Still wheezing from the exertion of a rapid movement, Susan uttered a grunt of disgust, and with lazy-tongs still in hand glanced about for something else to throw. As she turned to look behind her chair she saw, at the far end of the room, leaning against the mantelpiece to which he seemed to cling for support, a young man, scarcely more than a boy, very pale and breathing heavily, and with a queerly mingled look of courage and terror in his eyes.
“Othniel Purdie!� she cried. “What are you doing in my kitchen?�
He only panted, and she stared at him in amazement fast deepening to suspicion.
“Why ain’t you with General Washington?� she demanded. “What are you back here in Norley for? Folks said you’d run away to join the army. Don’t you know there’s a British camp at the other end of the town, and British officers quartered at Parson Hackett’s and Marchant Cole’s? What are you here for?—and looking scared as a hunted rabbit! I never liked you, and I won’t have you hanging around my niece, Tamsey; but I do hope to Providence you’ve not deserted. I couldn’t bear to think any Norley boy would do that. Speak up, can’t you? What are you here for?�
“I haven’t deserted,� the young fellow managed to say, “and I know well enough the place is full of redcoats. They want me, and I’m afraid they’ll get me, and it’s all up if they do.�
“Want you? What for?� She looked at him again, and between her heavy cheeks and the overhanging roll of her eyebrows a gleam of fiery intelligence came into her two little gray-blue eyes, small and hard and wise, like an elephant’s.
“Where’s your uniform? What are you holding to the front of your shirt for? Have you papers there? Despatches? Are you trying to steal through the lines? That’s the same as spying, isn’t it? Good mercy, you’ll be hanged; of course you will!�
He had not needed to answer any of her quick questions in words; she took the answer from his eyes without waiting, and scolded on: “And I suppose you stopped here for a sight of Tamsey, but she’s away and you won’t see her, and glad I am of that. The zanies boys are! You’d better slip away quick and hide till dark; there’s a place in the shed loft where nobody——�
He interrupted her. “I can’t get there. I can’t go any farther. I’ve sprained my ankle and I fainted twice getting here the back way from Royd’s wood-lot, where I dodged them and they lost me. But they haven’t given it up, and I heard them say they’d search every house in the village. But this was the only place I could get away to, and so I came. I can’t go any farther; I’ll faint again if I try. I thought maybe Tamsey’d hide me. I know you don’t like me, Mrs. Thurrell, but I thought you’d let her, when it was life and death—and there are the papers——�
“Give them to me,� said Susan.