“Tick-tock,� went the clock. Each swing of the pendulum marked one second, Brinton’s mother had told him. If he could only make it swing quicker, so that the seconds would fly a little faster!
“Why not try to?� Brinton was on the point of breaking down. He was desperate. He felt that he must do something. He took hold of the pendulum and gave it a little push. It yielded readily to his pressure. None of the soldiers seemed to notice it. He gave it another push. The result was the same. Brinton began to pick up courage, and he pushed the pendulum to and fro, to and fro, to and fro.
He tried to keep it swinging at a perfectly even rate, and apparently he succeeded. At any rate, the soldiers appeared to notice nothing different. Yet Brinton was sure that he was causing the old clock to tick off its seconds at a considerably livelier gait than usual. Half-past four came almost before he knew it, but by five o’clock Brinton began to realize that he was very, very tired. He had been standing two hours already in that cramped, dark, close case, and he had pushed the pendulum first with one hand and then with the other in that narrow space until both felt sore and lame. Yet now that he had once begun, he did not dare leave off, and still it did not seem possible that he could keep it up.
The soldiers had kept very quiet for a long time. Brinton thought that two of them must be napping.
At five o’clock the soldier who was awake aroused the corporal and the other private, whom the corporal sent to relieve the man on guard in the kitchen.
“I must ’ave slept mighty sound,� remarked the corporal. “I’d never believe I’d been asleep an hour, if I didn’t see it hon the clock.�
“No soigns av any wan yit,� reported the man who had been in the kitchen, whom Brinton judged to be an Irishman. “Be’s ye going to wait till six?�
“Yes,� answered the corporal. “But no longer.�
Then they began talking about the British fleet that was cruising in Long Island Sound, and about the ship on which they were temporarily quartered until they could join the main body of the army, and how a neighbor of Brinton’s father’s and mother’s had been down at the store when a ship’s boat had put in for water, and how he had told the officer in charge that Major Hall, Brinton’s father, was expected home for a few hours that day, and what a fine opportunity it would be to make an important capture.
The clock struck half-past five.