"
Seeing a wide field of danger-chances in this haphazarding, I would have
asked more about this trimming gentleman to whom I was to be handed on;
but at that moment there came a thundering at the door, and my anxious
host was fain to hustle me out through the kitchen as he could, catching
up a black boy on the way to be my guide.
"God speed you," he said at parting. "Make your footing good for the
night, if you can, and we'll see what can be done to-morrow. I'll send
your portmanteau around in the morning, if so be Mr. Pettigrew has it."
With that I was out in the night again, turning and doubling after my
guide, who seemed to be greatly afeard lest I should come nigh enough to
cast an evil eye upon him.
'Twas but a little distance we had to go, and I had no word out of my
black rascal till we reached the door-stone of a familiar mansion but
one remove from the corner of the court house green. Here, with a
stuttering "D-d-dis de house, Massa," he fled and left me to enter as I
could.
Since the street was busily astir with redcoat officers and men coming
and going, and any squad of these might be the questioners to doubt my
threadbare courier tale, I lost no time in running up the steps and
hammering a peal with the heavy knocker. Through the side-lights I could
see that the wide entrance hall was for the moment unoccupied; but at
the knocker-lifting I had a flitting glimpse of some one--a little man
all in sober black--coming down the stair.
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