“It is well planned,” said Sugden. “I cannot see what is to prevent the entire movement for liberty, as they call it, from falling like a house of cards.”
Ben Cooper had listened to this conversation with blood that was slowly heating to a point where an outbreak of some sort must come. He did not stop to reason as to what was best to do, as Nat Brewster or some others of his friends would have done; but when the impulse came, he threw up the sash, placed his hands upon the window sill and vaulted through. Stalking round the end of the bench he suddenly confronted the two conspirators.
“Perhaps, Master Tobias Hawkins,” said he, “the fall of the cause against which you have worked so very expertly will not come as easily as you think. General Washington is not without friends; and look to yourself that it is not you, instead of he, that will come to grief.”
For a moment the two men were too astounded to speak. The position of the bench upon which they sat, so they had apparently thought, and the low tones which they had used, made it impossible that they be overheard. The window behind them had escaped their attention entirely. But Hawkins recovered himself readily enough and regarded the indignant lad, a sneer upon his face.
“Ah, we meet again,” said he, in a low, savage tone. “It would seem that in the end we must become more or less intimate.”
“Perhaps much more than you will care for,” said Ben Cooper. “Your intentions and your accomplishments will make you none too popular with Congress, the army or the public.”
“And so,” said Tobias Hawkins, slowly, “you would make known what you have heard.”
“At the first opportunity,” said Ben, hotly.
“Perhaps,” said Hawkins, and a disagreeable smile crept across his face, “it would be best for you to raise a hue and cry now. There are many persons of importance in the inn; call them, charge me with what you like!” His head bent toward the boy and one finger waved at him mockingly. “But who, think you, would believe what you have said?”
Ben stared at the man, the truth of what he said coming like a shock.