Milady at Arms/Chapter 2
WHY, he is but a lad!"
Master Todd halted in his anxious pacing up and down the kitchen as his wife uttered these words. "I know," he groaned. "I discovered that as soon as I had given him a look. Sally, here, thought I was going to murder him as he lay in the road; but I vow I was but gazing at the poor lad, horrified."
"Then ye did not mean to shoot him again!" Sally, replacing the flintlock in its rack upon the wall, turned to exclaim joyfully.
"Nay, lass!" Master Todd gazed at her reproachfully. "Hast e'er known me to wantonly destroy aught on earth?"
Sally shook her head. "Nay, sir," she answered faintly. But Master Todd, looking at her narrowly, saw the trembling of her lips.
"Yet ye do not understand how I could shoot him down from you stone wall, be that it?" he asked.
"I—I" Sally, flushing, shook her head and fell silent.
"Well, I will tell ye!" Master Todd made a violent gesture, his usually mild face turning a dull purple in color. "I shot at the red-coats as I would at so many wild beasts. What right ha' they to invade our homes thus?"
"They but wanted water," murmured Sally accusingly.
"Name me no buts, maid!" retorted Master Todd. "They but wanted water this time," he added grimly. "What would they want the next time? Our homes, mayhap, our stock, our grain—the thieves!—that we work so hard to raise. Ruin follows upon the red o' their uniforms, ruin and danger! And so I waited and—shot at the varmints!"
"There, the wound is not so deep, Samuel! And I have it nicely bound. As soon as he recovers from the shock, 'twill not take the lad long to get upon his feet, though his arm, where the bullet clipped it, may be a little sore for a time." Mistress Todd interrupted her husband by getting to her feet and picking up the basin of water from which she had been bathing the boy's arm.
Master Todd strode over to the settle upon which he had placed the young British soldier when he had brought him into the kitchen. As he bent over the injured boy, the latter's eyes flew open. Instant fear leaped into their brown depths, and he shrank away. But Master Todd patted the sinewy hand that lay Hstless upon the red uniform. "Nay, lad, rest easy!" said the farmer cheerily. "When ye feel a little better, we will help ye up into a little room at the head o' you stairs, and there ye can sleep and get well."
"Art going to gi' him Mary's and my room?" Sally drew near to ask eagerly.
"Aye, mayhap!"
Sally clapped her hands softly. "Oh, I be so very glad!" she cried in delight.
"Why, Sally!" Master Todd looked at her quizzically. "Art so eager to do the enemy a favor, then?"
Sally blushed and hung her head. "Why, i' sooth, I had forgotten he was an enemy," she faltered.
Mistress Todd, coming up behind them in time to hear their last words, laughed scornfully. "'Twas ever thus!" she observed dryly. "Let a lass ha' a pretty face or a lad broad shoulders, and everything be forgiven them, e'en treason!"
Her husband looked in uneasy silence from her tired, scowling face to Sally's flushed one, then sighed and went outdoors, as was his custom whenever he sensed something unpleasant in the air. He did not know of the minister's visit earlier in the afternoon, but he guessed that some disagreeable incident other than the red-coats' visit had upset his wife.
Silence lay heavy upon the kitchen at his exit. Mistress Todd, carrying a sleepy-eyed baby up to his trundle bed, then bade Sally, in her harsh manner, to "blaze" the fire and set the table for supper. And for a while only the latter's quick, light steps broke the stillness. Then the English boy spoke.
"Why did ye come to my rescue? I heard ye speaking, though my eyes were closed! Why did ye, hating red-coats as ye do?" he asked curiously, a hand pressed against the aching arm where Mistress Todd had ripped away the red uniform.
Sally, absent-mindedly placing gourds of cool milk upon the supper table, started as though the old grandfather's clock in the corner had spoken.
"Nay, I—I" she began.
"Aye—aye" imitated boy teasingly. "We agree, then," he said laughingly, "that ye do hate red-coats?"
"Why, I—I" Sally bit her lips, brought to an embarrassed standstill beside the supper table, one hand still holding little Mary's bib.
"Why, aye—aye" mocked the boy. His dancing brown eyes looked at her merrily. "So ye said before. But why? After all, 'tis not fair to hate us all alike for wearing the same uniform!"
"But it is!" retorted Sally, with sudden spirit. She tossed Mary's bib upon the table and faced him. "'Tis the odious symbol of your allegiance to a fool—that uniform be!"
"Fool, mistress?" repeated young Lawrence. His tone was puzzled.
"George the Third!" Sally tossed her head daringly. "George the Third and his weak-minded Parliament!"
"Careful, mistress!" The boy half raised himself angrily from the settle, only to utter a little groan and sink back with a pale face. Sally forgot her indignation and ran to stand anxiously beside him. "It hurts!" he said pathetically, in a moment, pointing at his bandaged arm.
"I know!" Sally looked down at him with sympathetic eyes. "Once I ran a great thorn into my foot," she confessed. "'Twas dreadful, the pain was!"
"Did your mother bind it for ye as well as she did my arm?" he asked. "Her fingers be light and dextrous!"
Sally shook her head, the brightness fading from her face. "Mistress Todd be not my mother," she told him, low-voiced.
"Not your mother!" echoed the boy. "Ah, I see!" he smiled. "She is your aunt!"
"Nay." The girl shook her curls. "She is no relative at all, sir. She is my mistress. I have been bound out to her for seven years."
"A bond servant! You!" The boy looked at her in shocked amazement. "How happens that?" he inquired curiously, a moment later. "Ye do not look—look like—a—a"
"Like a bond servant!" finished Sally proudly. "Nor do I always feel like one, sir—though the knowledge oft comes upon me like a whip!" There was a little silence. "I be an orphan; no one knows who were my parents," she went on presently. "The only thing I ever heard was from an old woman, who kept me 'til I was 'most eleven. She said my parents went down wi' a ship off Boston Town way and that her son, a sailor on the ship, did save me and bring me to her, a baby. He then went away again, and she ne'er saw him again—mayhap he was drowned, himself, afterward. Grannie Haggerty ne'er knew, although she may ha' been lying, o' course, for he might ha' been in jail and she ashamed to tell me. The first I remember was a long, long journey from Boston Town to New York, wi' Grannie Haggerty and me waking hungry, and I crying at night in strange stables where we slept i' the hay. Grannie Haggerty was very poor. When she died they took me to a kind lady's house, a Mistress Van Houten; and there her friend. Parson Chapman, visiting from Orange, saw me and took me home wi' him. But his wife was dead, and so he bound me out to the Todds, and here I be!"
"But ha' ye nought to tell your identity?" asked the boy sympathetically.
"Nay, nothing o' value." Sally looked somberly off into space. Her sensitive lips quivered. "Only a little red shoe that old Grannie Haggerty told me was mine, though it may not ha' been, only something the old woman had stolen. She once muttered o' a gold chain around my neck, too, but it must have been sold when I was a baby, for I remember nothing of it. However, no one cares, so what matters it!" ended the girl bitterly. Suddenly she jumped at the sound of Mistress Todd's step upon the stairs.
"Sally!" snapped that lady, entering the kitchen and glancing at the unprepared supper table. "An ye ha' time for loitering, why is not supper ready?"
As Sally, flushed and humiliated, turned away, the young Englishman looked after her in pity.
When supper was over. Master Todd ofi'ered to help the boy up the steep, narrow stairs.
"Nay, sir," the latter smilingly refused his aid. "There be naught the matter wi' my legs, forsooth!"
As though struck by a sudden thought, at that, Master Todd looked at him keenly. "I ha' your promise not to escape an I do not bind ye, sir?" he asked.
The other hesitated. "Aye, sir," he said then, with a smile. "'Twill do my hurt no good to wander about a strange country at night. Aye, I promise—for to-night—well," as he saw Master Todd hesitate, "for three days. Will that do, sir?"
"Aye." Master Todd glanced at him shrewdly.
Lawrence, reading his captor's mind, thought, "By that time, he doth expect to ha' me lodged in some jail!"
Little Mary was placed beside her sleeping brother in the trundle bed, which had been pulled out from beneath her parents' four-poster; and Sally was left alone in the kitchen with a pile of blankets to be placed upon the settle. So slumber enveloped the Todd farmhouse, and all was quiet.
The next morning, Sally was up bright and early and, to her mistress's unexpressed pleasure, she had breakfast almost ready and warming upon the trivet—a small iron platform which, upon short legs, could be shoved near the fire—when that lady came down to the kitchen. All the praise Sally received, however, was an ungracious sniff and the remark, "Humph, I see ye can work an ye wish!"
But somehow, Sally, this morning, could not be cast down. It was too wonderful a day, with the dewy cobwebs sparkling upon the green grass just outside the kitchen door, and the birds singing their matin songs in the old orchard on the slope of the mountain side. Even the dark, gloomy swamp across the country lane, with its underbrush and its threat of snakes and beaver and other marsh life, did not seem quite so menacing as it usually did to the girl. It was as if the remembrance of the young Englishman's merry smile, his kind glance, had given her, somehow, hope. "Cheer-up! Cheer-up!" cried a saucy robin, and "I will!" promised Sally.
After breakfast, she was sent up to the prisoner's room with a porringer of bread and milk. She found him up and dressed and gazing out the open casement. He turned with a smile to greet her: "Good-morrow, Mistress Sally! I was waiting to be summoned to breakfast!"
Sally placed the porringer upon the broad window-sill beside him and pointed to it gayly. "Your breakfast walked up to ye, instead! An ye wish more, ye ha' but to call me. I shall be working in the garden below," she told him smilingly.
The enemy! Yet his nut-brown face, almost as smooth as her own, his friendly brown eyes, even his unruly brown hair tied in its queue cried out to the lonely girl, offering comradeship—temporary, it is true; but quite sincere. How could she do otherwise, then, than return the smile with which he knelt beside her a little later as she weeded and seeded a vegetable bed and offered to help her? She shook her head, saying that the work might injure his arm. By mutual consent, neither referred to the manner in which it had been originally injured, both rather implying that he had fallen from his horse and so had hurt it thus. Only once did they near the dangerous topic of the war, and that was Sally's fault; she tactlessly told of a neighbor's house which had been set on fire and burned by the Hessians a short while before.
"The beasts!" cried Sally, digging her slender fingers into the red earth resentfully. "'Tis so cruel to wantonly destroy homes!"
"Aye," observed the young Englishman. "But scarcely more cruel," he suggested smoothly, "than to shoot down men from behind a stone wall. It be, I think, even a little more honorable way o' conducting warfare than that!"
"Honorable, say ye!" Sally's glance and voice grew sharp. "Speak ye o' honor where Hessians who fight for hire be concerned? Or the English who pay them? What be wrong to defend one's home, e'en from behind a stone wall, when the enemy invade ye? Nay, ye wrong Master Todd—I know ye mean him!—when ye speak thus, sir! He be the kindest and most honorable o' men, when not driven beyond endurance, forsooth!"
"Mayhap ye be right," answered young Lawrence pacifically. He looked at her as she squatted in the sunshine, her swiftly moving fingers sorting out the tiny seeds in their packets of woven grass. Once more the sun, glinting on her hair, caught his eyes. "Holden red!" he muttered, as he had muttered the day before.
"What mean ye?" asked Sally now, curiously.
"Your hair—'tis almost same color and shade as my guardian's hair—Lord Holden! Indeed, his two little daughters have that same hair, also. Mayhap ye be related!" laughed Lawrence.
Sally's fresh laughter rang out also. "Of course we be related!" she mocked. "Hereafter ye will call me Milady, sir! See that ye do not forget!"
"Nay, but really" began the boy.
"Nay, but really not!" retorted Sally roundly, getting up from her cramped knees and looking down at him, honest mirth in her eyes." Lords and ladies are not apt to have homeless orphans floating around the world. And now," she walked around the garden bed to plump herself down upon its opposite side, "tell me about yourself. Are ye a lord, also?"
The boy, seated upon a three-legged stool with his back against an old cherry tree, shook his head. "Nay," he said briefly.
"Ah, why so sad about it?" remarked Sally, glancing up. "Well, Mary lass," she turned to look affectionately into the little face near her own, "what would ye, sweetheart?"
"Moth-er hath thaid I might ha' thom 'trawberries. Thally, an ye will giveth me thom," answered the little girl, rolling her eyes at the stranger.
He laughed and held out his hand; and, to Sally's surprise, the usually shy child walked into his arms. When she returned with a basket of strawberries, they were chatting and laughing like old friends.
"Mary hath told me much o' militia training," he said mischievously, as Sally held out the basket to them. Selecting some of the berries, he looked up at her innocently. "One learns much from children," he finished in a bland voice.
The enemy! Again the words seemed to leap at Sally. Yet such a nice one. She laughed as she went back to her vegetable bed; but Lawrence, noticing that she soon found means to get rid of little Mary, smiled to himself.
"Sally?" he said.
"Aye, sir?"
"Know ye naught o' your last name—truly?"
"Nay—I told ye—naught! Grannie Haggerty's son shipped out on another boat, ye see, so that I ne'er knew him! Or, at least, an he did not ship—I ne'er knew him, anyway."
"'Tis a pity," murmured the boy.
"Sir?" It was the girl's turn to question him.
"Aye, Sally?"
"Know ye naught o' your first name?" She glanced at him across the vegetable bed with dancing eyes.
Young Lawrence planked down the front legs of his stool, upon which he had been teetering, to stare at her, then, perceiving the twinkle in the girl's eyes, he laughed. "Fair enow!" he answered. "Though I ask your pardon, Mistress Sally, an I did seem to cross-examine ye! Mine own name be Gerald Lawrence, mostly called Jerry, at your service!"
"Jerry!" Sally repeated it musingly. "Aye, I like it. It hath a nice, honest sound. One could trust the name o' Jerry, I think."
"Thank ye, Milady!" Young Lawrence got up and made her a courtly bow, then laughed gayly as he selected some more strawberries from the basket at his feet. "Master Todd's farm does not look as barren and lean as the Jersey farmers would have the British believe," he went on idly, resuming his seat, his eyes roving from orchard in magnificent bloom to the fields already green beyond the house.
The enemy! Sally sent him an oblique glance as she bent over her task. Could he be planning to report all that he saw with his alert black eyes, and would that report result in another disastrous raid by the Hessians or the British, with the Todd gatepost marked "R" for the word "rebel"? Her lips tightened as she went on with her work; and Jerry, glancing at the straight shoulders which fairly shouted defiance at him, smiled again to himself. Like most boys, he loved to tease. He did not pursue the subject, however. There was something rather pitiful about those slender shoulders, after all, so alone in the world, yet so eager to assume the burdens of her neighbors, heavy burdens of patriotism and warfare!
It was on the evening of the second day that Jerry, seated at the supper table with the Todds, caught sight of the long, furtive face of Stockton gazing at him through an open window that he chanced to be alone in facing. Jerry's expression did not obviously change; but Stockton at once received the impression that he was to secrete himself somewhere near by until the boy found an opportunity to see him.
It was not long afterward, then, that Stockton, lurking behind a small building used by Mistress Todd as a dairy, heard the young Englishman exclaim loudly as he stepped, unhindered, out of the kitchen door: "I must get a breath o' this fine mountain air before I retire this night!"
Stockton moved forth from his hiding place as Jerry rapidly approached him. The moon had not yet risen, and they were safe from detection. "How now, Lieutenant Lawrence?" demanded Stockton brusquely, In greeting. "From all reports, ye are not seriously wounded. Art not tarrying overly long here, sir? Hast made no attempt at escape?"
"I have gi'en my word o' honor not to escape until after to-morrow, sir," answered Jerry respectfully. "Besides," he added with an amiable smile, "how could I hope to escape without a steed, sir?"
Stockton regarded him fixedly a moment. "Ye are quibbling, sir," he answered sternly. "As for word o' honor to a rebel—nonsense!"
Gerald drew himself up. "An Englishman does not break his parole, whether to rebel or other man!" he returned as sternly.
The darkness hid the black flush on Stockton's face; but it could not conceal the anger in his voice. "You English assume too much credit. Lieutenant Lawrence!" he exclaimed rudely. "Ye are apt to lord it o'er us who were born i' the colonies, I ha' noticed!"
Young Lawrence flushed with embarrassment. Why, this was dreadful! It was like boys' squabbling. "I am better than ye!" "Nay, I am better than ye!"
"In truth, sir, I meant no insult," he was commencing humbly when Stockton cut him short. And suddenly the boy knew that here stood an enemy of his for life!
"Silence, sir!" said Stockton. He glanced around him. "There be a horse hidden for ye i' yonder swamp, on the rise o' land just beyond the group o' birches up the road. Escape this night—the way seems clear—and report to your company!"
Jerry shook his head. "I will try to escape to-morrow night, sir," he responded quietly.
Stockton moved a step nearer. "Ye will escape this night," he hissed into his subordinate's face, "or ye will be brought up for court-martial when ye do return, sir!"
Jerry paled. "Be that as it may, Captain Stockton, I cannot break my word!"
"Break thy word or be broken by court-martial!" answered the other in a level voice of deadly enmity. Turning upon his heel, he vanished into the night.
Sally, who had been sent to the dairy for a pitcher of fresh milk for the Todd baby, did not dare to move until Jerry had walked away also. Then, cramped by her tense position just inside the low window of the dairy, outside of which the two British officers had been talking, she stood up and, taking the pitcher in her hand, hurried to the door. What was her dismay, however, to see two dim figures sauntering toward her from the farmhouse. She had barely time to close the dairy door again very stealthily when Master Todd and a younger neighbor, Uzal Ball, came to a halt in precisely the same place Jerry and Stockton had stood, outside the dairy window. Sally unashamedly crept over closer to listen.
"Ye advise, then, to lodge the boy in jail, Uzal?" Master Todd was evidently continuing a conversation begun a little earlier, "I like not to do so. After all, he is very young, scarcely o'er eighteen, despite his height and breadth o' shoulder. It means a tedious trial and mayhap e'en death. He says that he comes from England. I ha' heard him talking to Sally." ("Oh, ye have!" thought Sally resentfully. "I wonder what else ye did hear?") "But the lad may be clever enow to realize what his sentence might be from the Council o' Safety, or he may have heard o' the orders His Excellency sent out regarding those Tories who ha' been caught trying to induce New Jersey farmers to join the loyalists—Skinner's "Greens" on Staten Island, ye mind, Uzal. An he be o' Tory family, therefore, it be to his interest to admit it not, e'en going so far as to make up imaginary relatives, a certain Lord Somebody or other!" ("Well, thought Sally explosively, "ye did indeed hear all, Master Todd, though I'll wager 'twas your wife told ye—it sounds like her! But I wonder—oh, I do wonder an Jerry did speak the truth about his guardian! He doth truly ha' more the manner o' our New Jersey farmer lads—so nice and—and—simple—than what one would expect from a boy associating wi' lords and ladies!") "Therefore, guessing his fate, I do hesitate to commit him to jail, Uzal. He be such a likable sort o' lad," finished Master Todd slowly.
As though his patience were exhausted, Uzal Ball uttered an exclamation. "Likable!" he repeated the word contemptuously. "An ye remember the color o' his uniform, Master Todd, I see not how ye can speak thus o' the kind o' man who wears that uniform!"
"Then ye think" began the farmer.
Uzal interrupted him almost fiercely. "I think he be an enemy, sir, and that ye ought to start early to-morrow morning wi' him and lodge him in the jail at the Town by the River," he said, striking a horny fist into the other fist.
Sally squinted one eye as she peered around a corner to look at Uzal. He was a fine-appearing man of about thirty, the second son of the Widow Ball, who lived upon the same road as the Todds, above the ridge and farther toward Millburn village. But now his face, despite its good looks, appeared hard and grim to the girl, and she shuddered as she thought of what Jerry's fate might be if Uzal, in his patriotic zeal, had aught to do with it.
"I see ye"—continued Uzal suddenly. Sally gave a terrified jump—"I see ye have made no preparations as yet, Master Todd, for taking the prisoner to the Town by the River." Sally, a few feet from the young man, separated only by a wooden wall, heaved a sigh of relief. "Would ye care for my assistance."
As she waited for Master Todd's answer, Sally's thoughts ran like a mill race. How could she stand silently by and let these two men lead Jerry off to death, perhaps? The enemy, yes! But a friend, too, with ideas of honor, a friend whom one could respect, and poor Sally had not had many friends in her life!
Meanwhile, Mistress Todd's shrill voice had been heard calling again and again from the buttery door. Sally clenched her hands. Would the two men ever be through with their conversation that she might make her escape? Her relief was proportionate when she heard Master Todd speak in a tone of finality.
"I cannot go early the morrow. I ha' my plowin' to do. But to-morrow, at sundown—could ye go, then? Ye could? Well, so be it, Uzal. G'-night to ye!"
Departing footsteps sent Sally peeping at the crack. Only Uzal's tall figure could be seen stalking toward the gate. Sally sighed to herself, then smiled to hear her sigh echoed unconsciously by Master Todd outside. But the next moment she uttered a low cry of terror, for her elbow, coming in contact with the milk pitcher she had placed too near the edge of a shelf, had flung it to the dairy floor. She raised her frightened glance to the window opening; and there, as she had feared, was Master Todd's face.
"That you, Sally?" he demanded hoarsely.
"Aye, sir." Carelessly the girl's voice came back to him from the darkness of the dairy. It was fortunate that the shadows hid her pallor. "Mistress Todd sent me out to get some milk for baby. I dropped the pitcher; but it did not break."
"'Tis well." His tone was quite unsuspicious. "Best run along, though, else the mistress will be fretting."
Mistress Todd did indeed greet her with a flurry of vexed upbraiding. Sally, however, when she was through, turned indifferently away. Her whole mind was now bent upon warning Jerry.
Her opportunity came at bedtime. His face, sleepy and bewildered, appeared at the open window in answer to the handful of gravel the girl had tossed into his room to waken him.
"Away!" said Sally noiselessly. "Escape ye at once, Jerry! They plan to take ye away to-morrow eve at sundown!"
Without waiting for his reply, she turned and stole back to the kitchen door.
Despite her warning and to her secret disappointment, Jerry appeared as usual at the breakfast table. Mistress Todd greeted him cordially, for the lad had won her heart by his affectionate interest in her children. Even Master Todd vouchsafed him a smile, while little Mary ran around the table to climb upon his lap as he sat down. Only Sally, after her first amazed stare to see him still there, paid him no attention. Her cheeks red and her head high, she crouched before the breakfast fire and stirred porridge, until Mistress Todd sharply told her to be done before she spoiled it.
It was a busy Saturday morning which ensued. Sally's duty it was to make the butter, to dip the candles, to sand the floor for the Sabbath, and to clean the brass. Harassed, driven, the girl flew from one task to another, scarcely taking time to eat the dinner of boiled beef and young greens she had helped to prepare. It was about five o'clock that, as Sally knelt with a sharp stick drawing an elaborate pattern in the sand. Mistress Todd, pausing at the foot of the stair, asked carelessly if she had seen little Mary.
"Nay," answered the girl, "I have not seen her recently. Is she not wi' her father, mistress?"
"Mayhap." The mother's tone was calm.
Half an hour passed. Sally finished her task and went out of the house toward the brook that gurgled its way to the valley past the farm. There she bathed her dusty feet and played with a little turtle that went serenely upon its way over the miniature dam she had built in the brook to tease it.
"Hast seen Mary yet?" inquired Mistress Todd, glancing up from her knitting as Sally went through the kitchen. Answering in the negative, the girl passed on up the stairs.
It must have been a vague premonition that made her pause a little later at the head of the stairs before descending to the kitchen. Or perhaps it was the terrible note of alarm in Mistress Todd's voice. Running down hastily, Sally found husband and wife staring at each other with ashen faces.
"Not—wi'—ye, Samuel?" repeated Mistress Todd gaspingly, sinking back upon the settle from which she had started up a moment previous. All her strength seemed to have left her.
"Nay!" Master Todd made a violent gesture of frightened reproach. "Why, Moll, I told ye I had the big south field to plow this day. Didst forget? Ye must have known I would ne'er take little Mary down there wi' me, in this heat and all!"
Sally sprang to the door. "Mary! Mary!" she called desperately.
Mary's father joined in the calling: "Mary! Mary!"
But it brought no response. There came no fat baby form in homespun running to greet them, and at last Master Todd turned back into the kitchen with a groan.
There was a step outside the door a moment or so later, however; but it was Uzal who appeared. "Well, neighbor, art ready?" he was commencing briskly, when something in their faces stopped him. He stared at them inquiringly.
"Go up and see an the lad be i' his room, Sally," bade Master Todd dully. "He must help search for us—the more we have, the better. We are worried about little Mary," he turned to Uzal Ball, as the girl flew to obey him. "She hath not been seen all afternoon. Well, Sally?"
Sally, at the foot of the stairs, made a vague gesture. "His room be empty," she said slowly. "He be gone!"
Uzal Ball brought his hand resoundingly down upon his thigh. "Why, o' course he be gone!" he exclaimed loudly. "The varlet hath doubtless escaped this day to the British lines, either to New York Town or to Staten Island, and taken little Mary wi' him for revenge!"