Read Online Toward the Sea of Freedom by Sarah Lark - Free Book Online

barrel from the table required a balancing act. And the soldiers were already there. Michael prayed they would not spot him immediately in the near darkness, but the two men carried lanterns.
    “There he is!”
    Michael clambered onto the barrel with the courage of the desperate and heaved himself up so he could climb over the wall. A shot rang out. Michael smelled gunpowder smoke, but he did not let up in his efforts.
    Yet—it was too late. One of the soldiers was already beside him and kicked the table and the barrel out from under him. Michael tried to hold onto the ledge of the wall, but the stone was slick from icy rain that had recently fallen. Michael’s fingers slipped, and he fell hard on the ground.
    “Michael Drury?” the soldier asked, pulling him to his feet.
    Michael did not say a word.

    “I don’t know. Aren’t you supposed to be looking after me?” whispered Kathleen. “To, to the wharf. If Michael . . .”
    “If they don’t nab him,” Harry mused pessimistically. “Better find that out first. Before he tells them you’re waiting at the wharf.”
    “He would never betray me!”
    Harry shrugged. As he did, he seemed to come up with an idea. “Listen, lady, follow me. I’ll take you to Daisy’s. You won’t stand out there—well, a bit, the way you look. But it’ll do. Just don’t show her your purse, or you won’t have it anymore.”
    The boy pushed her energetically into a side street, but Kathleen resisted when she heard a loud noise from Barney’s Tavern.
    A pop. A shot.
    “Michael! Michael! I need to go to him,” howled Kathleen.
    Harry held on to her dress with unexpected strength. “No way! I just got you out, and you want to go right back in? Are you mad? They’ll probably hunt me down, too, once you give yourself away.”
    “But I . . .”
    Harry was just as curious as Kathleen was desperate, but he held her out of sight. The two of them peered around the corner at the pub, from where they heard more noise and shouting. And then the door flew open. Two redcoats dragged out a man. He was resisting. Michael was in chains but seemingly unhurt.
    “I told you they’d catch him,” Harry said. Then he took Kathleen’s hand. “Come on, you can’t do any more for him. They won’t hang him right away. Tomorrow you can ask where they took him. But for now, we need to get away.”
    Kathleen could not think anymore. She was frozen with fear and horror over Michael’s fate. What would they do to him? They would not hang him right away? Surely they would not hang anyone for stealing three sacks of grain.
    Harry pulled her through a doorway over which hung a red-painted sign that said “Daisy’s,” nothing more. But it did not take much imagination to picture what went on behind the door.
    Kathleen’s horror grew. “But this is, I can’t . . .”
    “Miss Daisy won’t bite.” The boy soothed her. “Nor the girls, for that matter. Anyway, they don’t steal from the poor, and they always give me candy. So come on.”
    Kathleen entered the dark hallway behind the door, her heart pounding. Harry steered her up a staircase that led to another, narrower corridor along which were several doors. From behind one of the doors came the sound of laughing and chatter. Harry knocked, pushing the door open when no one responded.
    “Miss Daisy? There’s a girl here, from the country. Michael Drury, the whiskey distiller . . . she’s his sweetheart. They just nabbed him, and now she doesn’t know where to go.”
    Kathleen kept her head lowered, but she peered out anxiously from under her shawl. Her gaze fell on a room full of mirrors, gewgaws, and bric-a-brac. It seemed to be a sort of dressing room. Four or five girls, just barely dressed, were—to Kathleen’s horror—in the middle of transforming into colorful birds of paradise with the help of bright red garter belts and ruffled dresses in flashy colors. One girl was lacing her corset; another was looking in a mirror and