He noted four muskets stacked near a window. These belonged to the men who had pinioned Herbert Camp and himself. The men who had brought Peggy into the room each held one.
“But they,” reflected George, “were fired after the peddler, and have not been reloaded. The same is true of the pistol in the belt of the officer.”
Also he noted something which Peggy could not see. This was that the belt which held his arms behind him had begun to slip; he felt that at any moment he desired he could free himself from it.
He found himself thrilling at the thought. His entrance into the “Wheat Sheaf” had put him upon the track of a promising Tory plot, the coming of the soldiers had all but ruined his chances of getting to the bottom of it; but now hope sprang up once more. If he could help Herbert Camp to escape from the colonials, he felt that he’d have even more chance than before to sound the plot, whatever its nature, to the bottom.
Mistress Trout, the man Job, and all the other inn servants had been greatly put about by the events of the last half hour. As the worst seemed over, they had ventured into the public room and stood listening with much attention to what was being said. The landlady at length took courage; at first this found expression in low-voiced but acid comments upon the proceedings; but when the officer turned to his men and gave orders that the prisoners be removed, she broke out:
“It is a disgrace and a shame, sir, that an inn that has been respected for forty years must be invaded this way, and its guests carried off like common thieves.”
The officer favored her with no very friendly look.
“Perhaps if your inn had not been respected for so long, mistress,” said he, “things would be in a better way for us all. As for these,” and he pointed to George and Herbert Camp, “perhaps common thieves would be far less dangerous to the public good.”
“How dare you hint that I would harbor such!” stormed Mistress Trout. “How dare you, sir! Oh, things have come to a pretty pass, indeed, when honest people must submit to insult from a parcel of upstarts!”
“Hard words, landlady!” said the officer sternly. “You had better put them in your pocket, for you are not so trusted as to be greatly in favor. You are known to have given house-room to plotting king’s men these many weeks back; indeed, there’s not been such another nest of rascals in all the country round about—and that’s saying a great deal.”