TELLS HOW THINGS BEGAN TO LOOK BAD FOR EZRA PRENTISS
It was almost afternoon on the following day when Nat Brewster and the
Porcupine reached Germantown once more.
“And now,” said Nat, with a grimace, “what are we going to do with the
horses?”
“We can dismount just above here,” answered the ready Porcupine. “I’ll
lead them down the lane to a field that belongs to Mr. Chew, take down
the bars and drive them in.”
“Excellent,” said Nat. “It couldn’t be better.”
Accordingly they dismounted when they came to the lane; the dwarf took
the bridles and prepared to carry out his plan; but before starting he
turned his head and said:
“I suppose I’ll see you again some time, eh?”
Nat went to him, took him by the shoulders and looked down into his
queer, round face.
“You’re not very big,” said he, “but you’ve got courage and brains. And
I thank you for what you’ve done.”
“Oh, never mind that,” grinned the Porcupine. “I was thanked enough
last night. The hostlers thanked me for telling them about how Master
Royce and his friends were bullying the landlord; and the landlord
thanked me for bringing the hostlers in. And then the gentlemen from
Virginia thanked me for the other thing.” He paused and looked up at
Nat with shrewd inquiry. “And so Mr. Washington won’t want us to tell
any one about the real reason for the Tories being at the inn?”
“No,” replied Nat. “He thinks that it would arouse indignation, and
maybe bring on some sort of an attack by the Congress party. He says it
is best to have nothing of the sort now, for they have not yet given up
hope of bringing all Americans together in their protests to the king.”
When Nat reached the Cooper place he found that his absence had
occasioned considerable alarm. But he led his uncle and Ben quietly
aside and explained the business that took him away. To say that they
were surprised would be putting it mildly.
“It was a clever and a dangerous plan,” said Mr. Cooper, gravely. “It
would seem that men were brought from some point to the north so that
they would not be known in this neighborhood. But,” with a laugh,
“there were by far too many in the secret. It is not safe to tell
anything of importance to such rabid partisans as Stephen Comegies; for
the moment they lose their tempers, the truth comes out.”
“There’s one thing,” said Ben, “that pleases me most of all--of course,
after seeing the members from Virginia safe,” hastily. “And that is
that some one else has seen the good qualities of that little imp, the
Porcupine. I’ve always contended that he was a faithful and an honest
boy; but I could get few to believe me.”
A little later the two lads were alone pacing up and down the lawn
discussing the features of Nat’s adventure. All the time--though
he said nothing of it--one thought filled the mind of the boy from
Wyoming, and that was as to Ben’s friend, Ezra Prentiss. In relating
his experiences he had not mentioned this name, for he had not seen a
way to bring it naturally about.
“I must not hurt Ben by letting him see that I am suspicious,” he
thought. “The suspicions are foolish and absurd, of course. It could
not have been the same person, for while I was talking to one Prentiss
at the lower ferry, Ben was no doubt talking to the other at the City
Tavern.”
“I tell you, it’s all very wonderful here,” said Ben, “and if I’d
thought there was going to be any such work, I’d never have ridden to
the city as I did.”
Nat laughed.
“I saw only three members of the Congress,” said he, “while at the City
Tavern I suppose you saw a great many.”
But Ben grumbled.
“Oh, yes, I saw quite a few,” said he. “But I didn’t see Ezra.”
Nat darted a quick look at his friend.
“You didn’t see him?”
“No. They told me he’d been away all day. And though I waited for him
until quite late in the night, he did not return.”
As he said this Ben chanced to look up and caught the look that flashed
into his cousin’s face.
“What is it?” he asked wonderingly.
“Oh, nothing,” replied Nat, quickly recovering from the shock which
Ben’s news had given him. “I was thinking it rather strange, that’s
all.”
“I suppose he must have had some urgent business,” Ben hastened to say
in defence of his friend. “Though it must have been a private affair,”
he added; “for I made bold to stop Mr. John Adams and make inquiries.
Mr. Adams was much put out about Ezra’s absence, for it seems that he
had gone off without warning. And, apparently, it had not been the
first time. It seems that Ezra had left them much the same way on the
road between Bristol and the city.”
Once more a quick shock ran through Nat, for he distinctly recalled the
words of Dimisdale and Royce. But this time he hid his feelings and
after a little thought asked:
“When will you be riding into town again?”
“Perhaps to-morrow.”
“Then I’ll bear you company,” said Nat, quietly.
Nat spent the greater part of what remained of the day in sleep; when
he awoke, evening was settling down once more; and as he dressed he
thought of the events of the preceding night.
“It was all queer enough and unexpected enough,” thought he. “But there
is no part of it that has the same surprising qualities as the part
played by this boy Prentiss.”
He stood for some time at the window thoughtfully, looking across the
fields and woods toward Cliveden. In his mind he drew up a résumé of
the entire matter where it concerned Ben’s New England friend.
“First Ben tells me that he has such a friend,” thought Nat. “Then
I learn he’s strong for the rights of the colonies and against the
king’s ministers. Third, we find that he’s unexpectedly arrived at
Philadelphia with Samuel and John Adams.” There was a break in the
marshaling of the facts at this point. “All these I hear through Ben,”
proceeded Nat. “But now let me come to the things that I got from other
sources. First, I heard Royce and Dimisdale say that the idea of the
proposed kidnapping had been given them by a youth named Prentiss,
and I was struck by the similarity of the names. However, that was
slight cause for suspicion, for there must be many persons of that
name. Then I hear the same men say that the youth is from New England,
and that he has ridden on ahead of the gentlemen who were coming to
attend the Congress, that he might have them taken. Third, I hear of
the plot against the Virginians, and see the youth himself, though in
the shadow. Then I meet him at the ferry landing in the night; and
afterward the cobbler tells me that he’s engaged a barge which I knew
was to carry the prisoners to some English ship.”
Again and again the lad went over this ground; but the result was
always the same.
“It looks like positive evidence against him,” he thought. “But it all
could be cleared up at one stroke if he had met Ben in the city last
night. His failure to do that, and the fact that he had been gone all
day, seems to clinch the matter, so far as I can see. Also, there is
the circumstance of his mysteriously leaving his employers upon the
road to Philadelphia. It seems to me that no amount of reasoning can
get beyond that.”
After making up his mind to this, Nat Brewster descended to the floor.
He ate his supper in silence. At different times his uncle or Ben
addressed remarks to him, but his answers were brief. Even his aunt
noticed it.
“Are you not well?” she asked, solicitously, of him.
“Oh, yes,” said Nat; “there is nothing wrong with me, aunt, thank you.”
“The dampness of the night air is apt to be bad for growing boys,” said
the good lady, wisely; and her husband laughed.
“If Nat is still growing,” said he, surveying his nephew’s breadth of
shoulder, “I don’t know what he’ll look like by the time he’s done.
We’ll have a giant on our hands, perhaps.”
During the evening Nat continued thoughtful. A dozen times he was
tempted to speak to Ben regarding his suspicions, but each time he
checked himself.
“It is just possible that it was not the same boy,” thought he. “And
though I don’t expect to find it so, still I’d better wait; something
may turn up that will convince me beyond a doubt, one way or another.”
And so, directly after breakfast on the following day, they saddled
their horses to go into town. Molly was in great spirits, champing
her bit and pawing at the stones in the yard. Nat’s steed was a tall,
raw-boned black with a hard mouth and an uncertain temper; but the
young mountaineer was accustomed to such, and got the beast ready,
never giving a thought to his evil qualities. A brisk gallop through
the sunlit morning brought them to the nearer suburbs; then at an
easier pace they entered the city itself.
Philadelphia at that time was the largest and most important city
of the colonies. Its population was timid in regards to throwing a
challenge into the teeth of the British ministry, and were for a
continuance of the petitioning that had been going on for so long. The
fierce resentment of the people of Massachusetts excited alarm in the
City of Brotherly Love; it, too, desired to be free, but it wanted to
go about the work in a more Quaker-like fashion.
However, in spite of this decided feeling of conservatism, the
gathering of the first Congress had stirred up considerable spirit in
the town, and as the two lads rode through the streets they noted a
movement and a pent-up excitement that were unusual.
This was especially the case at the hostelry called the “City Tavern.”
Here men crowded the entrances engaged in excited discussion; others
sat upon the heavy benches outside the door and talked heatedly upon
the great event that was in a few days to befall the colonies. As the
boys got down and gave their horses into the care of a stableman, they
caught some fragments of one of these debates and stopped to listen.
A red-faced personage with a wart upon his nose and holding a huge
knotted stick, which he pounded upon the pavement when he desired to
emphasize his remarks, was talking to a mild-looking man whose peaked
features gave him a solemn look.
“How,” demanded the red-faced man, “can the protests of the colonies be
heard if the people don’t unite their voices as they propose to do in
this Congress?”
“But,” replied the peaked man, “the king is short of temper: he may
resent such a step.”
The red-faced man grew redder still.
“Let him,” said he, heatedly. “And much good it will do him. The people
are aroused; they have stood as much of this kind of thing as they are
going to. It must stop, sir! It must stop!”
“But,” protested the mild-looking man, “suppose it does not stop?”
“In that event, sir, we will carry it further. These colonies wore
not settled for the purpose of bringing gain to British merchants and
revenue to the treasury at London. No, sir! They were settled that the
settlers might be free to conduct their own affairs as they saw best.”
“But the king, the parliament, the ministry----” began the peaked man,
but the other stopped him with a snort.
“The king,” said the red-faced man, “is a stubborn, ignorant old
meddler; the parliament, with the exception of Pitt and a few others,
are a parcel of incompetents, and the ministry might well change places
with the clerks to the advantage of the empire!”
Warming up to his subject, and keeping his stick beating a tattoo upon
the red brick pavement, the speaker went on:
“Look at the governors they send us, sir! What imbeciles! They’ve
tried to take away the charters of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
my own colony of Connecticut. They talk of establishing a peerage in
America with lords and earls and dukes, as grand as you please. Our
officers and men wrested the country from the French, but they are held
in contempt by the British. An English captain outranks an American
colonel. Our workmen are forbidden to make the nails that go into
the shoes of their horses; iron manufacturing is declared a common
nuisance; a hatter in one colony is forbidden to sell his hats in
another, and is permitted to have only two apprentices.”
“It is a difficult thing to bear these restrictions upon the country’s
natural trade,” said the mild-looking man, his long face growing
more solemn. “But if the matter were placed properly before the king,
perhaps he would see things in a different light.”
“He will never see them in any light but the one in which he now sees
them,” declared the red-faced man, positively. “The British tradesmen
have the government under their thumbs; they fear the competition of
America and seek to make it dependent upon them for everything. Did
they not drive Pitt out of office because he was disposed to do us
something like justice?
“Then there were their writs of assistance, as they called them,”
proceeded the speaker, seeing that the peaked man was not disposed to
answer. “Any ruffian in the British service could break into a man’s
house and ransack it from roof to cellar; and we were not supposed to
object. And even this was not enough. They must needs saddle us with
the Stamp Act. No deed of sale or any other legal paper could be made
out unless drawn upon stamped paper that cost anywhere from threepence
to six pounds. Then they clapped the tea tax upon us and sent an army
into Boston because it was resisted.”
“There was a great waste of a very profitable article when they threw
those cargoes of tea into Massachusetts Bay,” said the mild man,
regretfully. “I have often thought that they could have put their
objection into another form.”
“Be that as it may,” and the other smiled grimly, “it’s closed the
port of Boston as tight as wax, ruined its merchants and placed its
population upon the verge of starvation.”
At this point in the discussion the two boys moved away toward the door
of the inn.
“I noticed when I was here the other day that the New Englanders were
the most determined and outspoken in this matter,” said Ben Cooper.
“That’s because the greater part of the oppression has so far fallen
upon them,” replied Nat, wisely. “I think you’ll find that the other
colonies will be in no way backward when the time comes to act.”
Once within the inn, Ben inquired for Ezra Prentiss.
“He’s in the coffee-room, I think,” answered the person asked. “Just
walk in.”
There was quite a crush of men at the coffee-room door; and as the two
friends were slowly making their way through it, a ringing, pleasant
laugh fell upon their ears. Nat started at the sound and caught his
breath. Like a flash, the laugh brought back the experience at the
ferry landing; in every quality and every tone it was similar to that
of the boy who had spoken to him from the darkness.
“Did you hear that?” asked Ben, and his cousin saw that he was smiling.
“That’s Ezra Prentiss as sure as you live!”