The girl stole quietly into the toll-house after her lover had ridden
away toward the misty hills. She found her mother still sleeping soundly
in her chair, quite oblivious of surroundings, and little dreaming that
the secret the Squire had urged her to keep so securely had reached a
third pair of ears already in its swift journeyings.
Catching up her sewing again, which she had quickly dropped on the floor
in her eagerness to see the belated rider, Sally began to sew away
industriously to make up for lost time, while her thoughts flew a good
deal faster than her needle.
Her surcharged mind was now happily relieved of a portion of its burden
of fears. There was no longer any danger threatening her sweetheart, so
far as the present intended raid was concerned, and possibly this itself
would fail of fruition.
Soon after ten o'clock the sheriff and a posse of armed men appeared.
"You keep late hours, Miss Sally," he said when she and her mother came
out to receive them. "I expected to find you both asleep."
"Not when we are expecting company," the girl answered with a laugh that
was somewhat forced; "that wouldn't be good manners, you know."
"It's no use to go to bed," insisted Mrs. Brown. "I couldn't sleep a
wink, not if my life depended on it, that I couldn't." Sally smiled
faintly, thinking of the recent long nap her mother had taken, and of
the warning that had been given, quite unknown to the sleeper, thanks to
this period of oblivion.
"I do hope none of you will get hurt!" cried the girl in deep concern.
"It seems dreadful to think that perhaps before morning a very battle
may be fought right around this quiet spot."
"Don't be alarmed," the sheriff insisted. "I look for little trouble or
bloodshed either."
"No more do I," thought the pretty toll-taker, with a secret
satisfaction she admirably concealed.
"I expect to take the rascals so completely by surprise they will have a
chance to make but little resistance," the officer continued
reassuringly, for the girl's apparent fear appealed to him. "Perhaps we
may be able to capture the whole band without loss of a single man."
A feeling almost bordering on resignation had gradually supplanted the
disturbed condition of Mrs. Brown's mind since her daughter's reassuring
confession that the Squire had placed a shelter at their disposal, in
case the raiders deprived them of the one they now had. She began to
feel that the threatened calamity might, after all, take on the
characteristics of a disguised blessing, since it would help to bring to
a climax a state of affairs she had long striven, though unsuccessfully,
to mold to her purpose, and that through the raiders the Squire might
also manage to get him a wife, which, up to the present moment at least
had proven a most elusive quantity.
With the coming of the posse to guard the gate, Mrs. Brown's spirits
took on almost a jubilant turn, for though the raiders might fail in
their present venture, they would ultimately succeed in the destruction
of the New Pike gate, and its doom would probably not be far distant,
in spite of officers or guard, while the price of its downfall would be
the speedy realization of the mother's fondest dreams concerning her
daughter's future.
"We might just as well lay down on the outside of the bed, dressed as we
are," said Mrs. Brown, as she led the way into the house, after the men
had been placed on guard. "It's no use stayin' up, though, of course, I
don't expect to close my eyes the entire night, for nobody can tell what
may take place before mornin'."
"The raiders may not come, after all," ventured Sally, hoping to allay
her mother's evident fears, "though, as you say, it's just as well to
look presentable, in case we should be turned out of the house and home
in the middle of the night." She gave a covert glance in the small
looking glass on the tall dresser as she spoke.
"There's at least one that will not be captured tonight, whether he is a
raider, or whether he isn't, and the Squire may find that his traps are
not as carefully set as he thinks," said the girl to herself as she
blew out the light, and lay down.
The incidents of the past few days came crowding confusedly through her
brain as she lay thinking over the many entanglements that seemed
tightening their meshes closer and closer about her.
As the night grew on apace, a suggestive sound by her side proclaimed
that her mother had fallen asleep, despite all predictions of a watchful
vigil, and as the girl lay and listened to the droning monotone, it
finally lulled her into forgetfulness and slumber.
Darkness and silence hovered over the New Pike gate, and while its
inmates slept on through threatened danger, others were yet awake and
watchful along the opposite side of the road, their alert and crouching
figures hidden in the gloom of the sheltering stone wall as the guard
impatiently awaited the coming of the raiders.