Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/258

 when she and Zenas had reached the Broad Lane, they perceived a moving body of men marching northward, the red of their uniforms bright as a danger signal. Zenas declared he saw cattle, too, being driven away by the British!

The girl sat down wearily upon the top step of the pump stairs. "Oh, Zenas," she groaned softly, "I be that hungry, methinks I shall fade into thin air, an we do not eat soon!"

Zenas looked hopelessly about him. "I ha' pence i' my pocket; but I do doubt an any shop be open! Stay!" His face brightened with resolve. "I will go to yon house and beg for food!"

"To Master Alling's house?" Sally looked after him. "Aye, they will give ye food!"

Zenas disappeared around the rear of the house. Presently, to Sally's joy, he returned with a loaf of bread beneath his arm, like a young Benjamin Franklin, and carrying a tankard of milk in each hand.

"No one home," he announced gleefully. "So I did help myself!"

"But there comes the owner now!" Sally, who had been gazing idly up the Market Lane, suddenly told him, pointing.

"Nay, he will not care, for this be war," Zenas was beginning, when Sally gave a cry.

"A red-coat! A red-coat!" she shrieked, dancing