“Are you able to do this?” she asked presently of Fairfax.
“Yes,” he answered. “Only devise some way for me to leave quickly. Every moment is precious.”
“You are right,” she replied. “Now just a minute.”
She left the room, returning almost immediately with two flowered frocks of osnaburg, and two enormous kerchiefs of the same stuff.
“These are what the mammies wear,” she said arranging one of the kerchiefs about the lad’s head turbanwise. “There, my boy! you will pass for a mammy if not given more than a glance.”
“Thee will make a good woman yet, Friend Fairfax,” remarked Peggy smiling as she noted that the youth moved with some ease in the skirts.
“Yes,” he assented sheepishly.
“Follow me boldly,” spoke the hostess. “We will pass through the yard from the kitchen to the smoke-house. If any of the dragoons call, mind them not. Above all turn not your faces toward them. Go on to the smoke-house, whatever happens. There is a back door through which you can go down the knoll to the ravine. Follow the ravine westward to the grove which lies back of the mill where the horse is. If you keep to the ravine ’twill lead you into the road unobserved by any. Now if everything is understood we will go.”
They followed her silently through the kitchen and out into the yard. The hostess kept up a lively stream of talk during the passage to the smoke-house.
“I reckon we’d better have another ham,” she said in a voice that could be heard at no little distance. “There are so many of those fellows. Aunt Betsy ‘low’d there were more than a hundred, and I reckon she’s right.” There were in truth one hundred and eighty cavalrymen, with seventy mounted infantry. “A few chickens wouldn’t go amiss either. They might as well have them. The next gang would take them anyway.” And so on.