Page:Mistress Madcap (1937).pdf/215

 Squire Condit. Indeed, in the van were two figures, the sight of which sent a spasm of fear through Mehitable.

"Squire Briggs and that man Hawtree!" she gasped. She raised her voice in a frantic cry. "John! John! The Tories!"

In hasty answer, John Condit appeared in the woodshed door. "Where is Mother?" he asked.

"Gone to the Briggs's," answered Mehitable. She pointed wildly. "But fly! The Tories have come for ye!"

Mistress Nancy, who had been standing as though frozen, now spoke.

"Cannot he go through the buttery and escape by the rear?" she asked, tremulously.

"Nay!" Mehitable shook her head despairingly. "They will at once surround the house!"

Running forward Mistress Nancy seized John by the arm. "Ye must hide, John! Quick!"

"But," John Condit shook his head stubbornly, "I be no one to run!"

"There is a chance—they might not search the house," she urged desperately. Mehitable, watching the man outside approach warily, added her pleas, so that at last John yielded. Scarcely had he and Mistress Nancy disappeared upstairs and Mehitable seated herself before her spinning wheel and set it to rotating furiously, as though she had been working there for hours, when the door was flung open and fifteen or more dripping men entered. Some came sullenly, some defiantly, but all were determined, like the usual