“Tom Ashley, what are you getting my boy into?”
“Nothing that my own boys have not endured, Hannah. One fell in the great battle on yonder plain near the court-house, and lies now in Freehold burying-ground. The other, Charley, made the same choice as your boy, and is down at Tom’s River helping to defend old Monmouth.”
“But oh——” she began when Fairfax interrupted her:
“It’s all right, mother. It means no more danger than I’d have to encounter with the regular army, or than I have already faced in the militia at home.”
“It may be,” she answered, but her eyes were troubled. “It may be.”
“It waxes late,” exclaimed Mrs. Ashley glancing at Sally whose eyelids were drooping in spite of herself. “These girls, at least, are ready for bed; and to bed they must go.”
And without heeding their protests the good woman hurried them up to a little room under the eaves, nor would she depart until they were tucked warmly in the great feather-bed. Sally’s drowsiness left her as soon as she found herself alone with Peggy.
“Peggy,” she whispered, snuggling close to her friend, “what does thee think of it all?”
“’Tis like the Carolinas and Virginia were,” returned Peggy soberly. “Oh, Sally! is it not awful that men should so hunt and hound each other? The poor people of the states have stood so much that ’tis marvelous that any are left for resistance. Nurse Johnson whispered to me that she should not feel easy until we were back in Philadelphia.”
“Would that we were,” said Sally earnestly. “Peggy!”