Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/274

 The two young travelers were stopped three or four times more and begged to tell of the battle, before they reached home. Sally, looking down into the harrowed, anxious eyes of the women as they demanded news of loved ones, sighed when, at her, they turned and went silently back, children clinging to their skirts, to their doorsteps, resuming their bitter watch, waiting—waiting for the footsteps which might never sound again upon those thresholds. This was the fate of many of those brave Colonial women—the loss of husband or father or brother—for each time the enemy descended upon war-worn New Jersey some patriot paid toll with his life.

At last the girl and boy came within sight of the Williams's farmhouse. Gaunt and forbidding, like the grim old Tory who had built it, its stone front seemed to glower at them suspiciously as they trotted up the road on their horses toward it. Dusk had already descended the slope of the Mountain, beneath the gloom of which the old house stood stark and drear. And somehow the dreariness of that old house seemed to enter into Sally's heart, making her feel outcast, lonely. Somehow, it seemed to say to her, "Why do ye return here? This be not your home—these people not your people!"

Slipping from her horse, as she and Zenas drew rein before the kitchen door, she stood with bright