“I feel sure of it,” declared Gran firmly. “Well, the Bible says the young men shall dream dreams. That’s what that lad who said he rode over twenty dead bodies must ha’ done. Let’s all go over to the church steps and give thanks to God. Dream, joke, or error, I don’t care which it was. It’s over now, and high time we went home.”
The two children were asleep on the seat of the wagon, but Nance carried the shawl-wrapped baby and held it in her arms as they knelt on the church steps of gray old stone. Gran lifted up voluble thanks to the Almighty, and Kitty’s attention wandered. She watched a husky youth who had been hiding in the crotch of a pear tree climb sheepishly down and sidle off, gnawing a piece of salt pork. He had apparently taken provisions to his refuge, in case the British kept him treed for a long time. The sight of the pork made her hungry, and Nance must have seen it, too, and thought of food, but not for herself. The minute Gran rose from her knees, she asked if they could wait while she suckled the baby.
“Why of course,” said Gran heartily. “My, there’s not been one peep out of the little thing. I trust it hasn’t got smothered in all this uproar.”
Nancy sat down on the step, carefully pulled the shawls away, and bent her head while the others stood looking on.
Suddenly she screamed. They peered closer.
“God save our souls alive!” gasped Granny.
Sally Rose giggled. Kitty swallowed and made no sound at all.
In her haste Nance had wrapped up the wrong creature, and now it was the half-grown yellow cat that slept peacefully in the crook of her arm.
Chapter Six
FUN WHILE IT LASTED
The young man sat on the steps of the tavern by Ipswich Green and stared about him; at the old brown roofs with yellow moss growing on their seaward sides, at the little rocky river that flowed like liquid amber under its stone bridge, at the steepled church on the rocky hill. Shadows lay long in the deserted streets of Ipswich, and far to the west the sun was going down.