"Would you like to take a gun yourself, Mary, and help teach them this lesson?" was Hugh's laughing question.
"Yes," she declared resolutely. "And I am sure I could handle it, too."
"You'll never need to do that, sweetheart, so long as I live to carry out your mind," said Jack, who had been wondering why Hugh looked at Dorothy so oddly, and why she was so strangely silent.
When the early evening meal was over that night, the two young men took their way into the town, where a meeting was to be held.
Old Leet rowed them down, they preferring this as being least likely to attract notice; and avoiding the old wharf, they landed on the beach, near the warehouses, thence taking their way cautiously through the fish-flakes that filled the fields, until they reached the streets up in the town. These were deserted, but filled with lurking shadows, being dimly lit by a stray lamp fastened here and there to the buildings.
They walked slowly toward the town hall, while they talked in low tones of Jameson, making no doubt but that his attentions and hospitality to the Britishers would be known and commented upon at the meeting.
When close to the hall a wild clamor broke out from somewhere ahead of them; and they hurried forward to learn what it might mean.
It was a street fight between the redcoats and the townspeople; and although no powder was being used, strong arms and hard fists were doing almost as painful work.
The British frigate "Lively" had dropped anchor in the harbor at sunset, and as soon as darkness came, a press-gang had been sent on shore to capture such sturdy fishermen as might be abroad, and impress them into the service of His Majesty's navy.
Several men had already been taken, and they were resisting most lustily, while such of their friends as chanced to be in the streets were coming to their rescue.