been hiding in the house), and immediately return and conceal themselves in a large closet in the kitchen. This was so made that the wainscoting showed no break. The moment they were hidden, Mrs. Allerton hung some kitchen utensils over the door. When the officers
The Duel in Boston
arrived and inquired for the objects of their search, Mrs. Allerton told them that Judge Whalley and Gen. Goffe had just been paying her a visit, and had only a few moments ago left by the back door. The lady appeared so innocent of their real object, and seemed so frank in her replies, that the officers readily took the false scent and left the house. This was dangerous business and meant death to the person in whose house the regicides were found, as well as to those known to be interested in harboring or secreting them. That night Mr. Jones took the two fugitives to the old mill, where they had been hidden on a former occasion.
"The officers saw that the sympathies of the people were against them and that further attempt would be useless, so they left town without waiting for the action of the General Court. They went to
New Amsterdam and called on Governor Stuyvesant, who agreed to communicate with them if the regicides came under his jurisdiction. They returned to Boston by water, reported to Governor Endicott, and each received a farm of two hundred and fifty acres for his services in accomplishing nothing."
"But how about Judges' Cave?" asked Fennell. "How came that to be connected with the regicides?"
"That is not quite clear. The legend of the Judges' Cave probably had its rise long after the judges themselves had been gathered to the fathers. I think the diary which Goffe kept during all these years effectually disposes of the cave question. The diary states that they were first conducted to a place called Hatchet Harbor, where they lay two nights, while 'a cave or hole in the side of the hill' was being prepared to receive them. It then goes on to state that they called the hill 'Providence Hill,' and that they 'continued there from the 15th of May until the 11th of June, sometimes in the cave, and in very tempestuous weather in a house near to it.' 'A cave or hole in the side of the hill,' which it took two nights to dig, is not a pile of bowlders on the extreme top of the hill. President Stiles wrote with this extract from Goffe's diary before him, yet, strangely enough, he assumes that the tradition is right and the diary wrong!
In one breath he says Richard Sperry's boys did not know anything about the regicides, being told that the contents of the pail which they carried into the woods were for 'some workmen,' so careful was the discreet Sperry of his dangerous secret. He then goes on to state with amazing simplicity that he knows just where the cave was, because it was pointed out to him by a grandson of Richard Sperry! Assume that Richard did divulge this secret,—of a deed that would have sent him, if known, to the gallows and his property to the crown, — how shall we account for the deliberate entry in Goffe's diary? Dr. Stiles says he 'cannot conceive why this cave should be spoken of as being in the side of the hill' (by Goffe, who knew where it was and lived in it), 'for the cave is high up on the hill, even on the very summit.' He explains this contradiction between a shadowy tradition and documentary evidence of the most reliable character
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