On foot, and bag in hand, Mrs. Darrah started on her journey through the almost untrodden snow, stopping at General Howe’s head-quarters, on Market Street near Sixth, to obtain the requisite passport to leave the city.  It was still early in the day when the devoted woman reached the mills.  The British outposts did not extend to this point; those of the Americans were not far beyond.  Leaving her bag at the mill to be filled, Mrs. Darrah, full of her vital mission, pushed on through the wintry air, ready to incur any danger or discomfort if thereby she could convey to the patriot army the important information which she had so opportunely learned.

Fortunately, she had not far to go.  At a short distance out she met Lieutenant-Colonel Craig, who had been sent out by Washington on a scouting expedition in search of information.  She told him her story begged him to hasten to Washington with the momentous tidings and not to reveal her name and hurried back to the mill.  Here she shouldered the bag of flour, and trudged her five miles home, reaching there in as reasonably short a time as could have been expected.

Night came.  The next day passed.  They were a night and day of anxious suspense for Lydia Darrah.  From her window, when night had again fallen, she watched anxiously for movements of the British troops.  Ah! there at length they go, long lines of them, marching steadily through the darkness, but as noiselessly as possible.  It was not advisable to alarm the city.  Patriot scouts might be abroad.

When morning dawned the restless woman was on the watch again.  The roll of a drum came to her ears from a distance.  Soon afterwards troops appeared, weary and discontented warriors, marching back.  They had had their night’s journey in vain.  Instead of finding the Americans off their guard and an easy prey, they had found them wide awake, and ready to give them the hottest kind of a reception.  After manoeuvring about their lines for a vulnerable point, and finding none, the doughty British warriors turned on their track and marched disconsolately homeward, having had their labor for their pains.

The army authorities were all at sea.  How had this information got afoot?  Had it come from the Darrah house?  Possibly, for there the conference had been held.  The adjutant-general hastened to his quarters, summoned the fair Quakeress to his room, and after locking the door against intrusion, turned to her with a stern and doubting face.

“Were any of your family up, Lydia,” he asked, “on the night when I had visitors here?”

“No,” she replied; “they all retired at eight o’clock.”

This was quite true so far as retiring went.  Nothing was said about a subsequent rising.

“It is very strange,” he remarked, musingly.  “You, I know, were asleep, for I knocked at your door three times before you heard me; yet it is certain that we were betrayed.  I am altogether at a loss to conceive who could have given Washington information of our intended attack.  But on arriving near his camp we found him ready, with troops under arms and cannon planted, prepared at all points to receive us.  We have been compelled to turn on our heels, and march back home again, like a parcel of fools.”