e to
them. A moment later she herself came down the road. "Are you in
hiding that you do not answer?" she asked. As there was no response
from any of them she glanced from one to the other anxiously.
"Something hath happened," she said. "What is it, Tom?"

But the farmer cowered before her.

"How shall I tell you, Hannah?" he cried piteously. "How shall I tell
you?"

"It is about my son," she said quickly. "Tell me instantly." As Thomas
Ashley continued unable to speak she added with passion: "Don't keep
me waiting. Am I not his mother? Who hath a better right to know if
aught hath befallen him?"

"No one," he answered her. "No one, Hannah. I would rather die than
tell you, yet I must. Hannah! Hannah!" Sobs burst from him that racked
his body. "They hanged him this morning."

A cry of horror broke from Sally and Peggy, but Nurse Johnson stood as
though turned to stone.

"Hanged?" she said. "My boy! What are you saying, Tom Ashley?"

"The truth," he cried with bitter grief. "The truth, God help us,
Hannah. The loyalists took him from prison, and brought him to
Gravelly Point, where they hanged him this morning. 'Twas because of
Edwards, they said. An express brought the news into Freehold. That
boy, that noble, gallant boy hath been hanged like a criminal!"

"But of what was he guilty? What crime did he commit?" Her calm was
terrible to see, and Peggy involuntarily took a step toward her, but
Sally stayed her quickly.

"Of what was he guilty, Hannah? Why, of repelling the invader. Of
trying to stay the ravages of the enemy. He committed the crime of
which Washington, and Jefferson, and Franklin, and John Adams are
guilty: the crime of patriotism."

"But he was a prisoner? A prisoner taken in open warfare. How could
such an one be hanged?"

"By all the code of civilized warfare he could not," broke from the
farmer passionately. "They have done it in defiance of the code. But
there shall be retaliation, Hannah. Eye for eye," he cried lifting his
clenched hands and shaking them fiercely above his head. "Tooth for
tooth, life for life. There shall be retaliation."

A sudden, wild cry burst from her:

"Will that give me back my son? Oh, my boy! My boy!" And she broke
into a passion of weeping.

The farmer motioned the girls away when they would have gone to her.

"Let her weep," he said, controlling his own emotion with difficulty.
"'Tis Nature's way toward helping her to bear it. Come! leave her for
a ti