During the evening Nat continued thoughtful. A dozen times he was tempted to speak to Ben regarding his suspicions, but each time he checked himself.
“It is just possible that it was not the same boy,” thought he. “And though I don’t expect to find it so, still I’d better wait; something may turn up that will convince me beyond a doubt, one way or another.”
And so, directly after breakfast on the following day, they saddled their horses to go into town. Molly was in great spirits, champing her bit and pawing at the stones in the yard. Nat’s steed was a tall, raw-boned black with a hard mouth and an uncertain temper; but the young mountaineer was accustomed to such, and got the beast ready, never giving a thought to his evil qualities. A brisk gallop through the sunlit morning brought them to the nearer suburbs; then at an easier pace they entered the city itself.
Philadelphia at that time was the largest and most important city of the colonies. Its population was timid in regards to throwing a challenge into the teeth of the British ministry, and were for a continuance of the petitioning that had been going on for so long. The fierce resentment of the people of Massachusetts excited alarm in the City of Brotherly Love; it, too, desired to be free, but it wanted to go about the work in a more Quaker-like fashion.
However, in spite of this decided feeling of conservatism, the gathering of the first Congress had stirred up considerable spirit in the town, and as the two lads rode through the streets they noted a movement and a pent-up excitement that were unusual.
This was especially the case at the hostelry called the “City Tavern.” Here men crowded the entrances engaged in excited discussion; others sat upon the heavy benches outside the door and talked heatedly upon the great event that was in a few days to befall the colonies. As the boys got down and gave their horses into the care of a stableman, they caught some fragments of one of these debates and stopped to listen.
A red-faced personage with a wart upon his nose and holding a huge knotted stick, which he pounded upon the pavement when he desired to emphasize his remarks, was talking to a mild-looking man whose peaked features gave him a solemn look.
“How,” demanded the red-faced man, “can the protests of the colonies be heard if the people don’t unite their voices as they propose to do in this Congress?”
“But,” replied the peaked man, “the king is short of temper: he may resent such a step.”
The red-faced man grew redder still.