"Hark, Peggie, did you hear that? Was it not some one knocking at our door?"
Peggie listened, and the knocking was repeated. She threw open the window, and thrusting her head out, withdrew it after a brief investigation, with the announcement that there was a man in the street, looking up at their lighted window.
"Only one man?" queried Prue. "Can it be Robin?"
"I think not," said Peggie; "it does not seem tall enough—this man is—there is the knocking again—what shall we do?"
"Something has happened to Robin!" cried Prue, hastily throwing a cloak about her. "I must go down and see what is the matter."
"I'll come with you," cried Peggie, impelled partly by curiosity, and partly by the impulse to protect her cousin. They ran down together, and at the door paused to take counsel. It was no uncommon thing in those days for the "Mohawks" to batter thus at quiet citizens' doors and mistreat the person who answered their summons, or even, if a woman, to carry her off, shrieking and struggling.
"Who is there?" Prue demanded through the closed door.
"It is I, Steve Larkyn," a voice replied. "Oh! Mistress Brooke, I beseech you open the door; they have taken my master!"
Prue flung the door open, and there stood Steve, ghastly pale in the broad moonlight.
"They have taken your master? Then what are you doing here, alive and unhurt?" she cried passionately.