“You don’t say!” ejaculated the woman. “Then you must be a prisoner of war?”
“I know not that I would be truly a prisoner of war,” answered Peggy, “for ’twas my father’s cousin who captured me. I will tell thee all about it.”
“You pore child,” exclaimed the woman, who ceased her work as Peggy unfolded her story, and listened with wide-eyed attention. “What a lot you’ve been through! I’m glad that you’re not one of them English.”
“As I said, we air fisher folks, and don’t mingle in politics. We don’t wish harm to nobody, English or any other. Why, even though we air wreckers we always pray for the poor sailors in a storm, but we pray too that if there air any wrecks they will be washed up on Fisherman’s Inlet.”
A ripple of laughter rose to Peggy’s lips, but she checked it instantly. “How can I laugh,” she reproached herself, “when ’tis but a few days since I was on the ship? And the others have all perished, I doubt not.”
“Don’t think about it,” advised the dame. “Laugh if you can. A light heart is the only way to bear trouble. ’Tis a just punishment that they should be drowned.”
“But if Harriet had not made me go first I would not have been here,” said Peggy her voice growing tender at the mention of her cousin. All the old love and admiration for Harriet had returned with that act.
“I wonder,” she added presently, “if ’twould be possible for me to get to Philadelphia from here?”
“Philadelphia! I am afraid not, child. You don’t know the way, and I doubt if ’twould be safe to try it. Get strong first, and mayhap something will turn up that will help you to get there.”
“Yes,” said Peggy. “I must get strong first.”
CHAPTER XXVIII—A TASTE OF PARTISAN WARFARE
“It was too late to check the wasting brand, And Desolation reap’d the famish’d land; The torch was lighted, and the flame was spread, And Carnage smiled upon her daily dead.”
While they were conversing the fisherman himself entered. He was a man of middle age, much bronzed by exposure to weather, but with a kindly gleam in his keen gray eyes. Peggy rose as he entered, and started forward to meet him.
“Thy wife tells me that I owe thee my life, sir,” she said, extending her hand. “I don’t know how to tell thee how much I thank thee.”