them be silent, and so they marched along, uncomfortably aware of the musket and the man behind them.
It was yet so early that the streets were quite empty, for which Mehitable was thankful. Charity, dazed by this new misfortune and still weak from her long fast and exposure, stumbled miserably along and would have fallen more than once but for her sister's quick and affectionate arm.
"Be not down-hearted, dear Cherry!" Mehitable managed to whisper half under her breath; but at sight of the speechless misery in the younger girl's eyes, her own filled with tears. She dashed them away. Not for anything would she allow the British soldier to see them!
And so they came to the "Fields." This was a stretch of land reserved as a common outdoor gathering place for the people of Colonial New York and in the days before the Revolution used as a grazing place for cattle. Immediately prior to the War of 1776, it was there that the Sons of Liberty erected their Liberty Poles as fast as the British authorities destroyed them. It was at the foot of one of these Liberty Poles that Cunningham, who was in charge at the time, received the wounds for which afterward he made every rebel prisoner unfortunate enough to come underneath his jurisdiction pay so dearly. It was to this man, noted for his brutality and cruelty thus early in the war, that the sentry marched his young prisoners now.
Crossing the "Fields" they came within sight of a nearly square, small stone building, three stories high,
