“Thee saw him, then?” breathed Peggy. “Oh, Friend Fairfax, how good thee is not to betray him.”
“It is your cousin,” he said simply. “It was my duty, but friendship hath a duty too. But of that more anon. The thing to do now is to get him down from there while they are at supper.”
“Sally says he may go home with her,” Peggy told him eagerly. “Will thee help us to manage it, Friend Fairfax?”
“I’ll do what I can,” he promised earnestly. “Is she not talking of going after supper?”
“Yes.”
“Let him get down, then, while they are at table, and come boldly to the front door for her. ’Twould be quite natural for some one to call for her, would it not?”
“Why, ’tis the very thing,” cried Peggy. “Of course her mother would send for her on such a night. Only I like not to send her away before she hath finished her supper. ’Tis monstrously inhospitable.”
“’Twill be easier to get him away then than at any other time,” he declared. “She will mind it not if she really wishes to aid you.”
“She will do anything for me,” said Peggy tremulously. Her heart was very full of love toward these friends for the aid they were rendering. “Friend Fairfax, thee has certainly hit upon the very thing.”
“And his boots,” continued the youth. “He hath on the English top-boots of narrow make. ’Twas by them that he was so easily traced. Of late we of the states have manufactured our own boots, and all citizens wear them save the macaronis. They are not so well finished,” he glanced at his own boots as he spoke with something of regret, “but ’tis that very thing that makes the difference. I have another pair in my portmanteau, Mistress Peggy. I will get them, and you must contrive to have your cousin wear them. He can take his own with him. In this manner the snow will give no trace of his going, for the boots are such as all citizens wear.”