If it had not been for that dead face playing hide-and-seek always among the bushes about him, he could have whistled as he walked. Now and then he sighted houses and cultivated fields, but he kept to the woods; not until he reached the sea on the other side of the island would he venture to show his face at a door. There were wild grapes in the thickets and sweet beach mass to eat; and a little past noon he found a late melon in the weeds of a fence corner, and feasted like a lord.
But half a mile farther on, his pleasure was forgotten in a keen excitement, for from a slight eminence, he saw the plain stretching to the right and left white with the tents of soldiery; and not ten paces from him a sentinel, with his back this way, sat on a fallen tree and read a letter. A few more steps, and he would have been in the hornets’ nest,—a helpless captive. Instantly he dropped upon his knees, and crawled into the brush as stealthily as a creature of the jungle. He had evidently come too far west in his flight, for this was a part of Clinton’s army, quartered here within easy reach of New York. Far away to either side the tents reached, dotting the whole expanse of country. To turn either wing looked like an impossibility; it would take him days to skirt those picket posts to the east; and on the west, he knew from what the fisherman had said that they must reach even to the hamlet whence the boats went daily to New York. To take that route meant a sure and swift destruction, since he would be thrusting himself into the very toils he longed to avoid. His one chance seemed to be a retreat the way he came, and then to beat his way to the northeast along the coast of the Sound, and get over to the Connecticut side on some fishing-boat. He would be weeks—perhaps months—longer in reaching Washington or home, but better that a thousand times than certain capture. He reasoned it all out carefully, lying under the thicket, and then lingered a few minutes to envy the unconscious sentinel his letter, for of course it was from home. How long it had been since he had heard aught of his loved ones—three weary months!
Downcast and disheartened, he returned along his own trail, and in the early twilight heard the boom of the surf ahead of him. But he had missed his way somewhat, and came out of the brush on the side of the inlet across from the fisherman’s hut. He found he would have to walk an extra mile or two to get back to that shelter for the night. He sighed and turned, but just at that moment there flashed upon his sight a light from a window some fifty yards down the inlet, and on the same side with himself.
Stay; this was Dame Grant’s hut, and she went to-morrow to the Jersey shore to visit her kin.
He did not go back around the head of the cove, but turned instead into the field before this other hut, whose friendly light was winking at him through the dusk. His resolution was taken, for good or ill.
Evidently the dame had company, for there was the sound of voices and laughter on the water front of the little house; and Richard stood still with a tingling sense of pleasure,—it had been so long since he had heard people laugh joyously and heartily, that the sound came like the echo of something loved but almost forgotten. Between a hayrick and the fence he finally lay down to wait; and while he waited he slept, for when he awoke the hut was silent, although the light still burned at the window. The chill of autumn was in the air, and he shivered as he crossed the enclosure and stood looking into the lighted room. It was a pleasant scene: the two boys slept upon a wooden bench, but the dame sat by the table, busy with a piece of bright-hued patchwork, and Richard took heart of grace that she smiled as she sewed. From his ragged boot-leg he had taken Colborn’s gold piece, and now he used it to tap lightly on the small, diamond-shaped pane. The dame looked up in surprise to see a hatless man at her window; but he smiled cheerily and beckoned, holding the gold piece against the glass that she might see it. For a moment she looked at him frowningly, then the glitter of the gold won her, and she got up and opened the door.
“What want you at this hour of the night at an honest woman’s house?”
“I want an honest conversation with an honest woman, therefore came I to your door, knowing where to find both. In all true faith and respect I am here; so come, good mother, ask me in. Without your bidding I will not enter, for I would not wilfully intrude upon the privacy of a lady.” He bowed low, clicking his heels as neatly as though he were her partner in a minuet.
“Go along with your fine ways,” she said, but she laughed.
“No ways can be too fine for a lady.” And he took her hand and kissed it with the air of a prince, clicking his heels again in that military salute.