And she went blithely up the stairs, which at the first landing turned rightward to a second landing, and thence rightward again to the upper hall. The darkness was interrupted by a narrow stream of light 102 from a slightly open doorway in the north side of this upper hall. This was the doorway to her own room, and when she crossed the threshold she saw a bright blaze in the fireplace, lights in a candelabrum, cups and saucers on a table, and Molly bringing in a steaming teapot from the next room, which, being northward, was nearer the kitchen stairs. This next room, too, was lighted up. Solid wooden shutters, inside the windows of both chambers, kept the light from being seen without, and the wind from being felt within.
As Elizabeth was looking around her room, smiling affectionately on its many well-remembered and long-neglected objects, there was a sudden distant detonation. Molly looked up inquiringly, but Elizabeth directed her to place the tea things, find fresh candles, if any were left in the house, and help Cuff put them on the chandelier in the lower hall, and then get supper. As Molly left the room, Miss Sally entered it.
“Elizabeth! Oh, child! There’s firing beyond Locust Hill. It’s on the Mile Square road, Mr. Valentine says,—cavalry pistols and rangers’ muskets.”
“Mr. Valentine has a fine ear.”
“He says the rebel light horse must have met the Hessians! There ’tis again!”
“Sit down, aunt, and have a dish of tea. Ah-h! 103 This is comfortable! Delicious! Let them kill one another as they please, beyond Locust Hill; let the wind race up the Hudson and the Albany road as it likes,—we’re snugly housed!”
Williams, who had, from the upper hall, safely overheard Captain Peyton’s intrusion, and had not seen occasion for his own interference, now came in from the next room, which he had been making ready for Miss Sally, and received Elizabeth’s orders concerning the east parlor.
Meanwhile, what of Harry Peyton and his troop?
Riding up the little tree-lined road towards the highway, they saw dark forms of other riders standing at the point of junction. These were the men whom Peyton had directed to patrol the road. They now told him that, by the account of a belated farmer whom they had halted, the Hessians had turned from the highway into the Mile Square road. Peyton immediately led his men to that road. Thus, as old Valentine said, that part of the highway between the manor-house and King’s Bridge remained clear of these rebel dragoons, and Major Colden stood in no danger of meeting them on his return to New York. The major, nevertheless, did not spare his horse as he pursued his lonely way through the windy darkness. When he arrived at King’s Bridge he was glad to give his horse another rest, and to accept an invitation to a bottle and a game in the 104 tavern where the British commanding officer was quartered.
The Hessians had not gone far on the Mile Square road, when their leader called a halt and consulted with his subordinate officer. They were now near Mile Square, where the Tory captain, James De Lancey, kept a recruiting station all the year round, and Valentine’s Hill, where there was a regiment of Highlanders. Their own security was thus assured, but they might do more than come off in safety,—they might strike a parting blow at their pursuers. A plan was quickly formed. A messenger was despatched to Mile Square to request a small reinforcement. The troop then turned back towards the highway, having planned for either one of two possibilities. The first was that the rebel dragoons, not thinking the Hessians had turned into the Mile Square road, would ride on down the highway. In that case, the Hessians would follow them, having become in their turn the pursuers, and would fall upon their rear. The noise of firearms would alarm the Hessian camp by Tippett’s Brook, below, and the rebels would thus be caught between two forces. The second possibility was that the Americans would follow into the Mile Square road. When the sound of their horses soon told that this was the reality, the Hessians promptly prepared to meet it.