces and up and down upon the walls and ceilings, throwing their distorted, gigantic shadows along the staircase.
“Nothing,” answered the horseman of the Suffolk Convention, “but the caution of an old traveler. I say nothing against any one, mind you; but it is well to be careful. The sweetest spoken person is not always the one most to be trusted.”