Neither of the girls found much rest during the night, owing to the strangeness of their surroundings and the exciting experiences that had come to them. In addition to this, their wakefulness was increased by the noise of the gale outside. The rain had ceased, but the wind at times attained such violence as to rattle the casements like the jarring of a cannonade. Then its force would lessen, and it would moan about the gables and down the chimneys with a sound as though the patriots already fallen might be lamenting the long-continued siege of Boston. With these deeper tones there would come loud shrieks, like the laughter of fiends, as if the Prince of Darkness and his legions were making merry over the impending downfall of goodly customs, uprooted by slaughter and bloodshed. During the earlier part of the night there was some unusually loud talking outside, seeming to indicate a new excitement. This caused the girls fresh alarm; but the matter was explained by the landlady, when she brought their breakfast in the morning. A redcoat had been caught in the cornfield back of the house, and later on, his horse was found fastened in the woods near by. When brought, as he was at once, before the Commander-in-Chief, the prisoner had denied indignantly the imputation of being a spy. Yet he had refused stubbornly to explain the reason for his being outside his own lines, and so close to the spot where a conference was being held between Washington and his officers. He wore the British uniform, but this was concealed by an ordinary riding-cloak, and on his head was a civilian's hat. "So," said the landlady, after telling the story, "if he be no spy, 't will be a hard matter for him to prove it, with everything lookin' so black. An', oh, mistress, he's as handsome as a picter, an' don't look to be twenty-five. It do seem a mortal pity that he must hang." "Hang!" repeated Dorothy, with horror. "Why must he hang?" "Why, surely ye know, mistress," the woman explained, "in war-times a spy be always hanged." "Is it not dreadful--and will they hang him?" Mary asked with a shudder, staring into the face of the voluble landlady, who was now arranging the dishes upon the table. "So the talk goes 'mongst the men. They had much ado with Farmer Gilbert, who was for takin' the young man an' hangin' him there an' then. But he had to be brought afore General Washington himself. An' now he's locked up in one o' the upper rooms, with Tommy Macklin pacin' up an' down afore the door, like he was measurin' the hall for a new carpet, 'stead o' wearin' out the strip I wove with my own hands, out o' rags." Dorothy, who sat facing Mary, her elbows on the table, and her chin resting in her small palms, now drew the landlady's attention by inquiring if she knew the prisoner's name.