“And a place must be found for me,” cried Harriet. “Do you think I can stay here and not know whether my brother is to be killed, or not?”
“We can’t do it, Miss Harriet.” Drayton’s voice was inflexible. “It would upset all arrangements to have a woman present. It cannot be done. Come, Captain Williams.”
Clifford was the calmest among them as he bade them farewell. Harriet was too agitated to do more than wring her hands continually.
“It will be he, I know it will,” she cried as Mr. Owen and John Drayton disappeared from view, Clifford walking between them.
“We must hope for the best, my child,” said Mrs. Owen trying to comfort her. But Harriet could only say over and over:
“I know that it will be Clifford.” She was walking up and down the floor as she uttered the words again and again. Suddenly she paused, and held out her hand to Peggy: “Come!” she said. “I am going to that tavern.”
At a sign from her mother Peggy went to her. Harriet clasped Peggy’s hand tightly in her own, and all through the trying scene that followed never once did she let it go. Without thought that they were still in their morning dresses, and without stopping for hats the girls hastened into the street.
A hush seemed to have fallen upon the town. There were groups of people clustered about everywhere talking in subdued tones of the act of reprisal that was about to follow. Retaliation had been the demand of every patriot since the inhuman and lawless murder of Fairfax Johnson. No American prisoner was safe so long as the act was unrequited. At length Congress had taken measures whereby a victim should expiate the outrage upon the Jersey captain. So the citizens stood on the corners talking to each other almost in whispers of what was going on at the tavern. Peggy and her cousin passed them unheedingly.
In the yard of the inn twenty dragoons stood waiting the result, ready to take the unfortunate victim off to New Jersey for immediate execution. There were many others standing about; some on the piazza, others in the corridors, all awaiting the result of the meeting which was taking place in a room of the tavern.
Once only some one tried to bar their entrance, but Harriet turned such a look upon the man that he slunk away abashed, and they proceeded unmolested. Through the corridor they passed to the stairs. Here they met the wife of the landlord.