She watched him; he looked up.
“You’re right, ma’am. I must have been crazy. Everybody reads about traitors—in school.... Nobody ever forgets their names.... I don’t want my name in school books.”
“Like Benedict Arnold’s,” she said; and he quivered from head to foot.
“Oh, cricky!” he burst out, horrified; “how close I came to it! Have you got those papers safe?”
“Yes, Roy.”
“Then I’ll go. I don’t care what they do to me.”
As he rose with the pole, far away in the woods across the river a cavalry band began to play. Faint and clear the strains of the Star-Spangled Banner rose from among the trees and floated over the water; the boy stood spellbound, mouth open; then, as the far music died away, he sank back into the boat, deathly pale.
“I—I ought to be hung!” he whispered.
The Messenger picked up the fallen pole, set it, and drove the punt out into the river. Behind her, huddled in the stern, the prodigal wept, uncomforted, head buried in his shaking arms; and the kitten, being afraid, left the shelter of the thwarts and crept up on his knees, sitting there and looking out at the unstable world of water in round-eyed apprehension.
As the punt grated on the northern shore the Messenger drove her pole into the mud, upright, and leaned on it.