There was evidently news, and Agnes at once judged it unfavorable for the royalists. The military were moving with sullen port; the houses were generally closed, and the people on the streets not inclined to linger or to talk. "We had better ask my father," she said, and they turned aside to Bradley's store to make the inquiry. The saddler was standing at the door talking to Lord Medway; and his eyes flashed an instant's triumphant signal as they caught his daughter's glance of inquiry. But he kept his stolid air, and when he found Lord Medway and Maria so familiarly pleased to meet each other, he introduced Agnes and gave a ready acquiescence to Lord Medway's proposal to walk with the ladies home. Then, Maria, suddenly brilliant with a sense of her power, asked, "What is the matter with the city this afternoon? Every one seems so depressed and ill-humored." "We have lost Stony Point," answered Medway. "There was a midnight attack by twelve hundred picked men. It was an incomparable deed of daring. I would like to have been present. I said to General Clinton when I heard the story, 'Such men are born to rule, and coming from the stock they do, you will never subdue them!'" "Who led the attack?" asked Agnes. "Anthony Wayne, a brave daring man, they tell me. The Frenchman, De Fleury, was first in, and he hauled down our flags. _Dash it!_ If it had been an American, I would not have cared so much. Now, perhaps, Generals Clinton and Tryon will understand the kind of men they have to fight. When Americans fight Englishmen, it is Greek meeting Greek. Clinton tells me the rebels have taken four thousand pounds' worth of ordnance and stores and nearly seven hundred prisoners. Oh, you know a deed like this makes even an enemy proud of the men who could do it!" "Was it a very difficult deed?" asked Maria. "I am told that Stony Point is a rock two hundred feet high, surrounded by the Hudson River on three sides, and almost isolated from the land on the fourth side by a marsh, which at high tide is two feet under water. They reached the fort about midnight, and while one column drew the defenders to the front by a rapid continuous fire, two other columns, armed only with the bayonet, broke into the fort from opposite points. In five minutes the rebels were rushing through every embrasure, and a thousand tongues crying 'Victory'! There is no use belittling such an affair. It was as brave a thing as ever men did, and I wish I had seen the doing of it."