Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/31

 Mistress Todd, within her orderly kitchen, wrung her hands, for she well knew what a British raid meant. While there might be no personal danger for any of them, although the colonists did not always find this to be the rule, their stores of grain and their stock would be taken mercilessly from them, without payment, and carried triumphantly back to New York or to Staten Island by the enemy.

"Is he upon his horse yet?" she asked hoarsely, her minister's danger, for the nonce, overshadowing her own affairs. She did not stir from beside her chair.

Sally, outside the door, shaded her eyes and peered eagerly down the road. "Aye," she called back, then, "he is mounted! Ah, the red-coats see him! There, now they hasten their steeds! Ride ye. Parson Chapman!" Sally danced up and down excitedly. "Ride ye! Ah, now he be going up the ridge! Why, what" Her voice broke off sharply.

Mistress Todd, unable to bear the suspense, now came running to the door to stare over Sally's shoulder, for the girl had retreated to the threshold. She saw a troop of British light horse go galloping past her house, raising a swirling cloud of red New Jersey dust as they went. Far up the road, where it ascended over a ridge, she saw her minister's figure outlined against the background of mountain wood-