“None—none; not even Richard.”
Mistress Ruffin took him sharply by the arm. “Do you mean to say that a strip of a lad like you had sense enough to get away, and grown men were held? That’s a pretty tale!”
And then with stifled sobs he told of Richard’s sacrifice and his own getting away.
“For an hour I waited there in the grass, hoping for him to come; and when I dared stay no longer I crept to the hillside and hid in a little cave, from which I watched the army in the distance take up its march next day. I started once to go back and die with Richard in prison, but—”
“Talk not so, my son; ’twould have killed me and done Richard no good,” cried his mother, caressing his curly head against her shoulder. “Richard did not want you back—God bless him for a generous lad!”
“No,” sobbed the lad, “he is so noble, so good; and I let him go back, let him sacrifice himself for me, for had I but slept on he would have gotten away.”
All this while Mistress Clevering had not spoken; now she lifted her head, and no mother of Sparta ever looked more proud or more resigned.
“Yes, you were right to come away; he gave you your freedom at the cost of his own, and it would have grieved him had you returned and made the sacrifice useless. ’Tis a beautiful thing to be the mother of a son like that. I am content.” And Martha Strudwick leaned over and kissed her softly.
“And how fared it with you when the British had marched away?” asked his mother of Billy.