Both Catherine and her brother pressed Abigail to remain and share their early, farm-style dinner, but neither were surprised or offended when she declined. Though it was only midmorning, Abigail well knew that last night’s rain would have rendered the roads nearly impassable, and the going would be slow. She had no desire to spend a second night from home, and John, she knew, would worry if she weren’t back by the time the town gates were shut and the ferry ceased to run.

Despite their prompt departure, this almost came to pass in any case. The rain had been worse toward the coast, and as she and Thaxter slogged their way toward the main Danvers road the half-frozen morass grew deeper, the horses’ hooves sliding in it and the clerk dismounting half a dozen times to scrape the balls of half-frozen clay from the beasts’ feet. Icy wind blew into their faces as they reached Salem in time for an early dinner, and though the main road was a little better, it was still closing in on evening when the travelers sighted Winnisimmet’s roofs through the trees. “If the ferry’s closed down for the night, I’ll hang myself,” muttered her escort gloomily, as he dismounted once again on the last slope of Chelsea Hill to clear what seemed like monstrous clay boots from his horse’s feet. “There isn’t an inn on this side of the water that I’d spend a night in.” Which wasn’t entirely fair, reflected Abigail—but she could sympathize. Across the bay, she could see Boston’s tall hills, and the dark spread of houses around their feet. Closer, the British cruiser Cumberland moved among the little islands, silent as a dark bird. Allegedly it had been sent to “defend” the town, but everyone knew that like the British regiments on Castle Island, the ship was truly there to put down the kind of insurrection that had shaken the city six years ago, when the King had taken control of colonial officials away from the colonial assemblies and into his own hands, and had eliminated jury trials for anyone even suspected of smuggling: a wide category, in Massachusetts.

No lights twinkled yet in any window, nor in the nearer dwellings of Winnisimmet.

She leaned down to pat the wet, steaming neck of her horse. “Well, I won’t spur these poor fellows to a gallop to make the last ferry,” she said. “Always supposing we could. We—”

Flat and soggy in the wet air, a shot cracked out. A horse burst from the woods nearby, running loose with empty saddle and trailing reins; among the trees themselves, a dim confusion of shouts. Abigail turned in her saddle and glimpsed something red in the brown shadows of the woods, a single British soldier bringing up his musket like a club as half a dozen men closed in on him.