“We got at the whole affair right well,” continued Drayton. “What we could not understand was the fact that you came on to New York with your cousin. Why did you?”
“I couldn’t help it,” she said. “They brought me by force. I begged to go back, but they wouldn’t let me.” Hereupon she told him the whole story, ending with: “And Cousin William says that he had a score to settle with me—and that was the reason he wanted me to come. John, thee will tell the general that I could not help coming?”
“Yes,” he said, with difficulty restraining his indignation. “Peggy, Harriet would not have been hanged. They might have sent her out of the lines, or even made her a prisoner, but they would not have hanged her. Not but what she would have deserved it just as much as that poor fellow who was hanged agreeable to his sentence, but being a girl would have saved her.”
“But thee said that it went hard with spies, whether they were men, women, or girls even,” objected she. “And General Washington used almost the same words.”
“And so it does,” he replied, “but there are other punishments than hanging. Never mind that now, Peggy. Let us plan to get away. I must take the ox cart back into Jersey this afternoon. I have a pass for one only, but I am to take back salt, coffee and flour. There is an empty sack, and if you will hide within it we may be able to pass you as merchandise. Will you try it, Peggy?”
“I will do anything,” she declared excitedly. “It hath been so long! So long, John, since I have seen mother that I am willing to attempt anything.”
“Wrap up well,” he advised her. “’Tis terrible weather, and be somewhere among the trees as I come past the house. It will be about half-past four, as it grows dark then, and the bags will not be so sharply scrutinized. Once the cart is home we will have to run our chances of getting to Morristown.”
“John,” she cried as a sudden thought came to her, “there is some movement on foot against the general. I did not think to tell thee before. I know not what it is.”
Drayton looked up quickly.
“I wish we knew what it was,” he said. “There have been signs of an action on the part of the British, but we have been unable to obtain an inkling of what it could be. I would like right well to know.”